Going Guiltless

Hello Mermaids! 

That time of year is approaching us - oh yes, the holiday season! The holiday season is like a cornucopia of feelings and emotions for women and mothers especially. It’s exciting and fun, there’s lots of events going on, friends to see, activities to do, parties to attend and plan. And it’s busy. There’s parties in the kids’ classrooms at school, at work, events with extended families, deadlines to meet, crafts to make, gifts to buy. Need I mention the stress that abounds during this time of year? It’s all kinds of merriment and overwhelm all mixed up together. 

As a mother, I find the last couple months of the year to be guilt inducing. And it’s my own fault. Nobody is forcing me to feel guilty. But I want to keep up. I want to keep up with the “room mom” who puts together the Halloween harvest party, the pilgrim/indian feast and the winter celebration all within a 60 day time frame. She makes it look effortless - you know, like she is a walking Pinterest board or something. 

And then there’s the exhaustion of trying to keep up with the Joneses who seem to be taking their family to every possible holiday festivity in the local area - the tree lighting, Candy Cane Lane, the gingerbread house display, the nutcracker, Santa pictures at Nordstrom and the holiday dinner at the fancy-pants restaurant in town. That would be fun if only my kids would act like they like each other for 5 minutes and I could get enough sleep to give me the energy to do all that. I’m tired just thinking about it. And don’t even get me started on how I feel in crowds of people. 

I look around and I’m tempted to compare and compete. I’m tempted to want to try to do it all…the classroom parties, holiday events around town and don’t forget about volunteering at church…tis the season! It’s easy to look around at other people and only see what’s going on on the outside and if it looks good it must be good. And we feel inadequate. 

In our striving for perfection, we beat ourselves down. At this time of year, our need for perfection is more prevalent than any other. We have many deadlines, obligations and other added stressors and in our desire to make the season wonderful for everyone else in our company, we sacrifice ourselves. We don’t get enough sleep. We decide that we can let our gym time go for the next several weeks - because, after all, something’s got to give. We don’t make time to plan our meals and make sure we have nourishing foods with us, so instead we settle for something quick and easy that’s not doing our body much good and only makes us feel worse. Sleep is a luxury we don’t have time for right now and so we keep ourselves going on copious amounts of coffee. We’re stopping at Starbucks at 4pm for a quad grande something-or-other just so we have the energy to make it to bedtime. 

If there is one time of year when it’s important for us to take care of ourselves, this is it! The holiday season is taxing on everyone. When we lower our own expectation of ourselves, we don’t expect it from others either. We can choose to let ourselves off the hook and not do everything. Choose to do the things that truly matter to you and let the other things go. Remind yourself that self-sacrifice is not a gift to anybody - not to your loved ones and most definitely not to yourself! 

That means you’ll need to schedule time for yourself. Maybe that’s an hour in the gym a few days a week, a quiet hour in a coffee shop with a book and [gasp] no technology or small people asking you for stuff, or a pedicure or massage. I hereby grant you permission to schedule some much-needed “you time” guilt-free! Also take a little time each week to make sure you’ve got healthy foods available for yourself. Your nutrition doesn’t have to be perfect, but when we sacrifice nutrients we usually end up feeling crappy. And sleep - please ladies, get some sleep. Go to bed earlier - you can fold that last load of laundry tomorrow, the dishes in the sink can wait. Your self care is priority here! 

Think of how you want to feel come January 1st. Do you want to feel like your tank is empty? Or do you want to feel like the season nourished your soul, your spirit and your relationships? Do you want to have memories of quiet conversations and moments that matter? Or do you want to remember being so busy and stressed out that you are unable to recall any of the details? 

The beauty of this season is that it can be whatever we choose to design it to be.