Friendship with oneself is all-important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.
Eleanor Roosevelt
I love Decembers.
How the weather subtly shifts to more consistent days of steady sunshine.
The relaxedness that everyone notices slowly engulfing the workplace as the working year wraps up it’s final week.
A sense of reflection on the year that has been – a year that most probably didn’t foresee coming.
However, Decembers can equally be a time of significant stress, even borderline chaos.
Cramming deadlines and a typical months-worth of work, into 3 weeks…
Rushing to the shops to get those last-minute gifts for loved ones…
Christmas breakups with your work, your partners’ work, your kids’ end-of-school celebrations, sporting breakups…
Overcommitting and ending up with every weekend of November and December being fully booked with catch-ups before the year ends…
Having to host your family at your house for Christmas lunch or dinner, in anticipation of the collective ‘sigh’ when everyone leaves.
In this time of potential craziness, I invite you to slow down and be kind to yourself.
Ensure your nervous system is in tune with a check-up before the festivities kick into action.
Exercise some self-restraint when it comes to booking every weekend with an event.
Relax and enjoy some shared food and drinks with your loved ones.
Show some friendliness toward your body – try supply it with some digestive rest it needs between servings of Christmas-lunch-dessert and Christmas-dinner-dessert.
Keep up some healthy movement.
Take some time away from everyone for some quiet time with a good read.
The last couple of years have tested the resilience and resolve in all of us.
Maybe for now (and forever more) prioritize one of the most health-beneficial practices I know of:
Be kind to yourself.
Mick
