Permission granted: 5 ways to find rest this holiday

Does the thought of hanging Christmas lights and attending holiday work parties make you want to grab your sleeping bag and run for the nearest cave? 2013 has been intense for many of us.  We felt overscheduled, overworked and we rarely got the chance to unplug.  We navigated big career and life transitions—and had little time to integrate these changes.  Frankly, we’re exhausted. We’re ready for rest. Not a relaxed evening by the fire, but a serious stretch of lazy days, long naps, walks in the woods, deep nourishing slumber and joyful, easy, simple connections with friends and family who feed us emotionally and spiritually.  What we most need in the coming weeks is not the latest iPad or one last trip to the mall, but permission to rest, relax, unplug and do nothing.

But with the holidays and all the activity and invitations that come with this season knocking on our door—what’s a person to do?  I challenge you to take the road less traveled and take a radical stand for what you most need this year.  Consider the following five ideas:

• Schedule downtime now. Block out periods on your calendar during the holiday season for “dedicated relaxation,” where your only job is to rest. Schedule half-days, full days, weekends or an entire week if you can swing it. Maybe you’ll feel like a nature hike when your period for renewal rolls around or maybe you’re better served by staying in your pajamas, turning off your smart phone, sipping on hot tea and watching the leaves fall from the trees. Make down time a priority and schedule this now so you can honor your commitment to deep to-the-bones self-renewal.

• Just say no.  Decide what’s most important to you and let everything else go. If it’s not an “absolute yes,” then it’s a no.  Don’t want to miss Aunt Tracy’s special Christmas Eve dinner but feel exhausted at the thought of attending your neighbor’s cookie exchange?  Just say no and let it go. You’ll be glad you did. The opportunity will come back around next year. Our quality of life is always enhanced when we let go of things-not when we add them. Check out my popular 9 Ways to Say No list from my award-winning book, The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal: How to Reclaim, Rejuvenate and Re-Balance Your Life.

•  Ask for help. Give yourself permission to ask for and receive help whether it’s cooking, gift giving, socializing or hosting family. Do it different. Be willing to let go of tradition for the sake of enhanced emotional well-being. Step out of your comfort zone, reach out to friends, neighbors and coworkers and ask for their help during the holidays so you can create more space for yourself and your family to just “be.” What are three things on your plate right now that you could delegate, outsource or ask for help around?

• Do less to experience more.  Positive psychology researchers say we’re happiest when we keep things simple and have fewer choices.  We create stress when we try and cram too much into our schedules and then try to control everything we’re juggling. My friend author Joan Borysenko says, “Your to-list is immortal; it will live on long after you’re dead.” How can you simplify your plans (do you really need to go chop down your own Christmas tree, make your mom’s famous stained glass cookies and host your husband’s department dinner)?  Popcorn, hot cider and an evening of great conversation is hard to beat. Do less, so you can experience more.

• Unplug and spend time in nature.  My friend Richard Louv author of the Nature Principle says, “Time spent in nature is the most cost-effective and powerful way to counteract the burnout and sort of depression that we feel when we sit in front of a computer all day.” I call nature the ultimate antidepressant and re-set button. If anyone in my family is exhausted or out of sorts, off to the greenbelt we go. In fact, this holiday we’re completely unplugging and heading to the Davis Mountains in West Texas for a week to enjoy some of the darkest night skies in the U.S. Being in nature offers us nourishment and renewal on all levels-physical, emotional, spiritual and mental. It is a powerful, restorative and healing force. Use it!

There is an innate push and pull that many of us feel during the winter season.  As the winter solstice approaches–the longest night of the year–our natural rhythms are calling us to slow down, reflect, go inward and contemplate where we’ve been and where we want to go. (Think of our friends the bears, they’ve got it right!)  Counter this with the world around us that is swirling madly with activity and constantly telling us to do, eat, buy and be more.  It can feel quite confusing—and exhausting! And totally unsustainable.

I challenge you: do it differently this season. Pause and enter the holiday season mindfully and with a clear intention. If the call to making rest and renewal a priority resonates with you this holiday, make this #1 for yourself and for your family. Then, you can bound—instead of crawl–into 2014 fully present, refreshed and ready for the New Year.

P.S.Interested in learning to go with the flow and end struggling in the New Year? I’m very excited to be launching New Way of Being: Learning to Go with the Flow –a powerful new four week life balance telecourse for men/women at all life stages on Thursday evenings in January 2014. Learn more here and register now for the early bird price of $99.  Also, check out my just released upcoming self-renewal retreat schedule. 

Subscribe here to Live Inside Out, a weekly blog written by life balance teacher/speaker, author Renée Peterson Trudeau. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Good Housekeeping and more. Thousands of women in ten countries are becoming RTA-Certified Facilitators and leading/joining self-renewal groups based on her award-winning curriculum. Her newest release is Nurturing the Soul of Your Family. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and 11 year-old son. More on her background here.