Why this year might be the simplest and best holiday season you’ve had in a long time
Why this year might be the simplest and best holiday season you’ve had in a long time.
This year you’ve had plenty of time to check in with yourself. Check in with your thoughts, your future, your past. Becoming introspective is something I bet you never really took time for.
If you found yourself always angry, depressed, irritated with your family, yourself, your job, and everything around you, then you’re completely missing the real opportunity.
Everyone is in the same boat this year. Everyone has had the same thoughts and reactions. Finding the real YOU inside that busy brain of yours isn’t easy in normal times, much less these erratic, unprecedented times. However, THIS is the BEST time to do just that. Look inside, find your reasons for why you are who you are, and why you do the things you do.
Have you been living the way you always wanted, following your passions? Do you have the drive to go further? Where did the love of living in the moment go? How did you get so busy that you let each day slip past and now you have all this time to discover more about yourself, or even find who you used to be, what made you love the things you love? Do you actually KNOW your partner, your kids as people? What do THEY like, does it surprise you that they can actually have their own ideas and passions?
We can’t waste this year complaining and wishing it away. There are things we absolutely have to do so we can be better, slow down, appreciate people and things, stop running around and actually stay home.
Oh I know we’ve all done our share of wishing things would have never turned out this way, but that’s something you and I had and have no control over. We can only focus on what we DO have control over. And that’s how we react, how we decide to use this time given us, and make some personal changes.
If you’ve been feeling sorry for yourself, if you’ve been feeling lost, sad, nervous, even like your head is spinning out of control, just stop for 2 minutes and breathe. Imagine what your life would have been like if you had done this all along…even before 2020. Would you appreciate your family and friends more? Would you be doing the job you’re in just to have an income? Maybe that sounds strange…but maybe, just maybe, you have taken this year to imagine your life differently, how and where you always wanted to be.
I was the sickest I’d ever been over Valentine’s weekend, and spent that Saturday in the hospital, (I can’t even remember the last time I was a patient in a hospital…maybe at 4 years old when I had my tonsils out) and the following few days sleeping almost constantly. The biggest issue on my mind was getting back into my classes since I had all those wonderful people depending on me. We also had a band gig at our favorite place the very next weekend that I couldn’t cancel.
I didn’t find out until later that COVID has been here longer than we knew about. Many of my fellow fitness instructors and a few friends had been getting very sick too. All of our illnesses were chalked up to Influenza A, Pneumonia, and whatever other illnesses the healthcare pros could think of because there was no such thing as a COVID test in January and February.
I didn’t realize that I could feel anything but anxious and nervousness, to get back to what I was doing every day so I didn’t let anyone down.
When we went into quarantine in March, I felt a kind of relief. I was actually, since I don’t know how long, able to rest my body and open my brain. I was able to focus more on helping people online, writing more blogs, becoming more creative (which I used to always find time for) and appreciating my own surroundings. I stopped rushing around, always leaving later than I planned to go teach my classes, to make appointments on time, rushing through the city traffic and feeling overwhelmed almost all the time.
This feeling of peace and serenity seemed almost unreal, but I remembered that I’d felt it before…in the past. The last time I felt this way was when I traveled full-time and played music for a living. This time it was even better because I have more knowledge, more wisdom and it was just me letting my brain lead me to what I needed. The effects of this ever evolving virus took until mid-September to feel the strange waves of exhaustion finally subsiding. I still have a little dry cough at night. It’s been 9 months.
So the corner turns this year to spending Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays at home with no travel to relatives’ and friends’ homes, no restaurants, movie theatres or other places.
SO, I have come up with some holiday travel destinations that we can all enjoy this year:
The sofa
The back deck
The front porch
The kitchen to cook up something exotic
The bedroom (nap time or….)
The living room dance floor
Camping in the woods or even in the back yard
A virtual tour of museums on your computer
And you can still do all the fun things you usually do, you’ll just have more time to enjoy them.
Drive around and see the lights.
In my next blog I have holiday ideas for you, your family, friends and neighbors to all do together – well, together apart.
Breathe - that’s the real trick.
