MORE JOY, LESS STRESS FOR THE HOLIDAY
Tips from the Feng Shui Diva:
The holidays are a lot of fun but they also bring a lot of stress. Everything we have to do for the holidays is piled on top of everything we normally have to do. Here are some suggestions for the home to lift your spirits and things to do to reduce your stress level during the most wonderful and stressful time of the year.
Tap into your happy childhood. Go through your old photos when you were a carefree kid excited about the holidays. Use a color copier to enlarge them to 8×10, 11×14 or 16×20 mini posters for decorations. You can put them in inexpensive plastic box frames or clip frames. If you have old holiday pictures of friends and family who will be coming to visit you, make some fun mini posters of them too. Think of how good that will make them feel to see themselves in your home.
Watch the clutter. Obstacles in the home can create obstacles in your life, so don’t create obstacles with your decorations. If you have to step over it, duck under it, or squeeze by, its going to add more stress to your holiday too. Too much clutter makes the natural energy flow in your home slow down and get stuck, which makes us feel stuck or depressed. A good cleaning and clutter clearing before you add decorations is a good idea.
Chuck the negative stuff. Everything inside your home has a memory or meaning attached to it. When you look at an item it will either give you a positive emotional response, a neutral response or negative response. The more negatives you have around the home, the more negative the energy in the home. Getting rid of all the negatives and surrounding yourself with positives raises the energy in the home and helps keep your energy positive and upbeat. Keep that in mind while you are decorating and don’t put up any decorations that make you have any negative feelings.
Angry? The more stressed we are, the easier it is to become angry. However, it is physiologically impossible to be angry when your muscles are relaxed. Anger cannot exist without muscle tension. If the holidays start getting to you, take an adult “time out” and go limp like a rag doll. Relax your body without tensing one single muscle. Not a clenched jaw, or your baby toe.
Keep your mood more positive during the holidays by getting a good night’s dark. Melatonin is the hormone that controls our mood and our sleep. It is produced by the pineal gland at night in the dark. Light makes the body think its daytime. To keep your body making the right amount of melatonin to keep your mood more positive and help you get enough sleep, make sure you are sleeping in the dark. Don’t sleep with the light on, or TV or with a streetlight coming through your bedroom window. Or your holiday light display.
Removing negatives and adding positives around the home to lift your spirits will help create more joy and less stress this holiday season.