December 2020: Set Yourself Free...

Something that tends to get me in trouble this time of year is my expectations.  High expectations can be sneaky. To be honest, I know I can find myself running towards them without even stopping to think about it until I'm completely stressed out or exhausted!  There is something about the holiday season and its rich traditions that is wonderful and overwhelming at the same time. It always starts out innocently enough; for example, "I'd like to bake some favourite cookies." Then it changes, almost imperceptibly to: "I want to make EVERYONE'S favourite cookies, or at least, I have to do one chocolate kind, one nut kind, one rolled cookie, one shortbread, one gingerbread and oh, they need to be Instagram worthy too." The list of requirements gets longer and before you know it, you have a ridiculous amount of baking (shopping/decorating/card writing/volunteering/wrapping/cleaning/cooking, etc) to do and not enough time to do it. On top of this you're not even enjoying any of it anymore!  And just because you are capable of making all those sweet confections, does it mean you really should?

The emotional build up to the holidays can be huge. If we are lucky we can find ourselves remembering many happy times and this is great except that we may tend to forget all the days of work that actually went into making that huge meal and giving all of those perfect presents.  After all, how could we possibly capture all of those wonderful times again in just one simple day? Logically we know this and yet we still think we ought to try... Or alternatively we may focus mainly on the sad times. In either case we can end up feeling disappointed, disengaged and empty. This year with many of our holiday celebrations looking a bit different and our calendars sadly void of any parties, why not take the opportunity to set yourself free from old expectations? Maybe you can meditate on or pray and rethink what is most important to you in the present, today, now in December 2020 and focus on that while giving yourself permission to let the other expectations go.

Wishing you Hope, Peace, Joy and Love this season and into 2021!

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