My contribution to our Pamper and Sparkle event? Helping you stay sane and reminding you of the need to remember that giving to yourself is even more important as we launch in to the season of giving so much of ourselves to others.
Last year I wrote about the run up to Christmas with its tradition of peace, goodwill and selfless contribution to others and the high expectations we have for it all to be perfect. I talked about ways we can actually make peace with what true contribution and connection means and how to maintain our sense of giving and well-being during the festive period and beyond.
We all get trapped into wanting and expecting Christmas to be perfect but my reality is that while I’m sitting on my sofa wrapping presents, my dog snoring softly at myside while watching ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ (my personal favourite Christmas film), glass of mulled wine in hand, I’m feeling anything but. It’s not that I don’t like buying and giving, I do. I just feel so overwhelmed by all the expectations, not so much from others but the ones I place on myself.
And then there comes the loop of negative and repetitive thoughts. They actually come up all through the year but especially more at Christmas. You know the one, the loop of no matter what I do the voice in my head is saying;
‘You’re not thinking, feeling or doing enough. You never get it right which is why you feel so disconnected, you don’t deserve to feel any different.’ Or variations thereof.
As I said last year, thinking of little ways throughout the year to give to others and make them feel valued and special in the moment you feel inspired to really do help in creating much more of that sense of connection and contribution and therefore value. Yet this is not always easy to achieve when we get stuck in repetitive thoughts and feelings that counteract this.
So, in my workshop on 11th November, I am going to tackle this! The first part of the workshop will look at who we feel we really are when we are being our ‘true self’ and the different ways we connect to ourselves and others. We will explore how this creates feelings of well-being and how we can add in more of this to help us through the festive season and beyond.
Next we will look at our modes of being and the different roles we play in our lives. I’m not just talking about our relationship roles such as father, mother, wife, husband, daughter, friend or worker, rather the modes of being we encompass while in these roles. For example, being the organiser, the nurturer, the caretaker, the leader, the joker, the creator. The list truly is endless.
Questions we will explore include:
Do we feel more or less connected to ourselves and others while in this mode?
What might we want to be different and how can we achieve that?
How can we create ways to remember modes we used to enjoy when we were younger or before we were perhaps told that wasn’t the ‘right’ way to be?
Are there ways we might positively bring some of that mode back in to our day to day life in some or all areas?
Next we will tackle the loop! We will identify common and repetitive thought patterns that plague us at this time of year, then learn a specific strategy to become more flexible that will help us be more resourceful in how we think and respond.
We will look to how we can apply this to many different repetitive thoughts and situations in our day to day lives and especially in the run up to Christmas. This will help reduce feelings of stress, overwhelm and disconnect and instead create positive alternatives that will ramp up our own well-being as well as the well-being of others around us that should see us sailing through to the New Year.
As an added bonus and way of giving even more to yourself, we will be offering vouchers that entitles you to a 25% discount on a one hour or 90 minute coaching session as well as lots of other tips and information to take away!
For further details contact the team at Lifehouse, I can’t wait to see you there!
