Holiday Health For Your Inner Peace

HOLI

DAY WELLNESS AND GRATITUDE

Family, friends, commitments, decorating, gifts, parties, year-end work responsibilities, can all come into creating joy AND stress over the holidays. Here are some useful tools to enjoy your holidays to the fullest, staying centered and healthy along the way!

Our own personal health and wellness is created through our actions and awareness in 4 areas of our being.

• Physical: includes nutrition, exercise, rest and habits.

• Emotional: awareness of perceived stress, conscious communication, expectations, perceptions/perspectives.

• Mental: witnessing and awareness of your thoughts and mindfulness.

• Spiritual: conscious breath, creating an intention for yourself, your day or an event.

Physical:

Nutrition:

Sticking to any form of diet or eating protocol can be tough with all the good food and treats offered during the holidays! Eat the pie! Just not the whole pie. Realizing that a taste of pie (or whatever calls to you from the table), is better in small amounts instead of taking on seconds and regretting it later. Easier said than done, you maybe thinking as you read this! That’s where the mindfulness and awareness of thought will come into action.

Exercise:

Keep moving! Dance at the party! Take a walk with your family or friends. Park away from the entrance of the store or mall. Treat your visiting family and friends to a local yoga class or exercise related event. Allowing time together doing an activity that brings an opportunity for shared experience and communication.

Rest:

Extra commitments and activity require an opportunity to reset, rest in silence or take a nap. Even a few minutes of silence and solitude can help regenerate your body and soul. Keep your sleep schedule as typical as possible.

Habits:

Allowing for a flow of events and timing. The holidays can add so much to our daily routine that can create a grand feeling of overwhelm. “Prioritize and stay in action” is my affirmation in times of over commitment and perceived stress. Be willing to create joy in the challenges and changes in a routine or schedule that has been planned. There WILL be upsets in timing, etc. Going with the flow, like water flowing down a river or bamboo blowing with the wind will create a much happier, healthier YOU and feeling around you!! And it is always appropriate to say no to an activity or event, especially if you do not really want to go. This is where staying true to yourself and communication comes in.

Emotional:

Perceived Stress:

The first comment with this statement from most people I have worked with is, “What do you mean perceived stress? My stress IS REAL.” Stress has become a go to word to describe a variety of emotions from over work to unhappiness and everything in between. Our central nervous system was developed to protect us in a time of real stress, fear of death, loss of limb, food or shelter. Survival was the origins of our stress response nervous system. In our present age of commitments, bills, traffic, non-stop lives, work demands, etc. our stress response has become more about what we make something mean than the actual threat of survival. Change the way you view the happenings in your life and you change your response to it.

Having compassion for yourself, the people around you.

Being aware of your expectations of yourself and others.

Realizing we all have our own perceptions and perspectives on all we experience.

Communication:

Communication is a tool for understanding ourselves, our actions and others. True communication requires patience, commitment and a desire to communicate until understanding is met.Our self-talk creates our reality around us. Communication with ourselves and others creates our own unique reality in the world, as well as our own unique perception and perspective. Powerful communication comes from a place of balance, caring for ourselves and speaking our truth in an adult and productive manner. Anger, shame, blame, judgement, yelling, lying, avoiding, withholding, silence is not communication. These ways of communicating only bring upset to everyone concerned, including you. Keeping the peace only works when you can truly “let it go”. If something needs to be said, waiting for the appropriate time and say your peace in a direct, adult manner. Life is simple when we are honest with each other and ourselves.

Mental:

Mindfulness:

Our thoughts create our reality about ourselves and others. Meditation allows us to witness our thoughts, realizing we are not our thoughts and are thoughts are not “truth”. When we can step away from our thoughts, we create power within our lives, communication with others and ourselves. Don’t believe everything you think. Become accustom to pausing before reacting, challenging your thoughts, asking for clarification, communicating what you are feeling, take ownership of your actions and perceptions. Your reality is yours and yours alone. If there are 10 people in a room, there will 10 different ways to view the happenings in the same room. Realizing we are not “right”, we only see, hear, feel etc. through our own eyes, thoughts of perception. Being mindful means to be present with what is going on inside of our own minds and what is happening around us with the mental narrator volume turned way down. Give yourself time to meditate, pray, sit in silence to quiet your mind. You will feel connected and centered for doing so.

Spiritual:

Breathe:

Taking a deep conscious breath is one of the best ways to center yourself, relax your bodies stress response and become present to the here and now. “This moment, this breath.” Breathing deeply into the abdomen first calms down the vagus nerve responses to upset and calms the body. Breathing deeply helps lower blood pressure, heart rate slows, improves digestion, calms your mind, brings oxygen to your cells. At any time, you can take a deep breath without anyone knowing, and your breath is always with you!

Pause Word:

Create a pause word or intention for yourself, your day or an event. When you bring an intention into your awareness, you are creating power within yourself to have the kind of day or event you are committed to having. Examples of a pause word are; Joy, Gratitude, Love, Flow, Forgiveness, Peace, Happiness, Family, Fun. It can be a word or phrase like “all I see is love” or “fun family dinner”. Share your pause word or intention with other. Write it down on a piece of paper and carry it with you or put it on the refrigerator. You DO have a say so in how your life goes. Use the power of intention to create a life you love!

Play the gratitude game:

See how often you can say thank you, as the response or part of a response to all conversation or interaction. Remember we are all more alike than we are different.Compassion for ourselves and others brings peace and understanding.We are all in this together. Our greatest desire is be loved, accepted, appreciated and included. As we let our own light shine, we give others permission to do the same!Sparkle on this holiday season!!!

Written by: Mary Onna Bode

Mary Onna Bode is a transformational healer of body, mind and soul as well as the founder and owner of Soul Harmony Therapies in Bradenton, Florida. She has been in the healing field for over 36 years. She is a certified personal life coach, breath therapist, clinical hypnotist, personal trainer, teacher of dance, qigong, yoga, and meditation through mindfulness, hypnosis and crystal bowl vibrations. She has trained and led classes all over the US and abroad. Mary Onna brings to all the essence of play and the wisdom of her years in the healing community as a true channel of love, joy and healing.

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