Imposterhood at Christmas: Increase your flexibility

Suzanne Mercier - Friday, December 18, 2009

Next week, like many of us, I'm going to join my family to spend time together, to relax, to eat good food, drink wonderful wine and connect. 

At least, that's my intention. 

I have a wonderful family and they are always concerned that Christmas is a great time.  Of course, there's a lot of organising to do, food to buy, roles to allocate, all in between working and taking care of the family.  The tension builds and by the time Christmas Day comes, everyone is exhausted.  I'm sure that's a familiar story to many of you.

What we need is flexibility.  I'm not talking about physically exercising more (although I could definitely benefit from that).  I'm talking about emotional flexibility.  You see - and you probably know already - when we're tense, we lose much of our emotional resilience.  Out the window goes our patience, our empathy and our ability to make conscious choices.  We can be more easily triggered into old patterns.  We become reactive and it happens before we even know it.  That's why we need the flexibility.

Before we can be flexible, though, we need the split second it takes to realise "Hmm I'm having a reaction to this.  Something's going on."  Then we are in a position to decide how we want to respond.

Breathing deeply helps.  The first time we breathe deeply, we let go of stress and release the air / energy in our diaphragm.  The second time we breathe deeply, we circulate the breath / oxygen around our bodies and up to our heads, clearing our brains and allowing us to make more conscious positive choices.

So, take two breaths before you respond and while you're doing that, remember why you're there.  It's the bigger picture and family is important.

I hope you have a wonderful holiday season, whatever that might look like for you.

All the very best

Suzanne