Are Your Stress Levels Rising in December?

Exploring The Three Principles with Sarie Taylor

Many of us find that our stress levels begin rising as Christmas approaches.

If you are someone who finds themselves getting stressed in the run up to the holiday season then I want you to consider something which may help to bring them back down and make Christmas a more enjoyable time for you….

🌟What is different about this time of year?

🌟What changes in our world that suddenly makes things more stressful?

🌟Why do some people love the holidays and others find them so stressful?

When we start to get busy and chaotic, not just physically but also mentally, and we feel like there is so much that we need to do and within a certain time frame, this gets the ball rolling on us becoming over stimulated and hyper vigilant.

We don’t need to be physically busy for us to feel this, we just need to have a busy mind to become overstimulated.

This can then be a bit of a vicious cycle, because as soon as our brain starts to think there is lots to do, and problems to solve, it believes it can keep you a step ahead and will then start to pre-empt and consider any potential problems.

When we focus on problems, we go looking for them. It's likely we will find what we are looking for.

For many years I hated Christmas, and now looking back I can see so clearly why.

I instantly put too much pressure on myself and too many expectations. I would start to build this pressure from around September. I was like a pressure cooker by the time Christmas day arrived and I was either physically ill with something, or I was highly anxious!

Either way I was burned out and barely able to function, so I certainly wasn’t in any mindset to enjoy the festivities.

I almost felt relief on the first of January that it was all over.

What was all over though?

The fun? The time with family?

What I was actually relieved about was the pressure and expectation I was putting on myself was off!

This was always something that I was in charge of I just didn’t see it.

If you removed the pressure and expectation that you are putting on yourself, how different would things feel?

We often feel that the pressure is external, from society, from loved ones, but if we truly look within we can see it ultimately comes from us.

That's good news as we can also choose not to carry on doing it.

Imagine hyper vigilance being like riding a bike.

If you pedal really fast you will gather momentum. Then once you take your feet off the peddles it doesn’t just stop, you will still feel the speed of your fast pedalling, and although the bike will slow gradually, it may take a while.

This is why people get to Christmas day and allow themselves to stop and then wonder why they still feel over stimulated and hyper vigilant.

This is your gentle reminder to watch your speed and pace in the run up to these holidays, and allow yourself to pause, take your feet off the peddles and notice your speed before finding you are going so fast that you lose your balance.

With love

Sarie

Join us In The Membership for the month of December to get extra support if you find your stress levels rising - we have additional Drop In Sessions, and are focusing on Remaining in Our Well-Being this month.

Dec 7, 2023 10:00am

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