Let the “Present” be Your Gift this Holiday Season
Christmas music is playing, feeling refreshed after my hot yoga practice and I have a warm cup of coffee by the fire as I begin my morning work. As I think about the course of the day, I think about where I can be mindful and thankful. The warm coffee cup in my hand, my fingers as they hit the keys, the warmth on my skin. How lucky I am to be living this life; a life beyond my wildest dreams. I am grateful.
This year, as Christmas and New Year’s approach, I challenge you to be thankful. Not Thanksgiving thankful, but the expression of true and honest gratitude. Over the past two years, we have had to suffer quite a bit. I, for one, at first, did not feel the negative effects of the pandemic until I sat and reflected. At first, I basked in the freedom of working from home, quiet weekends, extra family time, and uncertainty. When I reflect, I realize that those first two weeks turned out to be the changes we still face today. A great amount of loss, pain, added stress, distance; all things we suffered these past two years, even if we didn’t realize it at the time.
As we head towards the holidays and all of the added chaos that comes with holidays, remember what you DO have, not what you WANT, or NEED. When we start our gratitude practice, and when we start counting all of the things we are have and are thankful for, it is then that we realize how much we already have, and how that list always outweighs what we don’t.
2021 was a pivotal year for me as an individual. I really didn’t think it would be as we headed in, but isn’t that the funny thing about the universe? Somehow, it always works out better than we imagined. With all of the recent and wonderful changes in my life, I realized that if I don’t slow down and bask in the contentment and gratitude, I will be forced to focus on what’s next. It is important to be aware of our journey in this life, but once in a while, we have to stop and smell the roses as cliche as that sounds. I was having a conversation with a good friend of mine over the weekend and she said, “I finally realized that the point of life is to slow down, because life is so incredibly fast, if we don’t slow down, we will miss it” and that really resonated with me. If I, and you, don’t stop and appreciate how far we’ve come, it will pass by.
As you walk through life, remember to slow down once in a while and take inventory of all of the wonderful things in your life. Let the “present” be your gift this holiday season, and wrap it up with everything you are thankful for.
“Life is amazing. And then it’s awful. And then it’s amazing again. And in between the amazing and the awful, it’s ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary. That’s just living a heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life. And it’s breathtakingly beautiful.”
