This holiday season, may we have a call to kindness, gratitude and connection to be good to each other in community. With the state of the world both globally and locally, anxieties and fears about every day moments is normal, and so is finding your own unique way through these moments to best support yourself, your family and your community.
Edith Eger says “we don’t know where we’re going, we don’t know what’s going to happen, but no one can take away from you what you put in your own mind.” She is a Holocaust survivor and a trauma therapist who has wrote The Choice: Embrace the Possible. Her words evoke what the spirit of resiliency and hope can do, even if just in our minds. To recognize our privileges, to be of service to our communities and to remember to stay present are all important aspects of not just getting through these times, but managing to process and live aligned in values of growing through the pain and transforming it into action.
Here are Nine Holistic Practices for Connection and Healing Space During Times of Struggle
Mind
- Discuss Highlights & Challenges Regularly
- Staying connected with family and friends is so important and we all know that, but it can be hard to open up about what’s challenging. Try to normalize these conversations but reflecting and containing. Instead of feeling like you are bringing up everything that’s hard in a stream of consciousness vent, try talking about what went right this week and also, what was hard, or what is difficult to navigate. It will give you visibility and offer a more comfortable place to have a healthy and productive conversation. Normalizing these conversations can help us deepen our connections and build our capacity for staying solutions focused and resilient.
- Journal as a Practice
- Let yourself develop a journaling ritual. Because it frees you of thoughts that don’t serve. Because it’s a quick and effective way to externalize whatever is causing mental chatter or clutter. Because it can be reflective, expansive and offer you an opportunity to reflect on the day to day moments, but also the bigger picture.
- Stay connected to the Causes you Care About in Community
- Staying connected with global crises is important for our collective healing. Donating your time, or if you have the means, financially towards causes you care about can be such a powerful way to stay rooted in what you can do, and ways you can directly impact change. Volunteer at your kids’ school for an hour or drop in to a soup kitchen and work a shift—these gestures can help us stay connected with our values and with each other—and keeping our morale high through direct service can be a healthy way to navigate living through difficult times.
Body
- Breathwork
- Breathwork can help with healing trauma, anxiety, depression, for doing inner child work and for moving stuck grief, stress, and pain through the body. Let yourself explore the power of the breathwork through a breathwork class, a one on one session, or through a self guided practice.
- Yoga
- Yoga not only helps with mental health, cardiovascular health, flexibility, mobility—it is fun and offers a nature chance to be in community. Let yourself find a yoga practice you like and let yourself feel the benefits of mental and physical processing in alignment.
- Movement Daily
- Daily movement is crucial to completing the stress cycle, regulating emotional health and feeling in alignment with your body. If you are facing accessibility challenges, meet your body where it is at—remember it’s not about rigorous movement daily, it’s all about letting yourself and your body process what it’s feeling so that you can have the foundations to be your best self.
Spirit
- Embodiment Practices
- Embodiment practices can help work with anxiety, stress and tension to unleash inner confidence, free your inner child or offer a deeper chance to help move towards your goals holistically.
- Nature
- Time in nature is necessary. Mother nature has her natural way of healing us, helping us and bringing us back home in our own skin. Whether it’s hiking, sitting outside for ten minutes in the morning with your coffee before work or planning a silent meditation retreat tucked away in the mountains, hold space for your natural self—your authentic self. Nature offers a key back to ourselves through stillness if we are willing to slow down and listen.
- Gratitude Rituals
- Gratitude helps us stay positive, remember what gives us meaning no matter what, and to process pain. Gratitude practices have been proven to help alleviate depressive symptoms by 35% overall. One practices to try at home could be sharing around the dinner table, or checking in with your friends about what is making you happy today, this week or right now in general. Remembering what we are grateful is great during the good times but crucial during the tough times so remember, shifts become habits, habits become muscle memory, muscle memory can become life changing.
Consistency is key for all of us so meet yourself where you are at by stick to your intentions but adapting them to realistic fit into your life. Maybe try practicing a 15 minute rule: that is, if you planned to spend time outside but are feeling resistance, maybe take a 15 minute walk, see how you feel and if it feels forced, move forward, but if it feels helpful stick to it and be proud of yourself for getting through the toughest part of getting started. If these practices feel overwhelming, commit to starting with one and journal or give yourself reflection space to notice what changes you feel.
Have a happy and healthy holiday season!
Delia