Give yourself some room!
I’m going to keep this one short because I know I’m feeling the time crunch and I’m guessing just about every mom out there is feeling it too.
If there’s one piece of advice I could give us all this month it’s this:
Give yourself some room.
And I mean that on all kinds of levels.
In your schedule- give yourself some room.
Things are going to take longer than you think.
Traffic sucks. The weather might be dicey. Parking is a joke. Everywhere you go, lines are long. The store you’re in may not even have what you need, meaning you have to go to another store- or figure out plan B on the spot.
If you think you’re gonna dash in and get what you need real quick- fugeddaboutit! Not gonna happen!
On a similar note- give your family some room.
Getting dressed and out the door for those holiday performances, parties, shopping trips, etc. etc. will take longer than you think.
Chances are your standards are higher at this time of year. I know my son can go a week without my noticing his hair- but the minute we get dressed to go somewhere, I’m sending him back to the bathroom for a comb.
It takes longer to button all those buttons than to pull on a T-shirt, or for the girls to find the “right” tights to go with their dresses.
Finding all the hats, mittens, boots and coats and getting everyone bundled up- it takes a while.
So give yourself some room so you’re not rushed and grumpy.
I hate to admit how many ‘fun’ events have started on a not so fun note as we race out of the house, grownups with that tight tone of voice that’s not exactly yelling- but might as well be.
Find some personal space and time.
For the next couple of weeks, there’s no school. Days off of work, more people in your house for many more hours than you may be used to. And I’m not even counting the guests!
Whatever normal personal routines you have are probably going to be shot- but do what you can to preserve your exercise time/journal time/meditation time. Whatever you do to be able to hear yourself think- do it.
Give yourself some room to be alone- even if you have to hide in the upstairs bathroom for 15 or 20 minutes. Take the dogs for a looonnnnggg walk. Stop in for a coffee when you run to the grocery store for some vital missing ingredient. Get your sweetie to take the kids ice-skating for a couple of hours. (You can return the favor of course!)
Whatever- you’re a clever mom- you can think of some reason to get yourself out of the fray for a bit here and there.
Give yourself some room with your normal routine.
It’s going to be shot anyway- don’t stress about it! Figure out what the essentials are and let the rest go for a while.
Give yourself some room with the normal rules and regulations. Not to throw every principle of good nutrition and healthy child-rearing out the window, but could you cut yourself some slack with the sugar intake? Bedtime enforcement? TV restrictions?
Let me be very clear about this- this is for YOU, not your kid. It’s not about acquiescing to their whines and demands for one more cookie, one more turn on the Wii.
It’s about you not getting stressed because you can’t hold the normal boundaries in abnormal circumstances.
Give your feelings (and those of your family) some room
Newsflash: holidays aren’t all sweetness and light. Hopefully there’s plenty of love, friendship, and good cheer in your life at the holidays, but harder feelings are often not far away.
Grief can be a visitor at this time, as can anger, disappointment, resentment, sadness, homesickness, and more.
Often these emotions float along just under the surface until something (or nothing) happens and they pop out. Some people can tell you exactly where they come from and why they’re there, but for most of us, it will be more like a feeling of melancholy or even anger that comes over us for no reason we can see.
Children often use these times of closeness and warmth to show some of their hard feelings. Jealousy might show up in a complaint that a sibling got more or better presents. A tantrum on leaving Grandma’s house might cover their sadness at not seeing more of her. And neither you nor they may ever know the real reason for their emotional ups and downs.
The simple point is this: if you expect some hard feelings to come up, both for yourself and those around you, you can make room for them. And if you can make room for them, they can come and go without disrupting the scheduled happiness too much.
And perhaps most important of all,
Give yourself and those around you room not to be perfect.
Stuff won’t all go down the way you want it to. You might not find the perfect present for that difficult person. You might not get the special present you were hoping for. Your kids are going to make a mess of one sort or another. Your husband might let you down.
You won’t be able to fulfill everyone’s expectations. You probably won’t even be able to fulfill your own expectations. And they won’t be able to fulfill yours.
And that’s OK.
In giving yourself room not to be perfect, you’re really giving yourself room to be you. In giving others room not to be perfect, you’re giving them room to be themselves.
And if you ask me, that’s the best gift any of us could give or receive.
Here’s one more thing to give yourself room for: It’s a free teleclass: “First Aid for Holiday Overwhelm” and you can get all the details here.
It’s Thursday morning (THIS Thursday!) at 10 am Pacific/1 pm East Coast.
If you’re interested- do it now! By the time you remember to come back and register, it will be all over!
So I’d love to know- what would you like to give yourself room for? And how will you do this?
Please share in the comments!
