Do you love christmas?
Are you one of the first on the street to put up the christmas decorations? or are you a bit of a ‘scrooge’, glad when it’s all over and everything gets back to normal?
I loved christmas when the children were little and I was the one more excited at the prospect of Santa turning up on his sleigh, I loved the smell of the fresh cut christmas tree, the twinkling lights, the smell of pine, christmas cake, egg nog, the taste of sherry that was a must have when visiting relatives, and the sense of excitement, wonder and goodwill that in my naive eyes brought out the best in people.
Christmas Shopping with my grandson at Harrods in London
I can still get myself into the giddy childlike state and do so quite often, I love to be childish but I can also respect that other people have had different experiences and not everyone has the happy memories of family christmas that I was lucky to experience. I was one of five children and money was tight, and yes we got some lovely presents but it’s the family moments I cherish, singing and dancing in my parents front room, or playing cards in front of the fire on a cold and snowy night.
The memories bring up all sorts of emotions.
and what are emotions?
The scientific explanation for emotion is that we have a physical response to a range of chemicals released throughout the body. So all emotions such as Love, hate, sadness, happiness, excitement, fear, loneliness are all chemically driven.
Emotions are indicators of our thinking. Our emotions are a direct indicator of how we are responding to life at any given moment. It is our beliefs, our thoughts, our views and opinions about what is happening that results in the chemical release.
If we think something is wrong, bad shouldn’t be happening, like ‘christmas is about greed’, or ‘it’s nothing like christmas in the past’, we can feel anger, sadness, missing out or grief.
My memory of Christmas in the past.. not much money but happy family times with lots of love.
If we are thinking ‘this is fun’ ‘this is exciting’, ‘Christmas is a time for love’, then we experience joy, happiness and appreciation.
“EMOTIONS ARE A PHYSICAL REACTION TO A SPECIFIC MENTAL STATE” – C. Scott
Exercise:
To help you survive the christmas season.
1. Remember your emotion is an indicator to your thinking.
2. Tell yourself that you don’t have to believe everything you think
3. Realise that it isn’t the thought but the thoughts about the thought that cause you
distress
4. Acknowledge the thought and let it go. When you do this you are creating space for new thought to come through, when you find a happy memory popping into your mind you can increase the good feeling by: (Make a big bright picture in your mind, be aware of the sounds and notice how good you feel, notice where the good feeling starts and where it moves to, does it move up or down? to the left or to the right? pay attention to the movement and if it feels good, have a go at spinning the feeling faster and notice if it increases the good feeling.)
5. Repeat when necessary (whenever you find yourself feeling bad, sad, stressed or anxious)
Have a merry christmas with lots of happy thoughts!
Ange xxxxxxx
and remember… this exercise is just like a sticking plaster, it might be all you need to make a difference and thats great. But if you find yourself with continual bad thoughts, give me a call and we can get you some coaching or hypnosis sessions booked in and sort out the cause rather than the symptom!