Wow! Hello everyone, just shy of being one week away from what is my favorite holiday! Being thankful and enjoying time with family and loved ones is probably the most fulfilling part to me about this season. I’m also pretty sure that Thanksgiving is my favorite because it’s more about time, personal presence, unconditional positive regard, genuineness, authenticity, sharing, and giving. With this holiday we enjoy different tastes, smells, and textures. The gift for me is seeing joy, comfort, satisfaction, and warmth from the aromas and food made from scratch, from my heart. That’s not to say I don’t love and enjoy the other holidays around the calendar, they too hold meaning for me I just feel that this one, in particular, has maintained its true meaning because of its absence of commercialism.
But let’s look at this season. This year is very different, this year is filled with the need for caution, it’s filled with the need for space, distance, and extra care. We won’t have the added stressors of corporate function, there will be no formal dresses or suits to choose from, we won’t have to worry about how we present ourselves in a social setting, we don’t have to get that white elephant gift, in fact, the only external pressure is to truly honor the need for those additional cautions that are warranted right now.
So, why then are the vibrations, demeanors, attitudes, and approaches of so many still stressed and anxious? My thought – It’s conditioning! It’s how we’ve made it to be over time and now we simply don’t know how to NOT be frazzled to feel pressure to feel hurried to feel stressed so when we hit the streets to go to the store or to shop for food or to look for gifts we’re doing so in the same stance and demeanor as we always have.
I say we change our story right now. I say we change the dialogue in our heads, our hearts, our minds, and our souls. I say, we embrace what we have today because we’re still here; we have so many avenues in which we can stay connected to how we can be together, how we can handle what we want, and or need differently. If we look at our lives through the lens of enough having enough, it will feel so much better. If we look at the season and embrace what we can do and how we can do it, we’ll feel so much better.
Let’s take advantage of having a world that right now is functioning at a pace that can be comfortable, it’s slower, it’s more relaxed, it’s open. Open in so many ways we aren’t crowding each other at check stands, we aren’t crowding each other outside, and at stores, we’re waiting patiently in lines.
Purposeful Planning is so important right now and so useful. Using this tool will help you see, feel, and experience the gifts that we can actually receive even though we’re in a pandemic. This is how you can best use it during this holiday season!
It’s time to productively plan the menu, so let’s…
· Create Lists– when we now 100% what things we need and for what, we can plan accordingly
· Choose One Central Store Location-we can go to one store with one master list of items and we can take our time and get as many of those items as we can in that store then we can come back…
· Regroup and Reevaluate– we can systematically choose to reduce the number of stops the amount of exposure the hurriedness the rushed feeling we have the resources we need we have stores that carry probably 80 to 90% of the items we need
· Be Decisive– let’s not be choosy this time around.
· Be Open and Get Creative– be purposeful, be relentlessly in pursuit of experiencing the feeling of joy, the freedom, the space that we are being afforded right now.
We don’t know what the future holds, and I am a firm believer that we don’t go back in time; so, going back to normal is not a phrase you will hear me use. We are creating our new normal right here right now. Every day let’s do so with intention with purposeful intention to improve the things that everybody generally would say they would rather do without. We just have to be creative and figure out how we can do that in our current situation today. What do you want it to look like going forward?
Create that look, it’s not going to look the same this year but you do get to choose how you experience it, how you experience your environment, and how you experience your today. It’s up to you to choose a negative version or one that resembles a persistent pursuit of happiness.
“Thanksgiving might not look the same this year… but the meaning and purpose remain the same. We might be reduced in numbers, we might need to “spread out” and use more tables with fewer chairs, and instead of congregating in the kitchen… we might just find ourselves outdoors. For me, for us, this is a small change and one we are more than willing to embrace.”
Happy Holidays!
Remember, give thanks for everything you have!
~TP