Holidays: No Guilt Attached
Happi Healthi Yogi here! Today we are talking about gratitude. Gratitude can be applied to many areas of our lives, but for now, we are going to apply it to our mindset during the holidays.
The holidays are a crazy, hectic, joyous, and sometimes saddening season. This time of year can sometimes cause guilt around food and restrictive mindsets.
My goal with this blog is to encourage a soft and patient mindset for yourself this holiday season. Give your body grace. If you indulge and enjoy your meals, that is ok. How you act during the holidays does not define your habits, and does not need to be met with restriction and dieting mentality following. You are worthy of the goodness you are nourishing your body with because your body does so much for you every single day. Our bodies carry us through the best and worst of times. So honoring this holiday season to give yourself grace around food is important for a gratitude-focused mindset.
I know this is easier said than done. Trust me, this is something that takes practice, patience, and persistence. It is all about shifting perspective.
Instead of thinking “Oh my gosh I just ate 287,949 rolls, now I can’t have bread for the rest of the day and probably the rest of the week” shift the train of thought to ‘I really enjoyed those rolls I just had. I ate a lot of them because they were so good and I treated myself because I deserved to eat what I was craving. I am grateful for the delicious rolls because Thanksgiving only comes once a year”.
Bear with me I know this can be a little cheesy at first, but using this kind of mindset can do wonders if you are someone who tends to spiral in the holiday season around food.
Self-talk is essential to overall well-being. Our inner dialogue is constant and is always running on a loop planning, and making sense of the experiences around us. This voice helps us find meaning and shapes our identity because it vocalizes how we see ourselves, how we handle situations, and interpret everything around us. If this voice is constantly negative when you think about yourself, it can have some real damage mentally and physically. Your body is smart. It picks up on negative self-talk. Sometimes it’s easy to fall into this mindset because negative self-talk tends to occur when we narrow in on a situation. A narrow mindset magnifies a small and meaningless problem creating a larger one. This is where spiraling tends to occur. Noticing the spiraling, identifying it, and shifting is where positive change is possible.
To whoever needs to hear it, you don’t need to undereat, over-exercise, or spiral following a meal filled with love, family, and holiday cheer. You are deserving enough to honor the choices you are making and move forward normally as you would any other day.
If you want some gentle reminders for how to shift perspective back to gratitude, here are some ways you can do that:
1). Enter Into Gratitude Mindset: Step back and assess what are you grateful for in that moment and why. It can be the family around you, the weather outside, the way your hair is cooperating that day, whatever is sparking joy for you in that moment. If that technique isn’t quite landing for you, pretend you’re talking to your friend. Would you talk to your friend the way you are talking to yourself right now? If the answer is no, it most likely will be, shift, change, and grow.
2). Tidy your space: When we have negative-spiraling thoughts it makes us feel like we don’t have control. Cleaning can help us regain control because organizing can sometimes make us feel like we can organize our thoughts. This feeling of control will allow you to move past how they are making you feel at that moment more easily.
3). Ground: Get outside! Nature is so nourishing for the soul, so get your feet on the grass, take a stroll, or sit and listen to the calm that is nature.
4). Eat Everything You Want, Just Use Portions: This is no restrictive mindset space. Put everything you want on your plate, but use smaller portions. This way you are not cutting out or restricting, you are feeding and satisfying the cravings and minimizing feelings of guilt to follow. Eating slowly and taking breaks will also allow you to feel full and satisfied.
The holidays are the best time of the year, so let’s enjoy them with no guilt attached. We are all worthy of a good Thanksgiving feast. These are the meals that are made with the most love and care. So enjoy the time spent with friends, and family, and find gratitude in the small moments.
Happy Holidays Friends!!