A Christmas Gift

In this blog, you hear from our friend, Lorna Harper, who shares her light-hearted look at Christmas Spirit and what it means - and also at energy, mindset and Elf! Read on to get some great ideas and techniques to help you make it through the Holidays with joy in your heart and your sanity intact!

This is a light-hearted look at Christmas Spirit, but I can’t go any further without acknowledging that this time of year can be painful for many people, including some of my closest family and friends.  I send you my warmest, loving thoughts and hope that your heart ache can be shared with moments of happiness.

I have always loved Christmas.  As a child, it was the one time of the year when everyone brought the very best of themselves and we were allowed to put cans of coke and bumper boxes of crisps into the `big shop’ trolley. 

As an adult, I look forward to the traditions I’ve created with family and friends and pausing the hamster wheel of life for a few weeks. 

In my job as a Mindset and Success Coach I help people improve the quality of their life and go after their dreams.  The quality of our life is in direct proportion to the emotions we feel every day.  Whether we have a good, bad or a great Christmas is associated with the way we feel every day during December.

Set the intention to have an amazing time this year and feel the spirit of Christmas flowing through you!

What is Christmas Spirit? 

It’s the term we use to describe the atmosphere at Christmas time.  You could also call this energy.  When you walk into a restaurant and something doesn’t feel right you say, ‘I don’t like the atmosphere’.  What you’re really saying is you don’t like the energy. 

We all know people who frequently create a positive atmosphere and we would say they have great energy.  We also know the others, the ‘mood-hoovers’.  

Christmas Spirit is generated by a critical mass of people feeling simultaneously positive, joyful and excited.  It is powerful!

At the end of the movie Elf, Santa’s sleigh won’t fly because the people have lost their Christmas spirit at the hands of American Consumerism.  The sleigh’s fuel is the energy generated by people coming together in happiness and optimism. 

The existence of energy is unquestionable.  Christmas energy (Christmas Spirit) is real and it’s as magical you want to believe it to be!

“The most powerful force on earth is human emotion, consciously directed” -Tony Robbins

Where does Christmas Spirit come from?

Each of us has energy continuously flowing to and through us and we direct that energy with our thoughts.  Nothing has meaning until we give it meaning. 

The problem is, our thoughts are generated automatically from our conditioning, so we often forget that we have a choice.  We can decide to look for the positive, feel good in the process and send it out into the world, or we can let our autopilot run the show. 

When we hear people say things like ‘I don’t feel Christmassy,’ what they’re really saying is, ‘I don’t feel positive, joyful or excited and I am waiting for something outside of me to change it.’

What are we waiting for?  An image of perfection created in our childhood (if we’re lucky) or by magical representations in the movies?  Are we waiting for the perfect event, movie, party or gift?  Will we feel ‘Christmassy’ when all the presents are bought and wrapped, and the house is perfectly decorated?

Christmas is created inside each one of us. 

We create it (or not) by the ideas we get emotionally involved with and the meaning we give to things.  Most of us hold an image of perfection with a long list of things that must be completed before enjoyment can commence:

-       Buy and wrap all presents

-       Write and send all cards (or social media message that you now donate to charity)

-       Decorate house

-       Watch Christmas lights switch on

-       Attend pantomime

-       Attend Christmas winter wonderland event

-       Go to the cinema

-       Complete Christmas big shop

-       Attend Christmas party(s)

Why does a list like this, filled with exciting events often cause more anxiety than joy!

Christmas can bring out our worst as we rush from place to place ticking all our boxes.  Shouting at the person who cut you up in their car while your Christmas bauble earrings flap angrily around your face isn’t a Christmassy look.

Some ideas to help you take control of your Spirit this Christmas

1.     Imagine like a child

Every night before you head off to sleep visualise the day ahead.  See the day going smoothly, feel calm and confident.  Imagine yourself greeting everyone you meet with a smile and a kind word.  Hear them wishing you a Happy Christmas.  Feel the five-pound note in your hand as you hand it to the homeless person and listen to your voice as you wish them well.  Smell the things that mean Christmas for you – chestnuts, hot chocolate, the tree, oranges….

2.     Create a Christmas affirmation

Your subconscious mind can’t tell the difference between what’s real and imagined and it accepts whatever is repeatedly handed to it.  When you say, ‘I don’t feel Christmassy, I don’t feel Christmassy, I don’t feel Christmassy’ guess what you get…?

Say something simple throughout the day that will deliver the reality you want.

-       ‘I feel confident and calm’

-       ‘I love how I am able enjoy every moment this Christmas’

-       ‘I laugh every day’

-       ‘I feel joy in the happiness of others’

Or simply repeat a word loudly over an over throughout the day (or under your breath if you prefer):

-       ‘Joy, joy, joy’

-       ‘Kindness, kindness, kindness’

-   ‘Love, love, love’

Whatever your situation, doing exercises like this repeatedly will improve the quality of each day and dial up your Clausometre!

In addition:

·      Celebrate the arrival of the Christmas Coffee Cup.

·      Stop for at least 5 minutes to look at the Christmas lights. 

·      Watch made for TV Christmas movies.  The really bad ones.

·      Tell Alexa…Only Christmas songs!

·      Decide you’re going to say Happy Christmas to everyone.

·      Eat chocolate for breakfast for 24 days.

For the month of December set the intention to look for good in every situation.  It’s always there.  It’s the law of opposites.  Where there is bad, there is good. 

What will you find? 

Happy Christmas!

From the heart……Lorna