This month’s heart to heart questions and advice on the holidays come from Shannon, Alicia, and Brit. In this episode of Love Always, Jo I’ll be answering questions about letting go of old/building new traditions, managing family expectations, preparing your energy for the holidays, and anxiety around end of the year reflections.
Links:
- Become the most important person in the room by Rose Rosetree
- Pre-Holiday Advice by Glennon Doyle
Journal Prompts:
- If you were 100% comfortable with where you are in life, how would you show up this holiday season?
- Where can you lower your expectations for this holiday season?
Quotes:
- Allow space for your inner child to grieve past Christmases
- Deep down people understand that things change
- Remind your inner critic that even if you choose to go your own way, you’ll still be loved
- You get to choose where you go or don’t go for the holidays
- You’re not responsible for making other people understand you
- Don’t forget to hold space for yourself
- You get to choose where your power goes – Brit
- You are not responsible for anyone else’s energy or happiness
- Become an audience member in the holidays rather than the director
- Enjoy your day on purpose
Questions & Advice
- Shannon – I struggle with the balance between letting go of old traditions (that are no longer possible due to people passing away) and creating new traditions. How do I get excited about building new rituals when the feelings of sadness about lost traditions feel especially strong this time of year?
- Alicia Bruce – Struggle: Managing family expectations. Sometimes we would love to stay home for the holidays and just enjoy them together with our dog, but our families always expect that we will visit every year. The times we have tried to say “no, we want to do our own thing and stay home (not traveling) for the holidays”, we are met with guilt and disappointment.
- Advice/insight from Brit: On dealing with family members with interesting energy
- Brit: As an empath, how do you prepare for the holidays?
- Joanna: A friend and I were talking about how this time of year causes anxiety because you naturally reflect at this time of year about where you are and where you “should” be. Do you have advice on this?
- Glennon Doyle’s pre-holiday advice
Announcements:
- If you’d like to send questions, thoughts, concerns or advice about upcoming topics you can do so at joanna-platt.com/heartoheart. Submissions are due by the first of the month. Here are the upcoming topics:
- December – Receiving
- January – Goal Setting
- I’ve got something big coming soon — Sparkle Collective! Sparkle Collective is designed to help you reconnect to your sparkle and help you shine at work, home, in your relationships. Interested in being a founding member? Email me joanna@joanna-platt.com with the subject line: Sparkle.
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