Whatever you’re celebrating this week, I hope you have a wonderful time.

And I’m aware that even reading this may feel like pressure.

So many ads, films, books etc depicting what appear to be idyllic Christmases.

Other festivities are not as represented but you might still feel pressure to:

• have fun
• be delighted to spend so much time with family
• to embrace traditions and cheerfully create new ones
• to manage family dynamics
• to be more ‘peopley’ than comes naturally
• to be happy
• to manage everyone’s (sometimes competing) expectations

This list could go on and on.

You might want to journal a little (if you have time! This is offered as an option not as pressure) and add whatever springs to mind as your own pressures whether they come from others, the media or yourself.

For many people, it’s a different kind of pressure, feeling alone.

Seeing images, ads and films about other people having what appears to be a great time can make their quiet solitude feel TOO quiet.

As with the rest of the year, there are many many ways to celebrate whatever holidays you choose to celebrate.

You don’t need to be hostage to family and cultural traditions if they don’t work for you.

How might you spend some time doing whatever YOU need or want?

Too peopley?

If your planned festivities are too peopley, how can you create even a small oasis of time and space for yourself?

However impossible / rude it might seem, let yourself be honest with yourself.

Am not suggesting you do it, simply notice how you FEEL as you imagine some time and space for yourself.

Too quiet?

If things feel too quiet for you, how might you (and I’m aware this may feel as outlandish as asking someone with a large family to imagine time alone) rectify that?

You might be connecting with people you don’t know very well yet and that can be daunting enough.

Or you might want to reconnect with loved ones you’ve lost touch with or even been estranged from. Give yourself credit for even contemplating it. Next year may be very different.

Even if not for the day itself (although you might find it easier than you imagine to connect with someone you enjoy spending time with when you become brave enough to ask), how might you fit SOME time with others in?

You know yourself best

What do you need this week?

Again – give yourself permission to say it aloud even if only to yourself.

You KNOW what you need.

What do you WANT?

As well as journaling around the questions above, there are lots of tools to help you be your own self care coach throughout the site and I hope you’ll find them helpful.

My book also has lots (366) of tools which you can play with. Your local library may have a copy if you don’t / there isn’t a bookshop with it (lots of places deliver but with Christmas post that’s unlikely to help you this week).

If you’d like my support in the new year, you can find out more about some of the ways in which we might work together (including coaching, therapy and supervision) and get in touch if you have any questions.

With love,