Most everyone likes to receive gifts during the holidays. It’s a way of letting us know that someone is thinking about us and how much they care.
You can do the same for yourself as well, but the best gifts may not be something you receive, but rather something you give away.
Here are FOUR things that you might want to let go of this holiday season. If you do, it’ll add to your joy and happiness. 🙂
1. Your need to be rightÂ
People are guaranteed to annoy, upset, or bother you. It’s likely because of something they do or say that you think at some level is “wrong”. Let go of that need and watch your happiness expand.
How this plays out in real life:
Love them before anything else. And then love them again and again. And then they’ll say something else that annoys you, and then love them even more..
2. Your need to fix those you loveÂ
It comes from a beautiful, loving, empathetic place, but it doesn’t help anyone. This does not mean you can’t care, educate, inspire, or otherwise look to move the people you love from where they are to where you can imagine them being.
But that’s the difference. IMAGINE their greatness first, don’t look at everything that’s wrong and try to fix them. (I mean, has that strategy EVER worked…)
How this plays out in real life:Â
Imagine those you love as you know they can be. Imagine their greatness, their healing, their peace. Watch them transform and perhaps most importantly, watch your relationship with them transform..
3. Your need to be perfectÂ
Just as we try to fix others, we believe that as we strive for “perfection” we will “fix” ourselves. First off, you’re never going to be perfect. That’s guaranteed.
Second, there’s nothing to fix. You are exactly where you are supposed to be and your striving for more, for a better version of yourself, is how it will always be. The striving is good. The beating yourself up is not.
How this plays out in real life:Â
You are going to do or not do, say or not say something, and you’re going to hear your brain beating you up a bit…
At that moment, that’s when you have to love yourself just like you love those people that annoy you.
I know, it’s kind of a running theme here – the whole lotta love thing – but it works!
Try it and tell me otherwise. So love yourself and remind yourself, “Hey, you’re doing the best you can, a little slack and a little love please!”.
4. Your old fear, guilt or shame, anger or blame, sadness or painÂ
OLD is the operative word here. Chances are you’ve been carrying this and other negative emotions around for a long time. Chances are also that you’ve buried them deep because guess what, they’re not fun to feel. I get that.
It’s a good strategy to bury them deep when there is no other alternative, but now there is. Use a tool (EFT Tapping is my favorite, of course) to safely unearth those old emotions and let them go once and for all.
How this plays out in real life:
We often run too fast to feel anything. And we think we’re too busy to do anything about these old emotions. But guess what, they’re the ones actually running the show and draining you of your life force.
Truly, every negative emotion or event that is still active, that still has a “charge” is sapping your mental, physical, and spiritual energy. Pay attention to where these emotions might be lurking, coax them out, and then let them go.
Even if it’s just ONE a day, or once a week, once a month, start feeling safe feeling them and feeling safe letting them go.
Before you go…
The holidays can often go one of two ways:
They can be a time of love and connection, peace and hope, joy and laughter, or they can be busy and rushed, they can magnify all the old pains and hurts we’ve felt with our families, making all the places we haven’t healed feel raw and wounded.
Now, just as we aren’t perfect, these two ways don’t mean it’s all one or the other. We just want to keep tipping the scales to the former. We just want to keep doing the work so love and connection shine. So peace and hope spring forth. So joy and laughter bubble out of us.
And do you know the most magical moment that you can create during this holiday season?
Do you know the moment in time that I want you to look out for?
The place where, if you pay close enough attention to yourself and to what is happening around you, everything can change.
What is that moment?
It’s when you find yourself feeling “right” and angry, annoyed, or indignant. And when you notice you’re trying to “fix” things and you can’t stop seeing everything you wish would change…
It’s when you’re beating up yourself for not being perfect, and then beating up yourself more because I told you not to…
It’s when you’re starting to feel old fear, guilt, shame, anger, sadness, or pain…
That moment in time when you notice what is happening… and you PAUSE.
And you tap. Or you breathe. Or you just silently say to yourself,
“How interesting. Look where I was going…
but now I’m making a different choice.”
Suddenly, you love them more, and you let go. And you love yourself more. At that moment. That space that you found, that space that you notice. More and more love. And more and more letting go. And with that love, you usher all the pain away. You usher all those old patterns away. Shoo, shoo! Only love here my friends, only love.
Until next time…
Keep Tapping!
Nick Ortner
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