What do you REALLY want Christmas to be?
What is it that you want this Christmas?
What do you want Christmas to be?
What is it that you have inside your heart but not yet in your hands?
What's the tension you're holding?
What do you want to say yes to, and what do you wish you could say no to, and why?
And why do you say yes when you really mean no?
Are there traditions that you just can't keep up with anymore?
Are there things you want to try?
New rituals, new ideas, new space?
Make a list.
Check it twice.
Three times, even.
"Consult your inner truth barometer and resist the temptation to tell people [including yourself] only what they want to hear." - Wayne Dyer.
I'm being serious. Get out your computer, or a notebook, and a pen or something. But just get it out of your body and onto any kind of page.
While ever these things are swirling around the edges of your subconscious and even your consciousness, they'll never be fully actualised or be able to be used to make good decisions, bringing your closer to joy, healing, and connectivity.
What do you WANT?
What do you NEED?
Identify these things, and work backwards from there.
Be specific.
Go deep.
No one will read this list except for you. This list is yours and yours alone. How can you get what you want and what you need and you know is within you to have and be and become if you cannot put some kind of acknowledgment around it?
Make a list.
Check it twice.
Three times, even.
Check it against your inner truth barometer. The truth is, some things we engage in, even if we don't specifically feel like it or want to, as a gift to someone we love who we know will find it meaningful. Sometimes we please and perform because that's how we've been conditioned to find our love and belonging. Checking your list allows you to dig into the context and motivations and history of the items on it.
Let me give you a seemingly simple example.
What do you eat at Christmas?
Do you like it?
Is it worth the money and the time it takes to prepare and make it?
One year, I found myself with two small children, a very limited budget, and a sense of responsibility that I conjured from all different kinds of places to put on not just a Christmas dinner but a breakfast and lunch, too. I made chocolate pudding, fruit cake, there oysters and prawns, turkey and ham, there were salads and dressings and cheese platters, and silly hats to wear. I cooked all day, stuffed myself full, and hated every minute and bite of it. Ridiculously, it took me a couple of years to give myself permission to cook my favourite thing for Christmas: Chicken and a simple green salad.
But it's not ridiculous when you look at the weight we put onto a ritual, onto the format, into the form and function of something; how much stock we place in doing it the way its always been done because that's the tradition and that's what makes it special.
So I have an inkling that there are many of us spending money we don't want to on food we don't like, to keep a tradition alive that's meant to bring us love and belonging, that is meant to usher us through the waiting of things (advent), holding the tension of what we have and what we want and don't yet hold.
See how the energy distribution is skewed?
What would happen if we simplified the ritual?
What would happen if instead of using the details of the tradition as being the conduit of the connection we seek, we focused our energy on finding a vehicle to get us to where the ritual was designed to in the first place?
I wonder, what IS that place for you?
Why do you do it?
What is it all for?
Make a list.
Check it twice.
Go over it.
How do the points on the list feel in your body?
What happens to your blood as your read each one?
What feelings and sensations come to your senses and your mind when you consider them?
KNOW THIS: There is no script you have to follow, no tradition chiselled in stone you have to keep. You have permission (not that you need it), to create the Christmas you want, and the Christmas you need.
Written by Liz Milani
Instagram: @thepracticeco
From this week’s series, "Make A List, Check It Twice", with a subscription, in the App.
