Soul Food-Medicinal Monday/How to Beat the Holiday Blues
The Holiday Season affects everyone in different ways, depending on their particular situation, and sometimes the world situation is enough to affect everyone in a less than Mary Poppins sort of way. If you’re like me, I’m more on the melancholy end of it. Yes, that’s right, me, Miss Metaphysical, Ms. Positive, we all have our moments.
Me being a Cancer, extremely emotional, and prone to cry easily, the Holidays are tough for me. I’ve already had a few crying bouts this week already and we still have nineteen more days till Xmas, YIKES!!! See my list below to help you, I, and the rest of the Holiday Bluesers out there make it through this Holiday Season a little less down and a helluva a lot more Holiday Spirit:
- Recognize your feelings, go into mediation, five minutes will suffice, journal your thoughts, it’s much easier to release them on paper instead of carrying them around like a bag of kettlebells.
- Talk with friends or strangers. Today I walked down to the computer store to talk to my computer guy for just a few minutes and there was a gentleman sitting there to have a PC serviced. The next thing I know the three of us had close to a two-hour conversation about football and everyone was enjoying it. When I left the store I said by the way, what is your name, and he told me. Then I found out he had just literally met my computer guy ten minutes before I walked in for the first time! If a stranger would’ve walked in, they would’ve thought the three of us had known each other for decades!
- Stay connected through FaceTime or Zoom calls. I have a friend of mine who lives here in Ohio, and she and her husband Zoom their daughter (from Miami) every week and talk for at least an hour or two. I talked with my stepmom this morning for close to two hours (Ft. Myers) and it helped cheer me up tremendously.
- Get moving – I know the weather is cold in some parts of the country, especially where I’m at, but I have a Hula Hoop and a small stepper machine in my house and that’s all it takes is some good tunes to jam to and start shaking them hips and I’m in a better space. Let’s face it, it does help to get them endorphins up and running.
- SCHEDULE an appointment with yourself! Yep, you heard me, write it in your appointment book. Go to an entirely new place for lunch, or just take a drive to another part of town, take the rapid-transit downtown to see the city lit up. There’s a plethora of things you can do that won’t cost a lot of money or take much time, but just enough to lift your Spirit.
- Keep expectations realistic. I always have to know in advance when my daughter is coming and how long she plans to stay, so I’m not too over-the-top bummed out when it’s time for her to leave. So, for myself, it helps me to plan ahead and know what’s coming.
- Eat and drink in moderation, it literally does affect your mood, especially if you know yourself and you know that too much bubbly brings on the waterworks, or too much sugary food puts you over the edge of beating up on yourself, then scale it back!
- Count your Blessings! It always helps me if I’m feeling a bit depressed, if I take time to write down my blessings, and before you know it, I realize that I am blessed after all (maybe just not in the ways I may think I want to be). Remember it could always be a lot worse…
- Give, this is a huge one for me. Whenever I’ve got a case of the Blues if I can be of service somewhere to someone else, even if it’s just giving a friend on the phone a pep talk, it always makes me feel a lot better myself. So just give a little, (like the song says)
- Last but not least, crank up the tunes a little Andrew Bocelli, or some Alan Jackson Xmas music, or Dean Martin himself singing “White Christmas” and bake Xmas cookies rocking that music like nobody’s business…
Happy Holidays & Blessings.
Ziggy Starrdust & Eva Starrr
