How to fit well-being into your holiday season

Yoga Christmas card from Cafe Press

Ah, ’tis the season to be jolly, and merry, and over-indulge, because by golly you’ve earned it.

‘Tis also the season to rush around like crazy, attending parties and drinks, buying presents and gifts, and squeezing as much fun and leisure into your holiday break as possible.

In short, ’tis a time of madness, when long established patterns of well-being – think solid eating habits and regular yoga practice – fall by the wayside like Christmas wrapping paper on Boxing Day.

To make it even more difficult to continue doing what you know feels great, many yoga studios and classes (including Prana Flow) take a break over the holiday period.

But it is possible to maintain some semblance of well-being, some centre of being – even in the midst of all the must-dos and temptations and wanna-dos and oh that looks nice!

The trick is to make a decision, a definitive choice, about what you are going to do over the holiday season to feed your well-being every single day.

Yep, every single day.

It doesn’t have to be much.

It might be something as simple as ten minutes of seated meditation. Or ten sun salutations. Or even ten minutes of reading your favourite spiritual text. Ten minutes of journaling.

Make a choice that fills your well, and make it a small choice, something that is so effortless to do every single day that you’re likely to get to the end of your allotted time space and want to do more. In which case you can.

It’s so easy to think that this ten minutes is worthless, or pointless, or won’t make much difference at all – especially when you might be used to doing three or four 90 minute classes every week. But what you’re looking to get out of this time isn’t more flexibility, or more strength, or more anything.

It’s about showing that well-being is a priority in your life, and even the busiest, maddest, craziest time of year, you’ve got time to give to yourself. Because you’re worth it.

And that’s a really valuable concept.

You’ll find as you do this practice every single day that it becomes your centre, your retreat, the place where you connect to your authentic self and find the stillness that will serve you well through the rest of the day.

Which is one reason why you might want to make it the very first thing you do when you get up in the morning.

Take ten minutes, do your practice, and you’ll set the best possible foundation for whatever the day brings you. And later, if more time presents itself, you can always do more.

The beauty of this approach is that rather than being upset or disappointed that your favourite studio or teachers are taking a break, you’re using it as an opportunity to develop your own home practice – which is when the benefits of yoga really start to kick in. Plus, it’s also a chance to think about doing a sadhana – forty days of consistent practice. There’s no better time to start a sadhana than New Year’s, and doing your regular daily practice over the holiday season can be the perfect lead-in.

So this holiday season, stay grounded, stay well, stay centred.

Commit to just ten minutes a day of well-being practice.

You’ll find it may be the best present you get this year – peace, contentment & joy.