How to Find Peace in a Stressful Holiday Season

The holidays are a time to let go of the trivial cares of life and celebrate the joyful season with our family and friends. Unfortunately, doing that takes a lot of planning. It’s not easy to line up everyone’s schedules, buy presents your loved ones will like, decide who’s hosting and who will bring what foods, and get all of your work done ahead of time so you can take a break without getting behind. And on top of that, we have to roll with all of the unexpected punches life likes to throw at us.

This time of year can get really stressful really fast. 

There is no way around all the coordinating and planning it takes to make the holidays special. The good news is that we don’t need to get rid of all of our stressful responsibilities to find peace. Peace isn’t an external thing. We create it from the inside.

“Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with conflict by peaceful means.”
~ Ronald Reagan

Peace doesn’t come from lacking pain or stress or worry. It comes from approaching life from a balanced, authentic place. Peace is what we feel when we understand our worth and live in a way that is true to our values and beliefs. We achieve that by living authentically and discarding anything that is counterfeit. 

Authentic emotions are emotions that connect, move us toward progress, are motivated by love, and stay true to our priceless worth.

Counterfeit emotions are emotions that disconnect, create a downward spiral of mental paralysis, are motivated by control and fear, and contradict and disrespect our worth.

Peace is the only authentic emotion that doesn’t have a counterfeit. All other emotions have an unhealthy counterpart that imitates them. Lust imitates love, shame imitates guilt, comfort imitates freedom, but peace cannot be mimicked. If you’re feeling peace, you can be sure it’s the real thing.

“Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.”
~ Albert Einstein

Peace is not something you can take from or find in the external world. It’s also not something that the external world can take from you. Peace is built and maintained within. You have power over your peace. 

You can have more peace this holiday season. It is within your power! All you have to do is live more authentically. Find something simple that you can do this Christmas season to be more authentic.

Here are 3 things you could try:

• Commit to being more honest than you usually would be in one interaction every day. Honest communication and kindness do not contradict each other. In fact, it is kind to be honest!
• Practice regulating your anger by stepping away for a few seconds when you notice the anger bubbling up. When we remove ourselves from the triggering situation, we are able to calm our nervous system and get back to thinking clearly.
• When you make a mistake (as we all inevitably do), say this out loud: “I did something dumb, that doesn’t make me dumb. I’m not wrong, the action was wrong.” Substitute “dumb” and “wrong” for whatever adjective is most relevant to your feelings about the mistake. Separating our behavior from our worth helps to create a healthier relationship with mistakes; one that facilitates growth.
  
  

To learn more about living authentically, check out the rest of our blog. If you’re ready to dive in and start your journey to peace, give our self-paced courses a try.

Related articles:

• Perfectly Imperfect: Embracing Growth Over Perfection
• Embracing Life’s Unfairness for Personal Growth
• Vulnerability, the Bullet Train to Connection