Make it the Kind of Christmas YOU Want

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Are You a Victim of Your Own Christmas?
by Susan Dunn, M.A., The EQ Coach

This article is currently appearing HERE.

We’re coming down to the wire. How’s it feeling to you? This is a time when you can process what you'll do differently next year, or a time when you can pause and remember what worked and didn't work last year ... and change what you're doing. Either way it works.

So, how is it feeling to you right now?

Why do I ask that? Well, whatever you’re celebrating, and whatever your religious orientation, Christmas is a celebration, a celebration that for many has a spiritual basis to it. That is, it’s supposed to be merry, at the least, and meaningful at the most. What’s it for you this year?

There may not be much you can do to put on the brakes now, but note how you’re feeling so you can see how it’s working for you. This has to be tested against the purpose of this celebration, which is personal to each of us, but surely it isn’t to be exhausted, stressed, hateful, resentful, materialistic, imprudent, overwhelmed, obligatory, or “just going through the motions.” If you’re feeling “the thrill is gone,” it’s time to get mindful. Don’t be the victim of your own holiday.

Remember, it’s all about choice. Intentionality is the EQ competency for the holidays. What do you intend? How do your intend to feel? What do you intend to accomplish?

If you feel like you want to stop the world and get off, take note. When Christmas is over, please process for next year.

Ask yourself:

1. What worked and what didn’t? In other words, what makes you feel good. Feeling good can be pleasure, joy, but also the feeling of a job well done.

2. What did I do out of obligation, or to keep up with the Joneses that needs to be let go next year?

3. Did I feel the way I wanted to? If not, what will I do differently next year?

4. Take each element and analyze it - - did you really enjoy it, or were you just going through the paces? Was it “because we’ve always done it this way”?

5. Is there some tradition that’s outworn its welcome? If so, you can eliminate it. Kiss it goodbye, remembering it fondly, but let it go.

6. Whether you’re a parent, grandparent, or uncle or aunt, there are children around. What kind of example are you setting? If you yell at your kid because you’re stressed out over Christmas, ho ho ho?

7. How materialistic were your gifts? How much did you bust your budget? Were you satisfied with how much you spent, or did you feel guilty, and it caused fights with your spouse? You can choose to change this next year.

8. Did you spend time the way you wanted to? Did you spend time with the people you wanted to be with? Whether or not its family, you have a choice.

9. Did you actually have time to enjoy each thing - the smells, the touches, the sights, the sounds? Or were you like a hamster on his wheel? One of my clients says she takes one night off to just sit in front of the Christmas tree looking at the lights and listening to her favorite Christmas music. (Seems like it would be nice to work in more than ONE night for that ...)

10. What part of the negatives was due to your attitude rather than external events or circumstances? Controlling your mood and emotions with emotional intelligence can add tremendously to your life, not just at Christmas time.

The best gift in life is to be able to learn from your experiences and this is a great time to apply this -- either backward, or going forward. If you don’t like what’s going on, don’t be a victim of your own circumstances or attitude. Change one or both!

About the Author

Susan Dunn, MA, The EQ Coach, http://www.susandunn.cc, mailto:sdunn@susandunn.cc . Individual coaching, business programs, Internet courses, and ebooks around emotional intelligence for your health, wealth and happiness. EQ Alive! #1 rated coach certification program, training worldwide. It’s simple, affordable, fast and has no residency requirement. Email for more information, and for fr** EQ ezine.

Let me help you with a free mini-coaching session. Email sdunn@susandunn.cc to set up your time.

How to Have a Peaceful, Meaningful Christmas

My article, "Post Holiday Blues" is featured in an ebook you may want to read. It's called HOLIDAY BLUES GUIDE, by Barbara Kilikevicius, written "for all who seek solace during the Christmas season."

Post Holiday Blues
By, Susan Dunn, MA

“You gotta pay the price,” one of my clients is always telling me. She’s referring to what is a law of physics, and also the way things work – what goes up must come down.

The higher your Christmas, the more exciting, chaotic and tumultuous, the more likely you’ll be tumbling down just as far. Why? According to sychoneuroimmunologist (big word meaning the effect of brain and emotions on health, i.e., immunology), Paul Pearsall, Ph.D., our smart bodies want to establish equilibrium. Picture a graph on a midline. The midline is calm, routine. We can get very happy
and go up; or very unhappy and go down. Therefore, if our emotions go way up, there will come a time when our inner wisdom brings us down low, so we settle back into that middle space.

Does this mean if you have a terrible grief or depression, you can expect to be that happy at some time in the future? I’ve seen it happen. It’s a tenet of Emotional Intelligence that if you don’t fully experience one emotion, you stuff down ALL emotions. In other words, if you face grief and go through it, not around it, you will carve out a space to be filled with happiness. If you don’t, you shut down, and
become numb, in which case you don’t feel the bad, but you also don’t feel the good, and greatly limit your experience of life.

So, if you’re having a “down” period now what do you do? First of all, accept it. You can last it out. To speed it on its way:

1. Get active. Exercise an extra hour. It creates physical energy, it clears the mind, and flushes out toxic emotions. Do it especially if you don’t feel like it.

2. If you’re an introvert you may prefer meditation, yoga or Tai Chi.

3. Clean your house from top to bottom, doing the physical work yourself. Do it like a ritual, that is, with meaning. This is to get rid of the yuch, and make room for the sunshine. This is a tradition in many cultures at the New Year for a reason – because of what we’re all going through right now! Throw stuff out, sweep toward the doors, vacuum then take the bag out and dump it in the garbage, wash the furniture with something like Murphy’s soap.

4. Accept quiet times and go with the flow. Curl up by the fire and read good books. Coddle yourself with extra long baths with special lotions. Get your nails done. Get massages. Fix yourself a warm breakfast. It’s kind of a hibernating time anyway.

5. Jump-start your thinking brain. Start a new course. If you’re an extrovert, go to community ed classes. If you’re an introvert, enjoy yourself on the Internet with distance learning courses and take teleclasses.

6. Start a new intellectual project at work and at home. Start a new physical project at home - build a greenhouse, paint the spare bedroom.

7. Start anything new – new health club, new piano lessons, coaching, fencing lessons, new hairstyle, new friendship, new career.

8. If you live in an area where this is high allergy-time (such as Texas), make adjustments to your diet, because it’s cumulative - pollen PLUS diet PLUS dust and mold inside your house. Clean your air ducts.

9. Laugh. One simple exercise is to put a pencil in your teeth crosswise. This makes the muscles of your face into a smile, and this helps our bodies. It gives us the same great relief a good laugh does.

10. Don’t fight it. There is no need to appear “Miss Congeniality” when you aren’t feeling that way. It’s okay to be in a quiet place. Also, because this is the peak of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), get more sunshine. Exercise outside. Take a Caribbean cruise. When the sun crosses the bed in the spare bedroom, go lie down and soak up the rays.

Change is the only thing that stays constant, so know that your mood will eventually find its place. If you are seriously depressed, check with your personal health care professional.

Susan Dunn, M.A. (http://www.susandunn.cc/), individual coaching, coach
certification program, ebooks and seminars for mindful living and success.

Please contact me for coaching during this time! It's one of my specialties. sdunn@susandunn.cc . Coaching by email, phone and in person. Payment accepted by personal check, credit card, or PayPal.

Barbara writes in the introduction:
, emotional

My original intent was to add a small subchapter in my book A Mindful Christmas ~ How to Create a Meaningful, Peaceful Holiday. After hearing from many experts I decided to put together this free guide for anyone that needs some relief now. If you suffer from the holiday blues or know someone that does then this guide is for you. Please feel free to print this out or send anyone our way via the website http://www.amindfulchristmas.com to
download a free copy of this ebook themselves.

May it be a peaceful and meaningful season for you and yours. Let me help you if I can.

Susan

FOR CHRISTMAS MUSIC SELECTIONS THAT SOOTHE, AND USING THE POWER OF MUSIC TO MAKE YOUR HOLIDAYS PEACEFUL AND MEANINGFUL, VISIT CLUB VIVO PER LEI - I live for music.

How to Use the Holidays

If you'd like to learn more about your emotions -- get ready for the lessons!

The planet Mars is coming as close to earth as it gets in mid-November. We think we saw it the other night, big and bright. It's fitting because I just read Clousewitz on War, and A History of Warfare, by John Keegan. I also brushed up on my emotional intelligence. Why?

Because Mars is named for the god of War, and war has been around a long time - anger, violence, arguments, conflict - but like any energy, this energy can be used for good things, or bad things. It's self-protective (we fight to protect ourselves or our loved ones, or our possessions), but if you let this energy get out of hand, or misinterpret or over-react to threats, you miss all the better ways to manifest your "warrior spirit."

In the coming weeks we will have the holidays and the political scene, football, our relationships and our work situations to explore this energy with. How you experience the holidays will depend on how prepared you are -- emotionally. It is a time of intense extremes. Coaching can help you keep perspective. I'll be available all through the holidays for sessions. Email me at sdunn@susandunn.cc .

This intense time of year can make us more prone to temper tantrums, outbursts, violence, and even cruelty. But it can also bring fighting spirit for good things, bravery and even heroic acts.

Our emotional energy needs to be understood and modulated.

Beware of:

• Addictions rearing their ugly heads
• All the negative emotions - anger, guilt, worry and fear
• Extreme highs and extreme lows
• Fighting
• Over-reactions - including rescuing and over-helping
• Increased stress from hiding anger and negative energy we don't know how to deal with
• Intense startups that exhaust us and then peter our (one-week exercise program, the 2-day "diet")
• Fanaticism and proselytizing
• Stress, stress, stress - chemicals that exhaust and stress you and related health problems, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

Remember that unless you trap them, emotions come and go. Don't FOCUS on the downside, keep centered, focus on the good, and "just say no" to the emotional rollercoaster. In other words don't focus on what you fear and/or want to avoid; that gives it power and traps it. Focus instead on good outcomes and positive things.

Email me @ sdunn@susandunn.cc for my
TIPS FOR COPING with THE HOLIDAYS.

Email consultation, phone, THE EQ COURSE

Emotional Intelligence: The Kiss

THE SECRET IS EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

It's so easy once you get the secret --- that we are our emotions. And our emotions come from our thoughts. There is no emotion that doesn't have a thought attached to it. Our perceptions of life, our past experiences and emotions attached to them, the neuronal firing patterns we have developed in our brains, and our particular slice of reality.

Healing is about emotions. It's not all "in your head," but it IS all in your brain -- and, thanks to the vagus nerve, which extends from the brain down into the intestines -- in your stomach and intestines. Actually in every cell of your body, according the Candace Pert, Ph.D., who is one of the people largely responsible for the development of Prozac.

But why not learn, with emotional intelligence, to make use of your body/brain's OWN "prozac."

It's easy with emotional intelligence. It's the secret.

The thoughts propel the feelings. That's the secret. This video, actually, contains only words. Watch it and see how you feel, how you WOULD feel if you amped up your emotional INTELLIGENCE:



Mailto:sdunn@susandunn.cc for a free ezine about emotional intelligence.

IN MEMORIAM: Chettie
One of the sweetest spirits who ever graced this earth.
9-15-78 - 4-1-99

BLOW A KISS, CHETTIE

Step-Parenting Requires Emotional Intelligence

Career Coaching is often tax deductiblae (see your personal accountant for tax information. Signup and pay no; start after the first of the year.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IS NOT A FAD. IT IS BECOMING A DEMAND IN THE WORKPLACE. Add EQ certification to your resume in 2007. Employers are looking for it.

See my articles published on the following sites today:

Family Spring Outing: Wildflowers in TexasAuthor: Susan Dunn, MA, Life and EQ Coach Looking for a great weekend outing for the family? Come see the wildflowers in Texas in the spring. The highway medians and hillsides are full of color – bright red, yellow and blue, ...Flower Delivery Send Flower Shop - http://www.abblogger.com/flowershop/

Step-Parenting Problems at the HolidaysStep-Parenting Problems at the Holidays by Susan Dunn, MA, Professional Life Coach Dear EQ Coach: My husband...Stepfamily Zone - http://www.stepfamily.asn.au

When Are You Planning to “Get Old”?Apparently it’s up to you and I wouldn’t hang on to old stereotypes. Susan Dunn, The EQ Coach, offers positive psychology coaching and Internet courses on emotional intelligence, optimism and strengths. Email for FREE ezine.stressource.com - http://www.stressource.com

Two Danish Contemporary Composers: J rgen Jersild & Niels La CourBy markh Susan Dunn, The EQ Coach, GLOBAL EQ. Emotional intelligence coaching to enhance all areas of your life - career, relationships, midlife transition, resilience, self-esteem, parenting. EQ Alive! - excellent, accelerated, affordable EQ ...Herb Garden - http://freeblogs.blogs-4-free.com/HerbGarden.blog

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How are the holidays going for you? Take a minute and take an honest look. Christmas is a litmus test for how you handle stress and emotion.

Are you stressed out, overwhelmed, weepy, crabby, bitter, angry, hostile, resentful, snapping at everyone, withdrawn and want to be left alone, feel like canceling the whole thing, fighting with your family over the same old things, dreading the holiday get-togethers, or shut down completely?

Take THE EQ COURSE now, and next Christmas will be different. So will the year in between!