Chances are that right about now the Christmas season is getting the best of you. At least that's how it's going at my house. Just last night I suggested to my husband and kids -- amid the fighting over who opens which door on the Advent calendar and who hangs which ornament on the Christmas tree -- that maybe we should just pack it in and pretend there's no Christmas this year, which is kind of missing the whole "reason for the season" in a pretty glaring way. So we tried to regroup and declare a do-over on the lead-up to Christmas.
If you're experiencing any of the same symptoms -- crankiness, stress and a definite lack of interior serenity -- there are some concrete things you can do to restore the calm and shut out the chaos in a season that can be more psychologically debilitating than spiritually renewing. I had to re-read my own new book, "Everyday Divine: A Catholic Guide to Active Spirituality," just to get up the courage to start my Christmas shopping.
Here are five ways to bring a sense of balance and peace to your otherwise harried and off-kilter Christmas season -- and every other season:
- Stop multi-tasking now. No, really, right now. Put down whatever else you're doing and just focus on one thing at a time. Although multi-tasking can make us feel efficient -- Look how much I'm getting done all at once! -- it's anything but, and it begins to eat away at our inner peacefulness in a subversive kind of way. So the first step to becoming less fragmented and more whole is to become aware of all those times you multi-task, and start cutting back. Go cold turkey, if you can. If you're going to talk to your child, don't read email at the same time. If you're going to eat dinner, don't watch TV at the same time. Our new motto for the rest of this month needs to be, "One thing at a time, all the time."
Nothing on this list will take more than five minutes out of your day at any given time, and some won't take any time at all, but put them all together and you've got a recipe for true transformation. So what are you waiting for? Give yourself the best gift this Christmas: inner peace. No shopping required.
Mary DeTurris Poust is the author of Everyday Divine: A Catholic Guide to Active Spirituality. She blogs at www.notstrictlyspiritual.com