You want this year to be different. And it can be! You’re invited to join us in this year’s challenge to give yourself a more centered season. Every week, we bring a new challenge to help you boost your resilience, calm your thoughts, and inspire your efforts to be the best you during the busiest time of year.
This week: Three ways for you to reconnect with the people you always mean to.
“If you can’t say it at Christmas, when can you?”
This line is both loved and reviled by anyone who’s seen the 2003 movie Love, Actually. It’s a theme of the movie— a sweet, smitten receptionist says it to her boss, a young man tells a married woman about his hopeless crush on her, and a British man and Portuguese woman manage to say ”I love you” to each other on Christmas Eve.
The holiday season is a great time to reach out and reconnect with others. When you celebrate genuine connection, you make your holidays (and your life) more meaningful and resilient.
Here are three tips to help you reach out now.
Make someone feel special. One of our favorite quotes comes from the late, great Maya Angelou: “Be the rainbow in someone else’s cloud.” It doesn’t have to be an expensive or grand gesture—send a card, buy flowers, or simply pick up the phone. Let someone know he or she is loved. (Read this inspiring story from Paula Rizzo, author of Listful Thinking, on the action she took to make sure the people in her life felt loved.)
Mend an old hurt. It doesn’t matter who started it—this is your chance to rebuild the relationship. And it can be as simple as saying, “I’m sorry and I’ve missed you.” It could be in person, over the phone, or through a note in the mail. However you choose to reach out, you’re doing two things at once: making it possible to connect again, and freeing yourself from an emotional drain on your energy.
(Read more on how to forgive, especially when no one’s to blame.)
Reconnect with yourself. When was the last time you did something that made you simply and completely happy? This week, put it on the calendar. Reconnecting with what gives you joy will boost your energy for the rest of the holidays.
(Read more on using art to reconnect to your sense of joy.)
