wellpdx

Ah yes, Thanksgiving is just a week(ish) away. And as anticipation of the holidays mounts, so do tight shoulders, headaches, and clenched jaws abound. I suppose that's just the universal response to the feeling of impending chaos. And I think that no matter how little or how much we "buy in," we can't help but be affected by what's happening around us.

Everyone wants to sail through gracefully, joyfully and feel fulfilled and happy at the end. And yet, despite those universal desires, most everyone just feels drained and glad the company's gone at the end of the year.

So, what's to be done? Is all lost? Of course not! Like everything, though, it just depends on how bad you want it. How bad, really, do you want to feel like your best self when your guests are gone and you're left with a mess of a house? How bad, really, do you want to be able to wake up the day after an epic night of dreidle or the day after Christmas and think, "Yep, that was the best ever"? I suspect most of us want that pretty badly. And of course it's possible. And of course there's no real "secret" to it. It just takes work (and not even hard work, at that!).

That joyful ease of being we all crave is not a static state of mind, emotion, or physiology. Wellbeing, like most worthwhile things, is something we have to nurture and maintain. It shows up and remains with us through contemplation, breathing, seeing our therapist, maintaining a happy body, and about a hundred other things that mostly get neglected when we get busy and cracked out on stress.

So what is wellbeing worth to you? Ten minutes a day? An hour a week? An hour a day? A hundred dollars? Five hundred dollars? Take some time to think about it. And once you've decided, then all that's left is to make the trade and enjoy your self.