Holiday Time with the Family? 5 Ways Mindfulness Can Help Keep Things Peaceful

During the holidays, we wish each other joy and peace. Often, loudly, and sometimes even in song.

But many of us associate our holiday family gatherings with stress and anxiety.

Holiday time with the family can feel overwhelming. We are forced to spend a lot of time in the company of people we may have unresolved conflicts with. We are cooped up in a confined space, with nothing specific to do, and our interactions are often fuelled by alcohol.

How can we keep calm?

How can we keep things peaceful, or at least as peaceful as possible?

Here are 5 tips for applying mindfulness to holiday times with the family.

1. Care for yourself

Mindfulness starts with you.

Holiday time is not just for others, it is for everyone, including you.

Don’t throw out your mindfulness practice just when it can help you the most.

Take time out to breathe. Leave the crowded room and go to a safe place, just for a few minutes.

Exhale slowly, gently hold your breath, inhale slowly. Repeat. If you can combine this with going outdoors and connecting with nature, even better.

If there really is no safe space to retreat to during your holiday time with relatives, try a mini-mindfulness exercise. Look out of the window, or at a calming picture, even if it is just a piece of wrapping paper, and breathe deeply just for one minute.

Do this as often as you feel like it.

If your holiday time is spent in a toxic environment where you aren’t even allowed to breathe in peace for one minute, you may have to set stronger boundaries for your own protection.

2. Care for others – in a new way

According to recent studies, the main reason why it is so difficult to give the ‘right’ holiday gift lies in the difference between the way we see others and the way they see themselves.

As a mindfulness exercise, test this out with your favorite uncle – or maybe with your least favorite uncle. What can you find out about him through the evidence of his holiday presents?

Try to extend your caring mindfulness further. Not as a chore or duty, but as an interesting experiment.

Observe your uncle as if you’ve never met him before. Can you make a good guess at his self-image?

If you can, start a brand new conversation with him. Don’t judge. Don’t jump to conclusions.

Caring starts with listening and constructive curiosity.

3. Detach from fears and expectations

What really spoils your enjoyment of holiday time with the family are your own fears and expectations–anxious thoughts and fantasies about the future.

This doesn’t mean that your fears are unfounded. They probably stem from all-too-real negative experiences during previous holiday times. Your expectations are based on your highest hopes and dreams.

But both prevent you from seeing what actually is, right now.

Try to exercise mindfulness by detaching from the movie projections in your head and connecting with what is going on around you.

Carefully, with care both for others and for yourself.

This will go a long way to keeping things peaceful.

4. Focus on your senses

The main gateway to mindfulness meditation is an openness to the world of the senses. And during holiday time, there is plenty of opportunity for that.

Close your eyes for a moment and try to listen to the melodies of the voices around you instead of the often frustrating content of what they are saying.

Take in the abundant and varied smells of holiday food.

Explore the memories and images they evoke. But try not to follow them too much. Stay open. Take a few deep breaths.

Open your eyes again. Look at the first thing you can see as if you had never seen it before. Take in the colors, the shapes.

Compliment the cooks and decorators for their sensory contributions to holiday joy.

Whenever the holiday time with your family threatens to take away your peace, focus on the world of the senses again.

5. Live in the present

The present is the only reality we have.

You are alive, right here, right now.

The world around you and the world inside you are miraculous and astonishing in every moment.

Nobody can take that away from you.

The present life is your life.

Mindfulness can help a lot to make your holiday time more peaceful and joyful.

But sometimes, particularly in toxic families, it can become very hard to connect with your own self. Old patterns take over and old toxic relationships overwhelm your holiday spirit.

Be gentle and caring with yourself. Mindfulness is there for you, not the other way round. And you can return to it anytime you want.