🎄Navigating the Christmas Season to keep you mentally and physically well...Part 1

Setting boundaries for yourself and your family is always important but around this time of the year when you could potentially be surrounded by more friends and family it’s important to work out what boundaries you will put in place for your mental and physical well being.💪🏻

Forced affection boundaries

Right from a little kid your parents, out of politeness, may have forced you to give old Uncle John or Aunty Betty a kiss and hug when you see him, but that’s always made you feel really uncomfortable. Perhaps the hugs go for too long, or their hands are wondering a little too much and it doesn’t feel right for you, or maybe they go in for the big kiss on your lips. Whatever the reason is, and there might not be a physical reason, they just creep you out and you don’t feel safe around them. Well, this is your intuition (superconscious) giving you a message, and you should listen to that little voice that is speaking up and telling you that something isn’t right about that situation.

Consciously you might not understand what it means, after all Uncle John or Aunty Betty has been around you all your life and your parents have always invited them to all the family gatherings, so they must be okay. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case and you don’t necessarily need to understand why your intuition is giving you a message to stay away from them. You just need to trust your intuition because your intuition knows what is best for you. No one else should tell you how to feel about someone or should tell you to give and receive ‘affection’ from someone you don’t want to.

This is especially not okay with our children too. Allow your children to listen to their own intuition and make their own choices on whether they want to hug and kiss people. When you insist that they show affection to someone they don’t want to, you are teaching them to ignore their intuition, which is our inner compass and tool to keep us safe, and how they feel isn’t important and it’s okay for people to touch them even when they don’t want them too.

Encourage your children to be connected to and always listen to their intuition because it will always keep them safe. Let’s look at Santa as an example, we have the best intentions when we tell our kids to get on Santa’s lap, talk to him and have a photo taken. Then they get a little Christmas hat as a gift which further cements in the belief that 'when I do as I’m told and go against everything my body is telling me not to do, I will be rewarded for it.' I’ll be the first one to put my hand up and say I’m guilty of this one. What the heck was I thinking? I guess if I want to be honest, I wasn’t thinking. My goal was for the kids to have a wonderful magical experience and the photo to show it. But let’s face it, how many times have we seen photos of kids crying on Santa’s lap?🎅🏻

So, this Christmas season take the time to check in with yourself and see what is going to feel safe for you at all the upcoming Christmas festivities. Do you have work colleagues, family or friends who are a bit too touchy feely? Or perhaps you just don’t like some of these people and the idea of spending time with them makes your skin crawl. If any of this rings true for you, then now is the time to set boundaries before the season is upon us. What are you prepared to accept or not accept? How will you enforce these new boundaries and what are you prepared to do to keep these boundaries in place? Setting boundaries can sometimes feel hard because there can be the backlash from other people and they can feel foreign because you’ve never actually set them before. But here’s the thing, if you listen to other people who are trying to persuade you to go to the party where the creepy work colleague is or when Mum tells you that Uncle John is harmless, then you are actually invalidating your own feelings (dismissing your intuition) and validating their behaviour. What you are effectively doing is saying that you don’t matter enough and it’s okay for people to treat you like that. Now check in with yourself with that knowledge and see how it feels!

Remember that people don’t have to like your boundaries, but they need to respect them.

However you choose to spend your Christmas season is perfect just for you and I wish you the happiest and safest Christmas full of limitless abundance. 🎄