Yoga for the Holidays: 2010

The holidays are a stressful time for anyone. Firstly, how do you manage your time when everyone wants a piece? Then how do you balance the desire to give the perfect gift with the sinking feeling you're perpetuating an exploitative commercialism and/or materialism? The weather outside is frightful, and your exercise regimen has left the building. Managing your money in these uneasy economic times is pretty stressful as well, but perhaps the most stressful is knowing you have a number of social events coming up that you may dread.



Company Christmas parties, extended family situations, they all add to the stress. Even if your upbringing was nearly perfect, you may still be unsettled by the fact you fall into old roles when you are in the old environment. Yoga can help give you tools to ease your way through all of these situations.

Yoga Journal's November 2010 issue has a great article by Sally Kempton, "Branching Out," on how to avoid getting stuck in old behavioral patterns when you're home for the holidays. While the article has many great tips, and I strongly recommend reading it in entirety, there are a couple in particular, paraphrased below, that I think are especially interesting:
"Mindful observation": be aware of what in the situation is setting you off and how you are responding. Interactions are just as much about your reaction as the situation itself.
"Cultivate the opposite thought": If you are thinking "I hate when x does such and such..." reroute that energy towards "but I really love that x does ..."
She also suggests to approach each interaction with your family as a learning ground. My uncle likes to say that your family can push your buttons because they are the ones who installed them. How much of your inner workings and your sense of self are built upon the actions and reactions of your family members? Using the environment of your family to explore the topography of your inner landscape can reveal things you didn't know about yourself. Viewing each interaction as a lesson to be learned takes the value of positive or negative out of the equation. If you open yourself to learning from the experience, then nothing can be truly negative.

That seems to be the theory at least. I'm interested in seeing how these concepts can be practically applied. How have you done? Write back with your thoughts!