In this week’s video (above), am sharing some simple ways to bring more warmth and light into the days and weeks ahead.
It’s so easy to get caught up in societal pressures about idyllic fictional celebrations rather than using the time to connect with loved ones and ourselves and thinking about what we want to do to celebrate or not.
Bringing more light and warmth into your environment
By spending a little time lighting candles, arranging fairy lights, salt lamps etc, it creates a sense of warmth that lifts the spirits and heart, welcoming guests and that part of ourselves that needs sanctuary and cosiness.
Time travel
Or, in NLP terms, “future pacing” – imagining yourself after Christmas and thinking about, in an ideal world, what you’d be enjoying remembering. How can you make these memories more likely? How might you plan for them? How might you let loved ones know what they can do to ease your Christmas? How can you be aware of old roles you might get sucked into and, with more consciousness around it, avoid that drama?
Bringing more light energy into all your interactions
I share a simple meditation from Energetic NLP in the video to help you release those energies that no longer serve you and instead connect with those light, healing, warm, peaceful and joyful energies that can ease your way through anything. This simple energy shift, with practice, can be so helpful during stressful family dinners.
Sending light, Metta, Loving Kindness to the people we feel helpless about
I didn’t talk about this in the video because I’d have started blubbing again. I don’t think this is ENOUGH. I don’t know if I’d be brave enough to stand up on an aeroplane to stop someone being deported and potentially killed. I do know that sending Metta (Loving Kindness) to people far braver than me and for people who are so vulnerable makes me feel better than doing nothing.
I also believe that sending more Metta to people whose policies I despise (advanced practice) is a greater act of resistance and peace than adding more hatred into the ether. We are all connected. I was raised Catholic and while I haven’t been for decades, I still light candles with intentions and this is another form of sending that love, that compassion, that hope… I want to become braver and to do more to help make the world a kinder, safer place for EVERYONE and, for now, this is what’s helping me.
What helps YOU bring more light and warmth into these dark days and long nights?
You might want to journal some ideas or share them here or elsewhere. Am reminded again of the Chinese proverb that became the slogan for Amnesty International:
Big love,
