Women Lifestyle, Fashion, Health, Beauty and Personality

As much as some people love the holiday season, most people are increasingly feeling stressed as the holidays approach. Added to the normal list of duties in our everyday lives is the pressure of shopping, spending, and socializing. We pay a high emotional toll to meet the demands and expectations that we place on ourselves throughout the holiday season. We turn to the excess sweets or alcohol available to soothe the inner depletion and exhaustion we feel. Yet in the end, those coping strategies just make us feel even emptier inside.

When we feel depleted from the inside out, we are living our lives from the perspective of ?lack?. In essence, we are creating an internal form of poverty. It is our inner sense of poverty that makes us feel like we have to give of ourselves to a degree in which we do not feel good. We do this by saying ?yes? to more than we can handle, not asking for help and spending more than we can afford. All of this is rooted in an old and familiar internal struggle of trying to be enough to everyone who is a part of our lives. We think that by giving more of ourselves physically, emotionally or financially, we will earn the acceptance and love that we so desire. Yet, the validation that we receive from others only fills us temporarily, which is why we feel the need to do and give more. This vicious cycle continues and always leads us back to this inner poverty state.

This season, we have an option to give ourselves a gift. This is the gift of inner abundance. We can give to ourselves by setting boundaries that feel good and right to our essence. We can say ?no? to an excess of activity and ?yes? to those that nurture our souls. We can creatively find different solutions when we feel taxed by a holiday tradition that no longer works or feels good. We can set a budget that feels loving, not only to those we want to give to, but to ourselves as well.

If setting boundaries over the holidays brings up images of Scrooge, know that feeling is the workings of your fear. Your fears want to keep you small and a part of a cycle that limits you. Your fears keep you trapped from being able to make change. Your essence, on the other hand, wants you to authentically give and be full of joy over the holidays.

Our essence reminds us that we are all one, which makes us want to share our riches (in whatever form we have them) with others who do not. Maybe we do not have a lot of money, yet we have a family rich in love that includes others who do not have family during the holiday season. Whatever the form our abundance comes in, our essence desires us to share.

When we authentically give, we can give even more of ourselves than we ever could when we were depleted. Think of the airplane rule for parents in emergency situations. When the air mask comes down from the ceiling, the parent is supposed to put the mask on first before helping a child. The reason, as we all know, is that if we cannot breathe, we cannot be of service to anyone.

Allow yourself to breathe this holiday by creating a holiday that works for you. Watch as you come back to the magic of what the holidays truly mean. Feel the pleasure of authentically giving. The expansiveness of what we give is overwhelming when it truly comes from our hearts.

Wishing you abundance in all its forms this season and always!

For more information on Michelle or to take her quiz ?Are You Surviving Life or Truly Living??please visit www.MichelleBersell.com.