Give yourself a gift this holiday season and choose a mindset filled with “Gratitude” and delight in the impact of your choice. Happy Holidays!
The holiday season is here when many can step away from the daily pressures of work to rest, recharge, and spend quality time with family and friends. If your family is anything like mine, it is far from being picture-perfect. Whether time spent with them is enjoyable or not is completely up to me.
Have you ever read the book or seen the movie How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss? The story depicts the very thing we all can do to ensure this holiday season is filled with more joy, love and awe, despite any irritating idiosyncrasies or dysfunctional family dynamics. It simply comes down to our mindset.
Mindset is a choice! It impacts what we focus on and what we say and do which determines the value of the experiences we create. It’s a physiological fact – where the focus goes, the energy flows, and what we focus on grows.
When the grumpy green Grinch from Mount Crumpit shifts his mindset about the cheerful residents of Whoville, his experience transforms from deceitful, decrepit, depleting, and small-hearted to focusing on gratitude, love, and awe, his heart fills with joy and grows three sizes.
This holiday season, to ensure all your holiday gatherings bring you joy, despite who is there and how they show up, it starts with your mindset. Neuroscientists have proven practicing thoughts and actions of gratitude increases dopamine and serotonin—neurotransmitters linked to well-being and connection.
It’s your choice, focus on all the things your family and friends do that are frustrating, or be pre-emptive by engaging with a mindset of Gratitude, Love, and Awe for our families and their dynamics, warts, and all, and enjoy how your heart expands. What we focus on grows-spread the Joy this holiday season.