Does the thought of Christmas make you break out in a sweat? Does the sight of mince pies and Advent calendars in the shops start your mind racing even when Christmas is over two months away? It’s hard trying to juggle work, being a mum, and Christmas preparations and Christmas overwhelm and anxiety is real. But, there are three things that you can do to create an awesome Christmas and reduce your stress:

• Start with deciding the one thing you must include in your Christmas season.
• Secondly, intentionally create and deepen your connection with yourself, others, the world around you, and the transcendental.
• And lastly, but not least(y) maintain your self-care. Don't scoff. Self-care fatigue may be real, but there are simple ways to include self-care as part of your life and practice self-care at Christmas. 

Does buying Christmas presents stress you out?  

If you love Christmas and the hope and magic it can bring, but buying presents is a nightmare, you are not alone!  

Some years the list of people I thought I just had to get presents for seemed to be never ending -  family, friends, work colleagues, teachers, staff, football coaches, not to  mention my own children the list went on and on.  

Buying Christmas presents is one of the many expectations you can feel at Christmas time and one of the many stressors and tasks that can lead to Christmas overwhelm.  

I have 14 suggestions to help you reduce the stress and anxiety of buying gifts, including what to buy your kids, but first the two most important things to keep in mind when buying Christmas gifts are:
​
🌟 Experiences that contribute to our happiness. Not more stuff! 
🌟The simplest way of making gifts easier is to reduce the number of gifts you buy and the number of people you give gifts too.  

There's one thing that's guaranteed to happen at Christmas...

Waiting...

• Waiting in a queue to purchase a gift
• Waiting in a queue at the shopping centre
• Waiting on the escalator that you would normally power walk down
• Waiting in the car park for a car to leave

And what can happen when you wait?

Frustration, impatience. There's so much to do, why can't everyone just hurry up or move quicker.

Well no matter how much you want that to happen, it's probably not going to.

So what can you do?

Believe it or not, this is a great time to practice tapping into your inner calm.  Here's one way to practice self-care on the go.

Simply roll your shoulders up and back and take a deep breath, then repeat the breathing. Focus your attention inward to your breath instead of outwards towards what is going on around you.

Yep, that's it - simple, on the go self-care that works.

For over 17 years, I have combined research and the experience of working with 1000s of children, adolescents and parents to help other women like you integrate mindfulness and prioritise self-care in their busy lives. You are welcome to book a private consultation to discuss your concerns and your goals and work with me to make the change you are looking for.

Until next time, take care of YOI

​Kim


A reminder this blog is for general information and advice only. It is not designed to replace therapy in any way. If you are experiencing any mental health concern please see your GP, or your mental health therapist, or see if you think I may be a good fit for you.

 Like me, do you feel the need for a pre-Christmas sort out?  It's one of the best strategies for organising your Christmas Gift list.

This is the time of the year I push myself to sort out my house and have a purge.  A few years ago, I worked through the Magic of Tidying Up, and I can tell you one thing – you need to keep on top of it.
 
My family and I have lived in the same house for over 20 years, and when you don’t move regularly there’s not that huge opportunity to cull. 
 
So, on school holidays, and particularly in November I revisit this.  A couple of my aims are to clear a whole bookshelf, one clothes drawer (I have three), and digitalise a filing cabinet drawer.

1. Before you get rid of things, see if they can be recycled – you might be surprised.  As part of the Pre-Christmas cull I take the recycles that I have been collecting to the places that accept them.  

 
Here’s some things that can be recycled (not an exhaustive list), but that you can’t put out with your recycle bin:

• Batteries
• Light globes
• Toothbrushes, dental floss and toothpaste tubes Textas, markers, pens
• Bread Tags
• Printer cartridges and other ewaste  
• Cameras
• Mobile Phones
• Cables (all those ones you no longer know what to do with…)

And paint tins!  Both empty and those who some paint in them.  I think we have about 20 in the shed. Note: I updated the links in this in 2023 and have only just taken these paint tins to the paint drop off centre!  Take this as hope that you will get there eventually.
 
To find out where you can recycle many of these items have a look at https://recyclingnearyou.com.au and https://www.terracycle.com/en-AU and your local council website. 

Happy culling

Kim

Updated 20th October 2023

Gift giving is a big part of Christmas.  But what gift would you choose for yourself?
As part of the 12 gifts of Christmas series, I asked someone what gift they wanted to give themselves, they said gratitude sounded boring.  
 
So what would you give yourself?
 
They didn’t hesitate – self-confidence.
 
So that is today’s gift we give to you.
 
The gift of believing in yourself and allowing yourself to do what is important to you.
 
Christmas can be a huge time of self-doubt and events that seem to conspire to delete our self-confidence.  Personally when I see people go out to fun work events, or doing wonderful things with their family I can hear this nagging voice that says “see that, why aren’t you doing that?  Why don’t you have the ability to make things that like that happen”.