3 Tips For Staying True To You This Holiday Season

Love-Hate Holidays

Who doesn't love the holidays? Who doesn't hate them at the same time? While everything feels festive, there can also be a lot of commercially-driven falseness to that festiveness too.

There are also the beliefs that giving gifts is how to best show you love someone, pigging out is the best way to share your happiness, and drinking up is the best way to ride the high of the season (or deal with avoiding the lows).

Self-Love or Selfishness?

What's important is staying true to you and continuing to love and care for yourself, even during the holiday season. If you're in the midst of embracing wellness, you may be challenged and pressured by those around you to go off the wellness wagon, "because it's THE HOLIDAYS! Don't be a downer!"

It can be so easy to do what you don't want to do over the holidays because of this kind of pressure. How do you avoid confusing self-love with selfishness?

First of all, if someone tries to pressure you into eating or drinking something you don't want, or spending money you don't really have on gifts, or participating in any activity that you don't enjoy, then THEY are being selfish by accusing you of selfishiness. It's okay to stay true to you. Those who love you unconditionally will respect your choices. If you are trying to become well, they will want you to be healthy and happy.

3 Tips for Staying True to You

1. Identify what you really WANT to do this season - What foods do you want to eat and not eat? Do you want to drink, and if so, how much and what? What events do you want to go to, anf not go to? Who do you really want to buy gifts for? What is your spending limit overall, and for each person? Who do you want to spend time with? Who do you not want to spend time with? Identifying what you want is the first step to keeping yourself stress-free and well.

2. Focus on what you LOVE about the holidays and find healthy ways to still experience those things - Holidays, like life, shouldn't be about either overindulgence or deprivation. The holidays are a time to celebrate what you love most. Is it the lights? How about taking evening walks around the neighborhood to experience them? Is it the food? Find healthy recipes for your favorite dishes, create them, and share them with your friends and family (without preaching or forcing, just sharing!) Is it the parties? Create a plan for how you can attend a party without sabotaging your goals - maybe it means bringing your own food and drink; maybe it means leaving at a set time so you can get a good night's sleep.

3. Deal with any guilt you feel about putting yourself and your wellness first - Why do you feel that you can't put yourself first? What would happen if you did? Why is your wellness less important than pleasing others? Are you sure others would be upset if you offered new ways of doing things over the holidays, or if you asked that they respect your health goals and personal wishes?

When it comes down to it, you are all you've got. Your first and primary relationship is with yourself. And that is true of every person you know. Each person is responsible for themselves, their feelings, their beliefs, their choices and their reactions. Sometimes being true to you can upset others at first, but what should come after their initial reaction to change is respect for your choices and love for you, no matter what.

Joy - What the Holidays are All About, Right?

Isn't joy and goodwill the whole PURPOSE of the holiday season? If you're traipsing around in Shouldville, how is that joyful? If you give out of "shoulds" and expectations, then it's not authentic. It's sacrificial. Don't sacrifice your wellness just because it's the holidays! Give the best gift you can give to others, and to yourself: a healthy, joyful, authentic you.

Melody Larson is a natural weight loss and holistic wellness coach, law of attraction teacher, published author, and successful entrepreneur offering free wellness tips, spiritual growth advice, and healthy vegan and raw food recipes on her site, wellandawake.com.

Grab her free ebook, 3 Holistic Secrets to Health & Happy Weight Loss, in which she shares her own top personal strategies for losing weight, eating healthy and living happily. Providing useful self development and improvement articles, hynotherapy and counselling writings and other mind help resources online.