3 Remedies for “Post Holiday Monday Blues”

It’s Monday.

Holidays are history.

We’re standing in our present and creating our 2010.

And the reality of post holiday Monday may be just setting in right about now with our thoughts already piling high with all the stuff we didn’t do that we wished we would have like:

• spent more time with more family
• sent out thank you cards
• made an effort to see those friends
• had more fun
• stuck to our New Year’s resolution
• get that to do list done once and for all.

And on and on and on.

Pretty soon before mid morning and “tidings of comfort and joy” have turned into gripings of discomfort and whoa over all the stuff that we didn’t get done we think we should have.

And before we know it we’re stuck in self dumping and criticism and condemning.

Okay.

Whoa.

Pause.

Breathe.

Sssssssh.

Permission to take a deep breathe and stop the “know I shoulda’s” “if only I coulda’s” and the “wished I wouldas.”

Gentle reminder: It’s vital to throw out the condemning voice, remember? (hint hint: read my post from Sunday).

When thoughts start the chaotic running around blaring all the things we ‘shoulda-coulda-wished-I woulda’ — we gotta take over, jump in and redirect thoughts. Self condemning never leads to productive action. Never.

The shoulda-coulda-wished I woulda’s really have this way of making us feel burdened, heavy, down, no matter how much joy we’ve just experienced.

Owning our right to not let that type of thinking suck us into its whirlpool is vital.

So here are some quick and easy tips that help me remedy the post holiday blues.

1) It’s never too late to say thank you

No matter if we received a gift one month ago or just last week, who-ever we want to reach out to to thank, who-ever we want to still call and wish Happy New Year, we absolutely can.  There’s no missed opportunity. Everyone appreciates kindnesses and no one but our internal condemning voice is barking that we ‘should have’ done this already.

PS. Everyone is thinking about who they didn’t get in touch with that they wished they did, oh, I’d say at least for the first week of post holiday vacation. It may just turn out who we want to connect with is thinking the same thing!

Make the call!

Send the thank you note!

I had a brief chat with a friend last night just to touch base and check in and find out how her holiday went. The first thing she said was “Would ya believe I waited to the last minute to do my thank you’s to my relatives? ”

I paused. I thought for a moment: Did I ask her what she was doing?

Nope. I’d asked how her holiday was.

Yet she was kinda so caught up in being frustrated with herself she couldn’t hear my ask. She only offered what she was regretting.

I interrupted and butt in, because I’m good at that. I’m rude that way. 🙂

Girlfriend, I asked, “Do you hear yourself?”

Yes, isn’t it awful? (She thought I was accusing her of being a nilly for not having her thank-you’s done).

I jumped in: No. When do we ever run out of time to thank some one?

She immediately jumped out of the land of  regret and felt freer.

I know simple, right?

Keep it there. It’s never too late to thank some one or say Happy New Year or reconnect.

2) Anything that we need to do, we still can.

We humans love order and organization but we fight it too.

And we also love creating impractical to do lists that our real selves know well and good we’ll be just fine if we maybe accomplish 1/3 of that on our vacay.

So right now…all that self babble ruminating over all we didn’t accomplish in the two whole weeks (or whatever amount of time we had for vacation).

Same thing: squelch the condemner.

Take a few moments…pause….breathe…still thoughts.

Whatever is ours to do we can know this moment we will know which are the most vital and which are the not so vital.

Make a list. (simple)

Feel out what’s doable right now vs later in the week (simple).

Focus on getting what we need to done will accomplish doing just that–getting it done. And once done, there’s no room in thought to wail over what we didn’t do. I betcha you’ll accomplish that whole list before the week’s out. (the vital stuff anyway).

My holiday to do list was so full and jam packed of things I wanted to perfect on all my social media platforms and and and….And so, while I accomplished maybe 10 things outa 50 🙂 I’m now resuming those tasks….gently…with resolve…not with beating myself up. Big difference. 🙂

Anything we need to do we still can.

3) Resolve to do something childlike each day.

Okay, this one’s a biggie and not so obvious.

I’ve spent enough post holiday weeks realizing that sometimes I can’t quite put my finger on why the heaviness of heart or the feeling of burden starts to loom.

Recently, I think I’ve figured out something huge (for me).

When on holiday, we become childlike and full of wonder. We break out of rigidity and routines, have to’s and must do’s.

And we play.

And we relax.

And we create.

And we play.

And we relax.

Okay.

My point: feeling like a child is liberating. But it doesn’t have to be only during holidays when we dress up or play games or play with our children or pets.

We can take moments each day for our very own “recess” and make it an every day goal…a natural part of our day.

There’s  good reason why most public schools ensure children have recess: play is vital.

So resolving to give ourselves recess daily will help us feel childlike more frequently.

Maybe over the holiday we hiked, made snow angels, baked cookies and licked the batter with your fingers, sang in an acapella group, framed a print, or took wacky videos…..

Whatever the fun childlike wonder ways we played and whatever ways we feel natural doing, we can give ourselves permission to have recess and be childlike. 🙂 Just take a peak at the two elephants playing in the photo. Fun, huh? 🙂

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So there ya go…my 3 remedies for post-holiday blues.

What’s your take? Have some other tips to keep the post holiday heavies away? Please share.

Thanks for being here….and have fun !!!