It’s Christmas. What Are You Doing to Yourself?

by Susan Dunn, MA, The EQ Coach

I love Christmas time!  I socialize more, go to more,
parties, decorate the house, embrace the spiritual side,
listen to more music, and enjoy! It has given me many
beautiful memories and I know there are more to come.
It has also given me some bad memories.

· Walking into someone’s home, standing by a live cedar
tree or wreath and getting a migraine.
· Attending a midnight mass with a Catholic friend, and
getting nauseated as the priest came down the aisle
swinging incense.
· Ingesting too much alcohol and sugar at the parties, and
enduring mood swings.
· Eschewing my regular wellness routine, not exercising or
taking neutriceuticals and becoming exhausted, irritable,
and eventually sick.
· Having more parties, so wearing more makeup and having
swollen eyes, getting chapped lips, using cheap lip balm
with mineral oil and getting swollen lips – all of which
gave me headaches.
· Listening to the dread in my minister’s voice – “They go
in the hospital right after Christmas, and they die in
February.” (He had a church heavy with seniors, and he saw
this sad trajectory every year in this vulnerable
population.)
· My children, when they were little, almost always sick
because of getting out of routines, too much excitement and
sugar, the cedar allergens in Texas at this time of year,
and the extreme changes in temperature where we live.
· Dealing with other people who are testy and irritable
from all of the above, which can also be exhausting if you
don’t have the emotional intelligence skills to stay
balanced and centered amidst chaos.

Our emotions are influenced by many things, and they can
effect our health, and vice versa.  In fact it can become a
spiral – - upward or downward.

Some of these things we can do something about.

We can’t help it if our boss is in a bad mood, but we can
help what we put on our skin.  What we put on our skin gets
absorbed into our bloodstream.

We can’t help jobs that escalate this time of year, but we
can elp how we treat our immune system (our best line of
defense) and how we take care of ourselves nutritionally.

We can’t help the germs other people bring to work – - did
you know that an office desk or telephone contains more
bacteria per square inch that the toilet seat in the office
restroom?  We can’t rely on others to clean the common
areas, though we can ourselves, and we can also bolster our
immune system so we’re more resistant to germs.

We can’t help other people having Christmas meltdowns, but
we can learn more emotional intelligence so we both lessen
our own, and help others with theirs.  Emotions are
contagious, and an office can deteriorate this time of year
into a crabby cesspool of, well, germs, and infectious
germy emotions.

We can’t help that other people let their emotions take
over, but we can be “the voice of reason” amidst the chaos,
and help others self soothe by example and modeling.
Things become turbulent at home with children stressed out
by all the changes in routine and, usually, too much sugar.

At the office, it’s a nightmare for HR personnel and
managers with all the illness, sick leave used up so people
not staying home when sick; with bickering and taking
offense over the various holidays this time of year; crunch
time in certain fields, like retail, churches and
non-profits; and all sorts of reason to get bent out of
shape as we bake and eat more, attend parties and drink
more, and hope for a peaceful Christmas, observing its
meaning, while managing the chaos around us.

I walked into an office today and heard two employees fly
off the handle at each other over a small thing. As the man
turned to leave he stared at the woman and said, “Oh, and
Merry Christmas,” ironically.

Visiting some young friends, the woman said to me, “Tom has
said if I ever do Christmas again like this he’ll divorce.
me.”

If you want it to be “merry” and “peaceful,” you may have
to be the one to start it.  It depends upon your emotional
intelligence.  And if you’re in the midst of your least
favorite time of year right now, you can use triage now
(call me for an EQ coaching session), but think about
devoting some time to it and taking a full EQ program after
the first of the year, so your Christmas next year will be
different.

A few quick coping measures – - take deep breaths, check
out the EQ blog – http://improveyoureq.blogspot.com for
daily tips, and when it gets to be too much, turn it off.
Usually I peak early, and around the 18th of December, I
declare a day of real peace.  I turn off the Christmas
carols, wear something black, don’t listen to the news or
watch TV Christmas specials, ignore any conversation about
presents, and observe a day of fasting.  It works!  It
reminds you that either you are in control of your
Christmas of it is in control of you.

And take a good neutraceutical that nutritionally supports
your immune system, such as Arbonne’s DefenseBuilder
( http://susandunn.myarbonne.com ) because this season
is an assault on both your physical and emotional
health, and the two influence one another.

Merry Christmas!

©Susan Dunn, MA, The EQ Coach, http://www.susandunn.cc,
mailto:sdunn@susandunn.cc .  Individual coaching, business
programs, Internet courses, and ebooks around emotional
intelligence for wellness, balance and meaning in your
life.  EQ Alive! Program – - #1-rated certification
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