Dawn Hancy
- Nov 20, 2017
- 4 min read

My Calm & Confident Holiday Wellness Checklist

Here’s a gift I am delighted to share with you to initiate this holiday season as an affirmation that we can all create the beauty and joy our hearts envision and long for. Yes, we have that magical power in our hands, our minds and our souls. Let it awaken now!

Calm and confidence are complementary forces we can balance in our lives, each of us in a unique and dynamic combination. Some people prefer quiet, solitary observances while others love the more boisterous outpourings of celebration. I believe one of the keys to both calm and confidence in this season - like any other - is honoring our own ways of experiencing it.

Sometimes we'll accommodate others, sometimes we'll compromise, and, yes, sometimes we'll capitulate in order to keep the peace or for some other reason, but when we are honest with ourselves about our beliefs, feelings, preferences and needs for well-being we can be much less vulnerable to the gravitational pull of other people's agendas for us. Cultivating our inner calm and confidence can create a core experience within ourselves that is able to adjust without being totally pulled off center. And hey, we all get pulled off center - but it's easier to get back to that calm and confident center if you have a collection of helpful tools at hand - and friends who support you - and it's even better if you've already put those tools into practice before you're challenged and they become familiar.

The next blog post will explain a bit of the strategy behind this Checklist, in case some of the things on it don’t quite seem, at first glance, to belong together. This is actually the idea, to be our own celebration - to introduce various elements of our lives and ourselves to each other, to help them get along and not fight, to learn from our own diversity of possibility and potential, habit and tradition. We are powerful co-creators, and this is the time to let our creativity and our devotion shine in harmony together, now more than ever.

Happy caveat: Notice this Checklist is not a to-do list! These items are qualities of experience that I sense can contribute to my well-being and joy, and perhaps yours as well, as fall settles to a close and winter approaches in earnest. Some are my usual practices, some are seasonal corresponding to the weather and holidays. They are just options, all open to experimentation and improvisation - just suggestions, even to myself. It is by nature a work in progress, as is life, as are we ourselves, and this collection is meant to reflect a snapshot of my personal holiday wellness practice, and possibly a starting place for yours, as we immerse into the season of both darkness and festivity, and cross over the threshold of another year. I think of it as "soft work," sometimes more pleasant and just as important and effective as hard work, which all too often leads to some kind of judgment, reward or punishment, or other stuff that's just not that fun, and actually not that helpful lots of the time, especially when we're talking about celebrating and feeling good about ourselves and our world!

I will be sharing more about the various items on my list below over the next several weeks, at least weekly here on the Essential Arts Blog and daily in the Calm & Confident Holiday Wellness Facebook Circle, so be sure to stay connected, and see how the season unfolds for me as well. Really, all we can ever do is to experiment and see what happens, so I'm looking forward to progressively unwrapping this evolving present with you.

You are most welcome to practice these intentions along with me and to vary, add or subtract as suits you, and to share your experiences. And please feel free to offer your own ideas and strategies as well in the comments below and in the Calm & Confident Holiday Wellness Facebook Circle. I support all your intentions for holiday wellness and joy!

Meanwhile, I'd also love to know which items on my Checklist resonate for you, any that make you cringe, and which ones are simply cryptic and you'd like to know what the heck I think I'm talking about. Again, you can Comment, post on FB or email me.

If you want to engage in a deeper experience of well-being and celebration this holiday season with Reiki healing energy support and personal wellness guidance, you can discover my Calm & Confident Holiday Wellness Packages, or contact me at 802-685-7752 or connect@essentialarts.net. I will be offering free programs in December as well, starting at Vision of Light Church of Spiritualism & Healing on Sunday, December 3.

Wishing you holiday cheer for the rest of the year!

Love and blessings,

Dawn