The holidays can be a beautiful time of year. Gatherings with loved ones, feasting on the foods you love, reveling in the excitement and awe of it all…

But for most of us, the holidays can also feel stressful, triggering, overwhelming, and like it’s our sole responsibility to ensure everyone around is having a holiday to remember.

If that’s not a mixed bag of desires, expectations and outcomes, I don’t know what is!

As a Self-Honoring Woman, it’s important to put some clear boundaries in place so that your own sanity and enjoyment are front and center throughout the holidays.

In order to get clear on your boundaries, you have to get clear on what you want to experience.

And, in order to get clear on what you want to experience, you have to take a few minutes out of your otherwise busy and full day to connect with yourself and listen to the longings in your heart – without judgment or censorship.

I like to create a list of the things I want to experience during the holidays – things I want to experience for myself, and things I want to experience with others.

This really helps me to prioritize myself and my own needs and desires during this busy time of year. Without this list, it’s easy to get pulled in 4,000 different directions, say “yes” too many times, and feel burnt to a crisp (and a bit resentful) when the New Year arrives.

I don’t know about you, but that is not the outcome I want. EVER.

So, take a few minutes. Grab a cup of tea and make your list – for what you want to experience yourself and what you want to experience with others.

Here are a few things from my own list to inspire you:

Host a gathering of friends at my house

Christmas lights and cocoa with Ocean

Sledding with Ocean

Decorating the tree with Ocean

Make cookies with Ocean

Reading by the fireplace

Going to bed early + sleeping in

Moving my body everyday

Walks in nature

Once you’ve created your list, make sure the things on there are what you really want, not what you think should be there. (Please, no should-ing on yourself!)

Then make these things your priorities this holiday season. Put them in your calendar. Practice saying “no” to things that interfere with your list so you can say a full “yes” to yourself.

Something I highly recommend you add to your list, if you haven’t done so already, is the space and time for yourself to slow down, get quiet, and turn inward.

A Self-Honoring Woman requires time and space to re-connect with and feel her body, her heart, and her life.

Women crave this around the end of the year. But if we don’t plan for it – and then uphold our boundaries around it – it will not happen.

So, honor what you desire. Schedule this time for yourself and hold it as a sacred, non-negotiable thing in your calendar.

Another thing that happens during the holiday season is that many of us feel obligated to uphold long-standing traditions, even when we’ve outgrown them, or they no longer serve who we are today.

Here’s my invitation to you: Question the obligations you so automatically say “yes” to, or add to your list. Question the traditions. Question any and all shoulds. Question it all.

A woman who truly honors herself will tease out the things that drain and deplete her. She will find better feeling ways of doing things, or simply not do them anymore.

A Self-Honoring Woman will risk disappointing others to honor, love and cherish herself – because she knows when she is healthy, happy and whole, she has so much more to share and offer others.

She knows she can’t give from an empty cup – ever. She’s clear on her value and worth and will not keep doing things that hurt her in any way.

What if you let new life come into your holidays by creating some new traditions this year? What if you allowed the holidays to feel spacious and fun for you?

What if you arrived at January 1^st, 2024, feeling the best you’ve ever felt?

Wouldn’t that be an amazing way to end one year and start the next?