impRAWvise 

It’s officially that time of the year: winter holiday, yu-hu! Ive had my last work day for this year yesterday, so today is holiday mood: ON. I am so, so grateful for that. It’s honestly the first time in many, many years, actually, and I also think that I haven’t done this pretty much since my college years, when I am actually taking some time off for the holidays. Usually, I just find excuses, or sometimes, as I was working in an environment with various incentives, which made it sound good to work during the holiday season, I would go with that, but this year I just said to myself: how about we try something different this time. And here I am on my first day off, and it feels amazing. Things have been quieting down slowly at work during the last two weeks, so that was pretty good and welcome as well, and now I just have all this time for myself, to simply rest, replenish, recharge and enjoy the holidays. With my two amazing dogs, of course. Things have been settling at home, as well, I can call this place home now, after two months since moving here with the dogs, and it does give me a warm and fuzzy, welcoming feeling. This is good. This is really good.

I am honestly not so excited about the entire Christmas thing and holiday celebrations this year and so on and of forth, but still, that doesn’t mean that I cannot enjoy myself and have a great time. Because I will and I am already getting into the flow of it. All I want for Christmas this year is just quiet time, for myself, also time and space for myself, physical and emotional to just allow myself to process this years major events and allow it all to sink in, embracing it, making peace with it and then, after reflection time is done, I can move on with the goal settling for the next year, which I already started to work on since the begging of this month, simply because I just love to set intentions and meaningful goals that represent what I stand for and what I am looking forward to for the future as well. I absolutely love to combine those two because it gives me, not only a sense of accomplishment and possibility, but also a sense of hope and openness towards what’s next to come, and this is why I love this process so much. I must admit that, other than wanting to adopt a second dog, which of course, did happened, as you already know probably from the other posts, this year was pretty chaotic and marked by a lack of clarity or any intentions, it was pretty much drifting around trying to oppose myself to things that did need to happen eventually, or just by trying to desperately make sense of adapt to changes as I felt a deep lack of control over my life in general. In retrospect, it was a messy year, but as the saying goes, now as I know better I can do better, so that gives me a sense of hope and purpose as I move forward gracefully into the opportunities that a new beginning, in the case the new year, has the potential to bring.

Taking a break and reassessing can be really healing and useful at times, especially when we do feel like things might be falling apart or be all over the place. We all love a good holiday. Even if we are not leaving our homes for the holiday, which I must admit, is pretty much a standard for me now, but its a good thing as I am embracing my needs and giving myself time and space to do what I need to do, it can still be worth it. Sometimes we stay in that “doing mode” even when it’s clearly time to just take a deep breath and regroup. But, we also need to remind ourselves that not all the time needs to be about “tasks and to dos”, but instead sometimes, and on a regular basis, we do need to take off this recharge times, we do need to give ourselves space and time to heal, process, and make sense of our amazing and unique lives. And what better way to do that than just sitting allowing it to unfold, giving our minds some quiet space, our bodies some well deserved rest, and all of this, while taking great care of our bodies and minds by nourishing ourselves properly and in a healthy, balanced and conscious way. Enjoy your holiday season and take some time off on a regular basis to just breathe and just be in the moment!