Boundaries: How to Avoid Feeling Guilty Over the Christmas Period

Guilt is a funny old emotion (and certainly NOT funny at all),  I talk about guilt a lot in my therapeutic coaching practice both with my 1-2-1 clients and my group coaching programmes as its one of those emotions that we all feel at some point in our lives. (FYI being a parent brings it on ten fold, seriously).

Most emotions are there to teach us something, however not guilt, it stands alone with shame as being pretty bloody useless and what I call: totally un-resourceful. 

This year with the current situation that we see ourselves in, guilt is going to be thrown all over the show as we are having to choose who we do and don’t spend xmas with.

Who will be in ‘the bubble’?

Who will you see and not see?

Will you feel bad if said person comes down with the flu the week after? 

Will you feel guilty over hugging granny when you’ve avoided it all year?

Gosh, as if Christmas is not hard enough we've now got to deal with all kinds of rules and restrictions on top of everything else!

This is where having healthy, well practiced boundaries comes into play.

Boundaries are a hot topic for me and my clients just recently as I have been doing some personal work around my own boundaries and this is reflected in the work that I do with my clients, or vice versa. (in therapy we often attract clients that are a mirror image of what we have been through or are going through).

This is is where self-awareness comes into play, I know I talk about self-awareness all of the time but there is a reason.  Without self-awareness you wont know what to change or what to allow or what you even want in your life.

Here are my tips for making sure that you can create a peaceful Christmas void of this emotion that we call guilt, these tools can actually be used at any other time too.

This is a presupposition that can take any amount of guilt out of your mind, it comes from the NLP model…are you ready for this game changer?

• We all make the best decisions with the information that we have at the time.   Yes we do, hindsight is a wonderful thing so know and understand that you do make the best decisions with the information that you had at the given time. Bye bye guilty feelings.

• If you find yourself stuck with a decision, write down the pros and cons and analyse each point, often when things are black and white in front of us they have a more logical feel to them

• Check in with how your body actually feels about these things. Your body has an amazing internal guidance system within it. Your gut instinct is normally right and the more that we listen to this, the more that we know what is right for us!

• Someone is always going to have an opinion about what you do, so do what you want to do and not what others want you to do. This is YOUR LIFE.  Each day is precious.

• Think about those boundaries and think about what you want to set/create for yourself at this time. Would you prefer to be home alone, do you want just to see a certain set of friends and no more? Do you feel that you really have to buy pointless gifts for those distant family members that you don’t see from one year to the next – just because it is your duty? Well you don’t have to, you have a choice!

• Yes you do have a choice, what do you actually want to choose right now? What fulfils you? What works for your mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health in this moment?

• This is your life, live it , love and and do it your way! You deserve better than feeling guilty.  Choose to acknowledge it and the let it go, like clouds drifting in the sky.

Love and light, 

Adele x