If you’re like us, sometime around the first week of November, you awake to discover you are WEEKS behind preparing for the upcoming holidays. We call this emerging panic the “holidaze,” when lists just keep getting longer and longer and we all begin dreaming that chronic anxiety dream, when you arrive at your exams and haven’t even been to class let alone prepared for the test. OR you discover to your horror that you are at school but you have forgotten to put on your shoes/underwear/socks etc. Horrors!
But not to fear, AdventureWomen has come up with 5 tips for enjoying (and surviving) the holidays and staying sane during this otherwise hectic season:
1. Stay calm. On our Nepal AdventureWomen trips, we learn important Buddhist lessons. For example, the Buddhist practice Prajna, teaches discernment, insight, wisdom, and enlightenment, revealing that wisdom will come to you, if your mind is pure and calm. So meditate or do yoga, treat yourself to a massage, go for a long walk with a friend, find time for a bubble bath. Breath deeply and stay calm.
2. Laugh it off. On our Ireland horseback riding trip, we’re always running across some great Irish saying like the one below which well, says it all, reminding us that keeping our sense of humor is essential to getting through the most trying of times. Just remember to substitute “fellow” and “lad” with “Adventure Woman!”
“Here’s to a fellow who smiles when life runs along like a song.
And here’s to the lad who can smile when everything goes dead wrong.”
3. Be Adventurous! After all, you ARE an Adventure Woman! If you’ve traveled with us, take one of your AdventureWomen trips and integrate it into your holiday family fun. Create a trivia quiz about some fun facts from the country you visited. Insert some recipes from that destination into your Christmas dinner, or hang the lanterns you brought back from Vietnam or Thailand. Bring out your photos or slideshows to share your trip with your family if you haven’t already. Tell them how YOU would finish this phrase: “On my trip with AdventureWomen, not in my WILDEST dream did I….”.
4. Give YOURSELF something to look forward to: The Gift of Travel! Too often, we find, women over the holidays are so concerned with taking care of and pleasing everyone around them, that they often forget about how important it is to give back to themselves. This holiday, give yourself something to look forward to in 2015. Give yourself the Gift of Travel with AdventureWomen! Studies have shown that, if you have a future trip planned, you’re likely already happier than usual because you have something to look forward to. So when the stress starts to mount, just think about the 2015 AdventureWomen trip that you are already registered for (or planning to register for!), and presto, all those worry lines will start to turn into a glorious smile. Maybe the WARMTH of the Caribbean, Namibia, or Kenya! It will be 12 degrees in Bozeman tonight!
5. Theme it up. When we plan our trips, we have built in themes (our destinations) so planning the cuisine, visits to local hot spots, our accommodations and activities is simpler because they are all themed around the location we are visiting. Well you can do the very same thing with your holiday planning. Choose a universal theme and wrap your holiday gift giving, Christmas dinner, charitable giving and even your decorations around a central theme. Diversity. Simplicity. Circle of Life. Companionship. Empowerment. Heroism. Nature as Beauty. Traditions. Discovery. Preservation. You pick!
This holiday, we want to wish all our Adventurous Women, all over the world, a very wonderful holiday, however and wherever you celebrate. From our team to your family, HAPPY HOLIDAZE!
