The power of a question

Do the holidays fill you with love and purpose?  Or more like overwhelm and dread?

About a month ago I started feeling the pressure of making Christmas a magical experience.  After all, my son who abruptly left home last December will be with us this year.  My daughter-in-law will be without her husband (but she lives close to us) who just left to go overseas for a year-long unaccompanied military assignment.  And I truly love my Savior, whose birth we celebrate at this time of year.

Even though I have all these reasons to create a wonderful Christmas experience, all I felt was… Bah-humbug.

What if our son chooses not to spend Christmas with us?  How can I really make it OK for our daughter-in-law that her husband is so far away?  Oh, yes, and I’m not the best gift-giver, and I don’t want all the sugar that comes with the Christmas season.  And we don’t spent enough time thinking about Christ during His season.

Wow ~ no wonder I was feeling like Scrooge.

But then I decided I really didn’t want to be full of the doldrums this year and I knew even though I was feeling overwhelmed with it all I didn’t have to stay there.

And this is where the power of a question comes in.  Deepak Chopra teaches that our imagination can be used either for anxiety or creativity.  Once I decided I wanted to be done with the stress this Christmas season I asked myself what I really wanted.

How can I feel really great about Christmas 2018?

And then I answered myself:  Create some experiences that include some of our favorite traditions.  Don’t feel like I have to do it all.  It’s OK if everyone doesn’t love the same traditions I do; I can invite them to participate anyway but still do what I want to do even if no one else does it with me.

Asking yourself questions is a great way to direct your mind to create a future you want to have because when you ask yourself a question your brain can’t help but find the answer.  The key, though, is to ask yourself some great questions:

How can I feel good about my relationship with my son this Christmas?

How can I help my part of the world today?

How can I contribute to my family in a meaningful way?

How can I have fun and take care of myself this week?

As we move closer to Christmas what kind of experience are you expecting?  Is that what you really want?  If not, what powerful question can change your experience?  Even though you can’t always change your situation and you can rarely change other people, you can still improve your own experience by asking yourself a powerful question.

What question can change your Christmas experience?

If you’re having a hard time coming up with a powerful question, feel free to email me what’s going on and I’ll help you discover one that will make a difference for you!  You can reach me at kelly@findpeaceinparenting.com.