The Best Way To Feel More Radiant This Holiday Season
- Brainz Magazine
- Dec 26, 2024
- 6 min read
Updated: Jan 30
Written by Deonesea La Fey, Feminine Embodiment Coach
Deonesea is a beloved Feminine Embodiment Coach who guides women to be embodied in their own personal pleasure and to create deeper connections. As a result of working with her, women learn how to increase their feminine energy, embrace their sexuality, and receive the love they want and deserve.
The holidays can be a wonderful time filled with family, friends, and a social calendar that knows no rival! However, they can also be a time when we wear ourselves out by running from one thing to the next without stopping to actually feel present in any of it. It is in times like these that we most need to know how to reinvigorate ourselves.
Because we, as women, are conditioned to be chronically overgiving, we can very easily overextend ourselves and end up feeling exhausted and overwhelmed. We need to be clear with ourselves about what we have the energy for and what we do not. We are not meant to be all things for all people all of the time. Rather, we are meant to learn how to contain, cultivate, nurture, and efficiently express our own personal energy yield. When we do so, we build our radiance naturally.
The best way to feel more radiant is to connect deeply with yourself first, and then let your connections with others stem from that inner place. These three simple steps will help you do just that:
1. Take time to rest this holiday season
While this may seem like a no-brainer, the truth is most of us do not get enough rest. Rest is different from sleep, we know to focus on getting enough of that. But we often don’t actually know how to rest. Instead of filling up your downtime with Netflix and scrolling, try these instead:
Daydream
Remember when you were a girl and loved staring out a window, thinking about nothing in particular but simply enjoying free-form thought? Great news, you can do that as an adult, too! Daydreaming is akin to meditation in that it allows the busyness of the mind to settle and gives space for deeper aspects of who you are to come forward. It also provides you with a very simple and enjoyable way to take a break. The catch is that you can’t daydream by thinking about your to-do list. Instead, give yourself some quiet, uninterrupted time to let your mind roam freely in an unfocused way. It doesn’t have to take long for you to feel the benefits, ten to fifteen minutes will do the trick.
Listen to music
Opera singer and cognitive neuroscientist Indre Viskontas shared in an interview with PBS: “Listening to calm music when you are anxious can lower your heart rate, deepen your breathing, because now all of a sudden your brain is trying to sync up with the music and if the music has a slower pulse, then that slows down these other autonomic parts of your nervous system.” In short, playing relaxing music can help you feel more at rest because it calms your nerves. Like so many things that can help us feel better, this seems so simple. The key is to remember to do it! I recommend having your relaxation playlist ready so that you can turn it on at any time.
Curl up with a book
Reading is another truly great way to give yourself some downtime, as long as what you’re reading is purely for enjoyment. For it to be restful, this should not be work-related reading or material that requires intense focus or memorization. Again, simple. But the impulse to keep ourselves busy, productive, or always accomplishing something is strong in our 21st-century brains. Choose a book that allows you to relax, and give yourself a break from the high demands of the holiday hustle and bustle.
Related Article: Preventing Burnout – The Role of Active Rest
2. Do something loving for your body
Along with giving our minds a break, we can most easily tap into our radiance when we give extra care to our bodies. With family obligations and all the preparations that typically go into creating our holiday experiences, a spa weekend getaway may not be realistic. But you can certainly build some of that wellness experience into your daily routine or your travel plans in these easy ways:
Luxuriate in a long, hot bath or shower
If a long, hot bath is available to you at home and fits into your schedule, there’s nothing like it for soaking the tension away. But while that sounds amazing, it isn’t always practical in the midst of very busy days. However, you can set your daily shower experience up to be an enjoyable reprieve, a time for you to have a few relaxing moments alone. The trick is not to hop in, rush through, and jump out to hurry on to the next thing.
Rather, this is the time to break out your favorite smelling shower gel, light a candle, and focus on the sensation of the water on your skin. Imagine the stress and hurried energy melting out of the bottom of your feet and being washed away.
Sleep in
Be languorous. Choose at least one morning when you’re not going to set an alarm and you don’t have anywhere to be. Be aware of your body, your breathing, and how good your pillow feels. Be still. Be with yourself.
Take a leisurely walk
Enjoy moving at a slower pace. Set your intention to notice something in your environment that you haven’t noticed before, and stop to give it your full attention. Choose a tree, flower, hill, or animal that you see along the way to be your new favorite. Breathe more deeply than you usually do.
3. Engage with kindness
In today's digital age, humans have developed a tendency to be more screen-interactive than face-to-face interactive. When we focus on being kind—first and foremost to ourselves, then to others, we create an atmosphere in which we feel our radiance, and those around us feel it too.
Related Article: The Best Year-Round Gift - Kindness, Smiles, and Mindfulness
Smile to everyone
One of the quickest and easiest ways to uplevel your kindness game is by simply smiling more. When we are seated in our radiance, our smiles come easily as a natural expression of the joy emanating from us. But even during times when we might not feel quite so radiant, smiling more can help us reconnect with that deeper well of happiness. Smiling makes us feel good and makes other people feel good as well.
Recent studies from an international collaboration of researchers, led by Stanford research scientist Nicholas Coles, “found strong evidence that [even] posed smiles can, in fact, make us happier.”
Look to see, listen to hear
Often, in our busy lives, we move so quickly from one interaction to another that we lose touch with the art of truly engaging with others. This tendency becomes even more pronounced when we’re tired or stressed. Since we tend to spend more time with our families during the holidays, we can easily see them as static, unchanging people we’ve always known, rather than as individuals with their own experiences of life. When we slow down enough to tend to our radiance, we create the space to truly see and hear another person. With a calm nervous system and a sense of inner balance, we can be fully present with the people in our lives. This presence is the true meaning of "presents."
Be curious
Build emotional connections with your family and friends by being curious about their experiences. Who is this person you’re engaging with really? What are their fears, losses, hopes, and dreams? How have they changed since the last time you spent time together? What are they grateful for (this is a wonderful question to ask around the dinner table)?
How do you want to feel about this time with your loved ones when the holiday season is over? How can you foster those feelings in the way you relate to them?
Radiance is natural
These tips won’t give you radiance, that’s something you already possess naturally, but they will help you reconnect with that inherent state within yourself. If you feel like you might need more support in connecting with your radiant self, take advantage of my holiday sale on online courses, which runs through the end of the year. If you’re seeking more personalized guidance, you can book a complimentary Discovery Session to explore whether coaching with me would be a good fit for you. Women empowering women to embrace their feminine fullness is the wave of the future.
Visit my website for more info!
Read more from Deonesea La Fey
Deonesea La Fey, Feminine Embodiment Coach
Known as an insightful mentor, a potent ceremonialist, and an inspirational speaker Deonesea is a recognized expert in teaching women how to improve the quality of their intimate relationships, and to enhance their sense of pleasure in their day to day lives. As a result of 20 years of teaching women how to restore their natural femininity, Deonesea has developed a unique approach that combines practical principles, feminine wisdom teachings, and empowering techniques to guide her clients through a transformational journey of restoration and reconnection, to themselves and to their intimate others.
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