The holiday season, and often various moments in life, can throw us off balance with comments like “chill out,” “calm down,” or “get over it.” These directional preposition words are unlikely to lead us to a better place. In fact, they can leave us feeling scattered, stressed, overwhelmed, and out of sync with ourselves.

When the world feels chaotic and you find yourself chasing these elusive prepositions, consider a powerful alternative: Collect yourself.

1. Pause and Notice
Take a moment to recognize that you’re caught up in the whirlwind of expectations and judgments. Pause, breathe deeply, and be still. This is how we counter a reactive reply and begin to shift into the wonderful feeling of your parasympathetic nervous system – that place of peace and ease.

2. Allow the Snowglobe to Settle
Let the chaos in your mind settle, just like snow settling in a shaken snowglobe. Feel the wobbliness subside as you take another deep breath and affirm, “I am okay” and “I am safe, right here, right now.”

3. Gather Your Scattered Parts
Begin the process of collecting yourself—your thoughts, emotions, feelings, words, and breath. Imagine gathering up all the scattered leaves in the wind, bringing them back to the core of who you are.  This is private work in your mind without judgment. Just allow it to be with you and welcome your true experience.

4. Love Your Triggered Parts
Look within and identify the parts of you that are triggered by those unsettling prepositions. It might be the school-age child, the teenager seeking recognition, or the one who experienced heartbreak. Bring them close, acknowledge their pain, and tell them it’s okay.  You are literally the only person who truly understands their story and their needs.  Provide them shelter and acceptance.

5. Invite the Wise and Strong Part
Call up the wise, strong, and resilient parts of yourself—the problem solver, the healer, the leader. Let them take the stage, allowing their wisdom to comfort the part that feels unsafe and to choose how to respond to the “prepositions”, or not.

6. Feel the Strength and Safety
As you collect and embrace all parts of yourself, feel the strength and safety grow within. It may be a little or a lot, but the more you “collect yourself”, the easier it becomes and the better you feel.

7. Experience Wholeness
Notice how it feels to stop, breathe, and collect yourself. This is the essence of wholeness—when body, mind, and spirit come together in harmony. It’s an action, a verb: notice, stop, breathe, choose, collect, feel, invite, love, gather, allow.  This is the path to safety, courage, stability, and strength.

Understand that these intentional actions can overcome any pesky preposition thrown your way. In moments when the world seems scattered or relatives demanding, remember that collecting yourself is a decision, a source of strength, and an expression of self-love. You are that powerful and that capable.

Be Well and Happy Holidays,