Life as a Dare

Making Every Moment Count

9 Things to Say No to This Christmas

Do you find that stress at Christmas makes the holiday difficult to enjoy?

I definitely do. Here’s the thing: when it comes to love languages, I’m not a gifts person, I’m an acts of service person. I don’t feel love by getting presents and giving them–I feel love by having people do things to make my life easier.

So being told “It’s Christmas! So we get to make a meal for 29 people, rush from house to house to see everyone, and then spend the next week cleaning up!” made it really difficult for me to enjoy Christmas for a while.

It’s not that I’m a scrooge as much as I’m just overwhelmed. The sheer amount of stress at Christmas that I face with everything to do makes it difficult to be in the moment and simply enjoy time with family.

This year, however, I’m determined to be different. I even put up Christmas decorations. I haven’t done that in 4 years–this is a big step. But the bigger step that I’m taking is that I’m simply going to start saying “NO.”

Now, when it comes to family and Christmas it can get tricky. I firmly believe in the importance of family-time at Christmas, and sacrificing a bit of self-comfort for the family as a whole. I think that’s simply part of having a family!

But that doesn’t mean that your Christmas needs to be dictated by others’ wants. This is something I’m recognizing more and more these days. So here are 9 things you have my approval to say “no” to this Christmas to give you more time for what really matters–quality time with the people you love, remembering God’s gift to us.

Finding stress at Christmas to be overwhelming? Here are 9 things to say no to so that your holiday stress shoots down to zero!

1. Too many commitments

You only have so much time. If you have 7 Christmas parties to go to on top of 6 different friends and family members to visit over a 8 day period, it’s simply not going to happen. Or, if it does happen, you’re not going to get much quality time with any of them.

Set a limit for yourself. Say, “This year, I will say yes to 3 visits over Christmas” and then stick to it. (Besides, who says you can’t do late Christmas with friends in January?)

2. One person making the entire meal

A Christmas meal is a lot of work. Seriously, it’s crazy–I do not understand why it’s usually just one person who makes it. Besides, most families have a special recipe each person makes anyway, so why not just all bring your favourite thing to make?

The turkey can be done by someone different each year, but why not have it that Aunt Margaret brings stuffing, Uncle Dan brings the potatoes, and John brings the salad? Potluck Christmas sounds great to me!

3. Negative or abusive people

One tricky part of Christmas for a lot of people is that not all family is encouraging and loving. And I want to say something here not everyone will agree with:

If you seriously dislike your family because they are just really negative people who tear you down, it is perfectly acceptable to limit your time spent with them.

I’m really lucky to have a fun, vibrant family and I recognize that. But I have a lot of friends who seriously struggle with family. And I think that if someone is a bad person, there should be consequences. And that consequence can be that if they are manipulating or emotionally abusing you, they no longer get you in their life. I think that’s OK.

(Now, we’re not talking about someone who’s just got a personality that’s hard to love–we’re talking just plain-old bad people. Not annoying–mean. There’s a difference.)

4. Expensive gifts for people you don’t even really know

Are you in one of those families who expects you to drop $100 for your aunt’s brother-in-law’s step-sister because, “well, she’s family!”?

You don’t have to. To placate your family members and help everyone feel loved, I suggest finding a cute DIY project like dyed bath salts or something that can be made up at very little cost but is still a lovely gift. But say no to holiday stress by saying no to unnecessary spending.

5. Travelling long distances 

This especially applies to people with kids. I believe it’s important to see family at Christmas whenever possible. I truly do. That’s one of the most important traditions for me–spending time with family.

But if your family lives 10 hours away and they expect you to come down for only one day at Christmas every single year without ever doing the trek out your way, it’s OK to say no sometimes, or to offer to host instead!

Sometimes family lives far away. It’s really unfortunate if you can’t spend time together every year, but sometimes that’s just reality. So do your best to get good time with family, but if sometimes it needs to be a no, then it needs to be a no.

6. Missing out on the quiet times

Somewhere along the way we lost “Silent Night” and got “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Although I have nothing against Rudolph, for me Christmas is a time of joyful reflection, not the chaos that we’ve all accepted as reality.

Say “no” to activities that aren’t necessary and will take away from that quiet time that Christmas is about. Instead, sit and drink a chai tea while listening to Christmas music, or snuggle up and watch a Christmas movie with someone you love. Choose the quiet.

7. Mountains of presents

My family always did 3 presents each for Christmas: Gold (something we wanted), Frankincense (something to help us take care of ourselves), and Myrrh (something to help our spiritual development). If you’re overwhelmed finding presents, try to minimize the number of gifts that you buy so that you can pool the funds and buy just a few things that you know they’ll really love.

8. Empty traditions

Traditions are important–they’re so much of the beauty of Christmas! But there is such a thing as empty traditions. If you find yourself stressed at Christmas, ask yourself which traditions are meaningful and which ones you do simply for the sake of tradition. Then start to prune away.

Not all traditions need to continue–and minimizing what you do to only what is meaningful can help the Christmas season become much more relaxing.

9. Sacrificing your family’s needs for others’ wants

So often I see friends spending hundreds if not thousands over the holidays because it’s what’s expected of them by their family, but they simply don’t have the money. So they struggle, they go into a bit of credit card debt, and they feel the stress for months before and after.

Family requires some sacrifice, definitely. If you’re always comfortable and never inconvenienced, then it’s likely time to stretch yourself a bit. But a bit of inconvenience is very different than a family member not respecting your needs. Sit down and figure out this year: what are my needs? What are things that I cannot compromise on if I want to stay healthy financially, psychologically, and physically? 

Christmas is meant to be a time where we can sit and reflect with family on the love of God, that He would send Jesus to us in the most humble of situations. 

When we clutter our Christmas with things we feel we “should” do, or anxiety about whether or not we did everything right, we miss out on the quietness that we need to truly remember why we celebrate.

Don’t say “no” for the sake of saying “no.” Do it so that you can say “yes” to Jesus–say “no” so that you can have the time and mental energy you need to hear him this Christmas season.

What are some things you need to say no to this Christmas? What are you most excited for? Let me know in the comments below! 

Finding stress at Christmas to be overwhelming? Here are 9 things to say no to so that your holiday stress shoots down to zero!

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Gratitude Challenge | I was grateful every hour for a day, and this is what happened

Are you a grateful person? 

I mean, if you were to think of how you feel on a daily basis, would “grateful” be one of the words that came to mind?

I’m a grumbler. I can notice something bad in almost anything, and I’m the kind of person who will mull over everything that could have been better, or how it went wrong, or what those people should have done instead.

Yup. Not all that grateful.

So I thought this was the perfect video which which to introduce you all to a new chapter of my life. 

I’ve been having a hard time figuring out what to write about since I’m not in university anymore. I know a lot of people keep being college bloggers when they’re out of college, but I want my blog to be personal–it was fun when I was going through it, too, but I don’t want to feel distant from you guys. I want you to feel involved in my life, and for us to be able to have shared experiences. I’ll still be posting some college stuff in the next few months since I know so many of you are in school, but a lot will be guest posts or else posts that are just stuffed to the brim with stuff I wish I had known.

Since finding things to write about without any real “mission statement” for my blog has been so difficult, it’s slipped through the cracks with everything else I’m doing. Mainly, I’m preparing for my book launch (which is starting in just a few weeks!) and creating an e-course with my sister, which is going to be awesome. (We’re making a course for moms and their preteen/teen daughters to work through to give the sex talk in an empowering, non-scary way while still sticking by Christian principles and not shying away from the tough topics.)

But over the summer, I’ve been missing this. 

I’ve been missing working for myself. I’ve been missing working on a project that brings me life and joy because it’s truly what I want to do. Don’t get me wrong, I’m loving both of the jobs I’m doing right now–but they definitely feel like work right now! Making a course and launching a book are hard, people, and doing them at the same time doesn’t make them any easier!

So I’ve decided to jump into it again, and here’s how it’s going to work.

Every week, I’m issuing a challenge to myself. And I’m making YouTube videos about it, posting what I’ve learned and tips about that particular thing here on the blog, and giving behind-the-scenes footage to newsletter subscribers.

You have no idea how excited for this I am. I’ve been looking forward to being able to do this since May, and my first video came out today!

Let me know any other challenges you want to see me do. This coming week I’m eating vegan food ONLY for a 5-day stint, and I’m already realizing how hard that is going to be (I’m on day 2).

I’m looking forward to actually getting to show you my life. I’ve been feeling very disconnected from you all recently, and I think this is a positive step! Plus, I’m just seriously enjoying myself. :)

Let me know what you think!

What Mental Health Awareness Does Wrong

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Here in Canada, Bell hosts a “Let’s Talk” Mental Health Awareness day every year where people are encouraged to share their stories, be open with their struggles, and all around engage in community. I think it’s a great initiative, and a wonderful idea.

But I want to post something a bit more controversial for Bell’s “let’s talk” day today.

And it’s going to come from the heart, so not too much editing here. Apologies in advance.

As probably 80% of you know, I’ve always been very high-strung and anxious. I’m pretty sure I would qualify for a diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder. Right now I’m lucky to have it be relatively manageable and it doesn’t bother me as much on a daily basis.

It wasn’t always like that, though. In my third year of university, I was having up to 5 panic attacks a week for three months straight (October, November, December) and then it dipped down to about 2 or 3 a week for the second semester. This continued throughout my fourth year of university. On top of all of that, of course, there was my ever-present anxiety.

Due to extreme anxiety and panic attacks that left me physically and mentally exhausted, I started to re-experience depression, something I had thought I was finally over after battling it for a long time. Honestly, the disappointment in the fact that I was experiencing depression again is ironically one of the things that I think made it worse.

On top of it all, I was dealing with planning a wedding and then being a newlywed, all of which is relatively stressful in and of itself but is made 10x worse when you feel like everything you’re doing is making everyone hurt and angry and when you’re acting like your own worst enemy because you feel like you simply can’t control anything. Your thoughts, your actions, your surroundings–it’s all out of your control. And that was very scary for me. (Having Connor definitely helped a ton–he is my biggest support, and when I say planning a wedding and being married I don’t me that he was stressful–just adjusting to the new role was.)

I’m saying all this just to say, look, I get it. I completely get it. But there is something that really bothers me about a lot of mental health awareness. I think that there’s a message that is missing. And it’s this:

Your mental illness is not an excuse.

I’m not saying push harder and push past it, and I’m definitely not saying that it isn’t to be paid attention to. I’m simply saying we need to stop allowing ourselves to be defined by whatever we suffer with. One of my biggest regrets was that I limited myself based on what I thought someone with anxiety or depression or panic disorder could/would do–I gave it so much power by allowing it to start to define me. I became “a girl with anxiety” instead of someone who was experiencing anxiety. There is such a huge mindset shift in that one word.

When we use mental illness as an excuse, we’re allowing it to have even more control over us than it did before. It changes our idea of who we are fundamentally, and our illness becomes the first thing we think about when we consider our abilities or flaws.

Because here’s the thing: I see so many people using depression, anxiety, or the like as an excuse for why they can’t do something. But they don’t do anything to fix the problem. Mental illness such as depression or anxiety show that there’s something wrong–you’ve gotten into a negative spiral, and you aren’t able to get out on your own (oversimplified, obviously, but the point remains). They point to a problem that lies deeper–a problem that your brain, body, and psyche are all screaming out together for you to fix. But what I see over and over again is that people become comfortable in these places of suffering–and I’ve done it, too! That’s one of the reasons it makes me so frustrated!

I just want to urge people to stop letting what you struggle with define you. It is one thing to opt out of engaging in certain events or to avoid pushing yourself too hard while you’re receiving treatment, or because it’s necessary to bolster mental health. I’m all for that! That’s simply being responsible. But please, stop seeing mental health problems as a valid reason for you to limit yourself. Because maybe you can’t do it now, but that doesn’t mean that it needs to be your future. It doesn’t mean that it needs to be your identity. Your future and your identity are founded in the One who cannot be shaken. And no anxiety, depression, or anything else can hold a candle to His power.

So instead, let’s take time to look for the deeper issues at play to start to actually fix the problem–not just buff over the symptoms. Because you are more than your struggle.

I am not a mental health professional, so I’m just speaking from the heart here. :) If you struggle with mental illness, get treatment from a professional. That’s what I’m saying in this post. 

Managing OCD: One Christian’s Perpsective

If you’re suffering from OCD, you’re not alone.

But, of course, it’s really easy to feel alone no matter what mental health issue it is you’re struggling with. I talk a lot about anxiety on here, but I wanted to make sure everyone was included. So I was so excited when my friend Alison (who I met through this blog, actually!) was willing to speak about her journey on LAAD.

Without further ado, here’s Alison!

[Read more…]

8 Things to Stop Feeling Guilty About

Feeling guilty is the worst.

Seriously, it just is. Especially when it’s guilt that just sticks around, even after you’ve dealt with the problem. And it is so easy to get stuck in a trap of feeling guilty about things we can’t change.

Now, I do believe that conviction, a kind of guilt, is really important–it helps show us that we’re not living out our beliefs, and that we’ve got places in our lives where we need change. But I’m not talking about conviction here. I’m talking about soul-sucking, day-ruining, emotionally-destructive guilt.

But on this blog I really want to help you experience purpose and freedom in life, and a huge part of that is learning when to let go of feelings of guilt. So I have compiled 8 things to stop feeling guilty about to share with you today! I hope it gives you some comfort.  [Read more…]

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