After Christmas Letdown? by Susan Dunn, MA, certified Emotional Intelligence Coach

“You gotta pay the price,” one of my clients is always telling me. She’s referring to what is a law of physics, and also the way things work – what goes up must come down.

The higher your Christmas, the more exciting, chaotic and tumultuous, the more likely you’ll be tumbling down just as far. Why? According to psychneuroimmunologist (big word meaning the effect of brain and emotions on health, i.e., immunology), Paul Pearsall, Ph.D., our smart bodies want to establish equilibrium. Picture a graph on a midline. The midline is calm, routine. We can get very happy and go up; or very unhappy and go down. Therefore, if our emotions go way up, there will come a time when our inner wisdom brings us down low, so we settle back into that middle space.

Does this mean if you have a terrible grief or depression, you can expect to be that happy at some time in the future? I’ve seen it happen. It’s a tenet of Emotional Intelligence that if you don’t fully experience one emotion, you stuff down ALL emotions. In other words, if you face grief and go through it, not around it, you will carve out a space to be filled with happiness. If you don’t, you shut down, and become numb, in which case you don’t feel the bad, but you also don’t feel the good, and greatly limit your experience of life.

So, if you’re having a “down” period now what do you do? First of all, accept it. You can last it out. To speed it on its way:

1.Get active. Exercise an extra hour. It creates physical energy, it clears the mind, and flushes out toxic emotions. Do it especially if you don’t feel like it.

2.If you’re an introvert you may prefer something like yoga or Tai Chi.

3.Clean your house from top to bottom, doing the physical work yourself. Do it like a ritual, that is, with meaning. This is to get rid of the yuch, and make room for the sunshine. This is a tradition in many cultures at the New Year for a reason – because of what we’re all going through right now! Throw stuff out, sweep toward the doors, vacuum then take the bag out and dump it in the garbage, wash the furniture with something like Murphy’s soap.

4.Accept quiet times and go with the flow. Curl up by the fire and read good books. Coddle yourself with extra long baths with special lotions. Get your nails done. Get massages. Fix yourself a warm breakfast. It’s kind of a hibernating time anyway.

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BIO:

©Susan Dunn, MA, certified Emotional Intelligence Coach, http://www.susandunn.cc . Individual coaching, employee assistance coaching, EQ programs for work, distance learning, The EQ Learning Lab™, EQ eBook Library – http://www.webstrategies.cc/ebooklibrary.html . I train and certify Emotional Intelligence coaches – www.eqcoach.net . Mailto:sdunn@susandunn.cc for FREE eZine. To join EQ4U email list, send a blank email to mailto:EQ4U-subscribe@yahoogroups.com .

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