If you're single this holiday season, here's a three-step guide for making it a super-special time of year from my friend and colleague Arielle Ford, author of The Soulmate Secret. Now here are Arielle's tips.
Alone for the Holidays? Tips to Ease Your Loneliness by Arielle Ford
First, for those of you who are sad, depressed, angry, or resigned to the thought you will always be alone, let me offer you a very short exercise.
1) Get out the egg timer and set it for 5 minutes.
2) For 5 minutes close your eyes and dive deep into the feelings you are feeling don't resist on any level, just allow yourself too embrace the full (possibly unpleasant) experience of your sadness, anger, doubt, etc. Look and see where in your body the feelings reside, feel them and then see if you can feel them even more intensely.
3) Breathe deeply during this process and with each exhale, breathe out the emotion while silently saying to yourself thank you and goodbye. Chances are before the 5 minutes are up, all or most of these feelings will have dissipated. This is because you have stopped "resisting" feeling those feelings and you allowed yourself to be fully present with what was true for you in that moment.
Second: Now, get out your journal and make a list of three things you can accomplish between now and the end of the year that will make someone else's life better. This can be anything from taking an elderly neighbor shopping, to serving food at a shelter, to a variety of random acts of kindness.
My favorite line from A Course In Miracles is this: "The only thing that can be lacking in any situation is that which you are not giving." Want more love? Give love. You get the idea.
Finally, decide to create a memento of this holiday season that you will GIVE to your soulmate someday. It can be a special letter, photographs, a scrap-book or, my favorite, get out your video camera and make a short film that shows where you went and what you did for Holiday 2010 that you will want to share with him or her. This is an excellent way to "live as-if."
P.S. Another very powerful solution for the blues is tapping. If you've never heard of Tapping before you're going to be blown away at how powerful it is. Tapping is a technique that combines ancient Chinese acupressure and modern psychology with startling results. It's used and recommended by leading experts such as Jack Canfield, Joe Vitale, Cheryl Richardson, Deepak Chopra, and many others (including me!). If you're looking to release unpleasant emotions, create prosperity, clarity, energy focus, better physical and emotional health and much, much more, check this out. I use it EVERY DAY!
Note from Connie: Thank you, Arielle Ford, for letting me share this fabulous information! Arielle Ford is author of the bestselling book, The Soulmate Secret, which comes out soon in paperback.
One more thought from Connie: I'm also a huge fan of tapping. Check out the fascinating movie, The Tapping Solution, to learn about this powerful technique.