TEN Ways to stay sane and stylish through the holidays
It’s mid-November . . . time for the full slide into the Thanksgiving and December holidays! The holiday season challenges us both professionally and personally. On the personal front, it tends to be the busiest social season of the year. On the professional side, now is time to really hunker down at your desk in order to meet end-of-year billable hour requirements, and prepare for lurking year-end reviews (why do they have to do them before the holidays, anyway?), raises, promotions, etc. Is it possible for anyone to not feel occasionally overwhelmed and cranky?
Following are a few tips I share with my clients on how to handle the holidays with sanity and style. The trick to successfully and enjoyably maneuvering through holiday madness largely boils down to eliminating doing anything you absolutely don’t have to do, avoiding big projects, giving back to others, and adding a little sparkle to your everyday routine.
1. Start a “Holiday Master File.” In it, place the lists of people you intend to buy presents for, gift ideas ripped from catalogues and magazines, holiday invitations, recipes for your own holiday soirees, receipts, etc. Keeping one centralized file can keep paperwork in check and will make you feel more organized.
2. Sparkle—go buy yourself some sequined items (sweaters, scarves, etc.) and wear them every day. Yes, even to the office (to make them office-appropriate, layer a blazer over a sequined sweater or a scarf over a suit). Yes, wear them even to the grocery store or doing chores (doesn’t that seem so decadent?). I often have my clients buy sequined items and I suggest they wear them on days they feel particularly non-sparkly. Notice how this makes you feel better.
3. Start buying presents now. The lines at stores are not yet too long and your energy level is not yet stretched to its limit. Make lists of whom you have to buy for, and budget what you want to spend. Starting the process now will save you stress when December hits and you have even less time to think about these details. And buy in bulk. For example, pick up several bottles of your favorite olive oil or champagne and keep a bunch with ribbons and labels at easy reach, so you are never caught off-guard without a present!
4. Philanthropy, Part I: When you are feeling particularly cranky or tired, do an Act of Anonymous Good. Leave some chocolates on the desk for a coworker who is having a hard time this season, buy some food and self-care products (face and body wipes, toothpaste/toothbrush, etc.) for a homeless woman in your neighborhood, buy 5 dozen roses at your local bodega and drop them off at a nursing home to be distributed among the residents. Notice how this lofts you and really connects you to what the holidays are all about.
5. Create an “Elegance is Refusal List” (described in September's Modern Venus newsletter), where you put on it anything that drains your energy around the holidays. It can be decorating your home, baking holiday cookies, writing out endless cards, feeling obligated to go to every holiday party and to throw your annual bash, etc. Write it all down and then start eliminating what you can. Perhaps you’d rather send out Valentine’s Day cards (like Julia Child did with her husband); perhaps you want to do an “undress the tree” party in January versus having a pre-holiday Christmas gathering; deciding to forgo baking cookies; choosing just to go to parties you know your favorite people will be attending. Be creative but at least eliminate what you can.
6. Straighten up. Nothing frazzles you like clutter all over your house or office, does it? Now may not be the time to renovate your closets, go through all your papers that are cluttering your desk, etc. A little trick: Go to the Container Store or other shop and buy some multi-use storage containers. Put everything that is cluttering your house (yes, everything that is sitting on your desk, shelves, etc. that doesn’t yet have a home) into those boxes, close the lids, and either stick ‘em in closets or cover them with pretty cloths, candles and holiday cards (perhaps fashioning it into a holiday shrine!). Come the cold days of January you can open the boxes and then embark on finding them proper places. Right now, just get it out of your eyesight!
7. Go to bed. Specifically, retire one hour early on all those evenings you can. Cozy up during this extra time with a good book and cup of tea. Or just go to sleep. Now that the clocks have been set back, our bodies are trying to adjust to this shift. It becomes harder to get out of bed when the sun isn’t even up yet and to leave the office when the sun already set. Be gentle with your body and nurture her through not only the change in time and season, but also the physical and emotional energy it takes to get us from today through New Year’s!
8. Go for a walk. Eating and drinking too much food and/or wine can make us feel (and sometimes look) like Jabba the Hut. Go for a brisk walk at least once a day to keep everything circulating properly.
9. Schedule your beauty appointments now. Salons during the holidays book up fast. Pull out your calendar and book all your pampering and maintenance appointments in advance.
10. Philanthropy, Part II: plan your charitable giving and volunteering. ‘Tis the season to give back to others who have less than you, and I guarantee you will be elevated by this experience more than you can imagine. Check out local churches or food kitchens for what you can do to serve them, budget what you can give to your favorite causes (they count on you in particular during the holidays!), or even volunteer to help out friends or family, like volunteering to baby-sit for a girlfriend who has 3 kids and could really use a date with her husband because she’s going crazy, too.
If you have any ideas or tips, please send them to us so they can be included in December’s newsletter! Back to Top
Did you know . . .
Every woman, on average, eats 6 lbs. of lipstick over her lifetime? What doesn’t end up on your coffee cup or on the cheek of anyone you kiss will end up inside of you as you lick your lips, bite into something to eat, or simply talk. Might as well use lip products that taste yummy. My current favorites: anything from Yves St. Laurent, MAC Lipglass, and Victoria’s Secret Beauty Rush lipgloss (“Cupquake,” in particular). Experts say not to worry about ingesting lip goo – our stomachs can handle breaking it all down.
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happy hormones in the workplace
by Alisa Vitti, HHC, AADP, Director of the Laughing Sage Wellness Group
I was shocked! One after the other, each woman revealed the same concern – fibroids. I had done a lunch workshop on women’s health at a law firm in Manhattan, and all 50 women who had attended not only shared the same health concern, but also thought she was the only one suffering from the condition! In addition, many of these women had endured multiple surgeries to remove recurring fibroids, and even experimental hormonal therapies to suppress their growth. All were left frustrated and still struggling with their reproductive health. With so many women on that path of thinking about finally starting their families, they were more than frustrated – they felt desperate – not wanting their fibroids to affect their chances for a healthy pregnancy.
This suffering in silence is so common for all women when it comes to their GYN health – that is entirely why Laughing Sage Wellness was created 6 years ago – to be the premier resource to teach women how to have “happy hormones” naturally and to invite them to be part of a large national community of women who are healing their bodies of chronic GYN issues.
Fibroids affect an estimated 20-50% of all women. These benign uterine growths can range in size from that of a pea to that of a melon, and symptoms can vary from none at all to heavy or painful periods, bleeding between periods, pain during intercourse, and lower back pain - to name a few.
According to Western medicine, no one knows for sure what causes fibroids. What we do know is that they seem to be affected by our hormones - in other words, excess estrogen in the body seems to make them grow, and they will often decrease in size after menopause (when overall body estrogen is lower). For women exhibiting symptoms, doctors will most often offer the choice of controlling growth through drugs, or removing the fibroids through surgery.
There is another option
If you've been diagnosed with fibroids, and are looking for an alternative to drugs and surgery, especially if you’ve already tried drugs and surgery, consider this: There are ways to minimize the size and symptoms of fibroids by using food therapeutically.
Laughing Sage Wellness has pioneered a therapeutic food based process to restore a woman’s hormonal balance. Counselors work with you on food choices - finding those foods that will support your body in healing itself. We emphasize, for example, foods to help your liver in its job of processing and removing toxins from the body, including the excess estrogen that is exacerbating your fibroids.
First steps to try at home
If you are suffering from fibroids, call us for a free consultation and find out more about how we can help. But in the meantime, start with these basic steps:
* Increase: whole grains, green vegetables
* Increase: rest, play time, down time
* Decrease: sugar, alcohol, caffeine
* For symptomatic relief: apply a hot water bottle - filled with warm to hot water (NOT boiling) - to the abdomen
Stored emotions
So how is it that all the women of this law firm ended up having fibroids? Was there something in the water? No. Law and Finance – the two last bastions of the old boys club in corporate America – is obviously not an easy or supportive environment for women. Of course, women are more than up to the challenge, and have been succeeding massively in traditional corporate industries for the past few decades. Clearly, however, there is a physical price being levied from the emotional stress endured from undertaking this challenge. The 50 women from this law firm had unknowingly proven this point.
Dr. Christiane Northrup (author of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom) calls fibroids an "illness of competition." At LSW, we believe that fibroids represent stored emotion - most typically anger or resentment. As modern women, we often don't have an outlet for the stressors in our lives, leaving them to be stored in our bodies as unprocessed emotions. I would imagine that these women of this law firm and at other high-pressure jobs and professions find themselves frustrated often.
Anger is a normal emotion to experience. Through the process of living on planet Earth, we bump up against other people, get hurt, and feel angry. But so many women have a hard time admitting how angry they are at other people. We are taught that expressing our anger is not feminine, is not safe, will hurt others, will make us bad little girls, or will make us bitches. We aren’t taught healthy constructive ways to deal with our angry feelings, and without these good outlets, many women internalize their anger.
How can you tell if you are storing your angry feelings and fueling the growth of your fibroids? Does this sound like you?
* Constant self-criticism/negative voices in your head
* Never feeling like you do enough/are enough
* Comparing your life to other people’s and feeling like you come up short
* Having a “short fuse,” tears, and impatience at yourself when something goes wrong
* Beating yourself up
* Not feeling balanced with your sense of femininity
If you answered yes to the above questions, if you are a woman working hard in law or other challenging profession, or if you have fibroids –Modern Venus Ltd. has your back!
Just for Modern Venus Ltd. readers – Laughing Sage will offer you a special Healing Fibroids & Emotions Report!
To receive this limited offer, you must send an email to info@laughingsagewellness.com by Nov 30th 2007, with MODERN VENUS in the subject line.
This report will have a list of healing foods for you to begin eating and a way for you to clear your stored emotions, step by step.
Get the information and get healthy!
Wishing you a healthy holidays,
Alisa Vitti www.laughingsagewellness.com 212-581-0001 alisa@laughingsagewellness.com
Back to Top and the winners are . . .
The ten occupations with the highest median weekly earnings among women who were full-time wage and salary workers are:
1. Pharmacists: $1,564
2. Chief executives: $1,422
3. Lawyers: $1,333
4. Physicians and surgeons: $1,329
5. Computer and IT managers: $1,300
6. Computer software engineers: $1,272
7. Physical therapists: $1,086
8. Management analysts: $1,069
9. Medical and health services managers: $1,064
10. Computer scientist and systems analysts: $1,039
Source: U.S. Department of Labor Back to Top
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