The HAES Holiday Survival Guide, even if you're not in Portland Oregon!

There are some excellent parts of the holiday season.
CC image courtesy simplyla on Flickr

The autumn/winter holidays can be stressful for many, especially if food or body issues were a part of your childhood, and even more so if they remain part of your current family dynamics. Fortunately, two amazing women are here to help the holidays go more smoothly, in a body-positive, weight-neutral way -- and it's all online, so you can get the support you need no matter where you are or what your travel plans look like.

HAES® For the Holidays

Golda Poretsky is a Health at Every Size® coach who runs Body Love Wellness. This winter, she's offering a 30 day coaching program by email and Facebook to help you navigate all the challenges of food, family, and taking care of yourself in this stressful time. You can sign up now or in the next week, with the course starting the day before American Thanksgiving (perfect timing, no?). She's offering the course for $49, or a two payment plan of $25 each. What a great gift for to offer yourself -- and your family, as you keep your cool and stay calm and centered and with a sense of humor.

Movin' Easy Through the Holidays

Gillian of Mindfully Active is offering this group coaching program through December 31st to easily and joyfully keep moving (or bring movement into your life) during the holidays. Her body-positive online coaching supports you where you are now, and offers ways that are easy, enjoyable, and fast to incorporate more movement into your life. The program is a bargain at $10 for more than a month of support, with 50% of the proceeds being donated to the Tillamook County Women's Resource Center.

Here at Holding Space Massage

In the next weeks, I'll be posting more tips, suggestions, and encouragement for how to stay centered in and compassionate toward your body during this season of stress and celebration, family and frustration. And of course, nothing helps you feel better in your body and reduce your stress more than getting a massage. But I encourage you to make use of all the help you can get, and these are two affordable, accessible resources you can take with you wherever this holiday season takes you.

Note: I am not affiliated with either of these business, and do not receive any compensation for your participation in either of them. I have not yet experienced either of the courses myself and make these recommendations based on my observation of these two coaches as a fan of their online work.

Meet the massage therapist's healthcare team

Even massage therapists need someone to help them relax and be well, right? Well, I'm lucky enough to have a whole team. Among them are:

Reina, aka Catareina the Feline Queen, in her favorite spot

Specialties include heat therapy (seen here applying warmth to my neck and shoulder), relaxing high-speed vibration, and the best two-pawed kneading in town. She's the applied-bodywork therapist, but I also have on my team:

Chaos, aka KC McChaos, in his favorite spot (and mid-lick)

He's responsible for overseeing the movement part of my healthcare regimen. He makes sure my arms get a thorough workout while my hands get a luxurious furry sensory experience. He's quite emphatic about the therapeutic effects of walking, and is playful but strict about ensuring that I partake frequently. The prescribed distances have shortened in recent years, but he hasn't given up on my health yet.

Sure, I also have at my disposal and occasionally call upon the skills of a massage therapist, a physical therapist, a chiropractor, a physician, two children (what Chaos lacks in exercising my endurance, they work diligently to more than make up for), a gaggle of friends, a lifemate, and my own self and experience, but honestly, I'm just not sure my wellness would be where it is today without these two.

Who's on your healthcare team?

In the space between making plans and following your breath grows your life

There are roots to watch for, yes,
but also beauty in the journey.
CC image courtesy grant_loy on Flickr

I don't know if anyone has ever mentioned, but starting a business takes just a wee bit of time.

I have been known to understate things on occasion.

I also may have mentioned that I have two small children.

And further, I have plans beyond this business and being a part of this family. (Shocking, but so very true!)

And then yesterday +Barry Hatfield shared a post, titled Finishing, in which he directs the reader:

What do you want to do? What do you want to have finished when it’s time to go? Have you said "I’ve always wanted to …"

Do those things.

And oh, this hits me hard. Because as much as my hurryscurry runaround brain wishes, I cannot do all things, all at once. I probably can't even do all things one at a time. There are days, while building this business, attending to the twenty things that all need to be done yesterday (or last month, or whoops last year), that I get frantic, caught up in the insistence, in the pressure, the unrelenting slipping of time, the thoughts that each day passing is one fewer left to get finished, each hour put toward one endeavor is one less for every other and how can I possibly choose? must! try! to do! more!

And then I stop.

I breathe.

I get/give a massage.

I notice what-is in this moment.

I attend to my beautiful, messy, demanding, miraculous, human body.

And I remember: the only way to finish is to do. And the only way to do, the only way that works for me, is living in just this moment. This breath. This movement. This hour. Paying attention to what is before me now: a client, a child, a class, a chance to plan.

And trusting that in this way, if I be lucky and live my full, I may finish a few worthy works.

7 Ways to Keep Feeling Blissful After Your Massage

More like this please!

Don't you wish that amazing feeling of just having gotten a massage could last throughout your week? Well, here are seven ways you can get back to that state, or at least something like it (and without the fancy post-massage hair):

1. Sleep. A massage will help you sleep better anyway: take advantage of it! Practice good sleep hygiene (as much as you can, if you have small children in your bed or house like I do), and try to get 7-9 hours of sleep a night -- and if that seems too outrageous a request, try for it the night after your massage at least.

2. Take a walk. What? But massage is just lying down! While that's true, massage and walking have many of the same effects: less anxiety, more energy, easier movement, and an uplifted mood. Even better is if you're able to walk in nature, or with a good friend.

3. Give a hug. The best part about giving a hug? You get a hug back. Although we don't tend to acknowledge it, touch is a vital need for most of humanity, as important as sleep and food and shelter. So find someone safe, and hug it out.

4. Smile. Smiling, especially with your whole face, lifts your mood, reduces stress, and improves your outlook on life. The neurology that controls your muscles and the neurology that affect and reflect your mood are inextricably linked, so while of course we smile when we're happy, to some extent we're happy when we smile too.

5. Don't smile. Yup, I totally contradicted myself just then, except I also absolutely didn't. While smiling can improve your mood, it's also necessary to not smile sometimes. Just like with massage, sometimes the feelings that come up as we go about our daily lives are big and dark or sad. Just like your massage therapist does, hold that space for yourself to simply feel the pain or fear or grief, and offer yourself compassion for it. It's okay to not smile.

6. Look at beautiful people. Which is to say, look at people, because we all contain beauty, and if you look long enough, you'll start seeing it in everyone. Including in you.

And of course:

7. Book another massage. Because isn't it easier to relax today knowing that tomorrow or next week or next month you get to feel the bliss of massage again?

Those are my ideas (and what I try to do between my own massage appointments). What do you do to bring that feeling into the rest of your life?