9 Survival Skills for the Holidays

I hope you get along great with your family, but in that crucible of survival many habit-forming harms happened. Even if outright abuse was avoided (and the statistics are sad), our subconscious holds the shocks and shapes our lives to react like tsunami survivors.Many of us return to ground zero this time of year, so gear up for those triggers and know how to become immune. That is, to live as you, free of the fear and smallness you once (and may still) live with.Studies of disaster survivors reveal the 9 key traits and abilities that determine who dies, who survives, and why. These apply to all of us. It turns out that all of them are skills we practice in Senses of the Soul! You are a survivor of your own history. Here are the factors proven to be essential for survival and recovery.- Be present and self-aware in your body and senses versus checked out and lost in thought and emotion.In order to take care of yourself, you need to be mindfully in touch with what is really happening and what you need. Awareness precedes effective remedy.- Humbly respect the powerful forces in and around you and respond accordingly versus careless, arrogant, ignorant, naïvete.When you don’t underestimate or ignore the impact of events and your own feelings by trying to muster on like nothing’s wrong,  then you can be honest about the harm, the pain and the desire to be strong.- High level of Self-care, kindly & compassionately attending to our own well-being versus neglectful, care-taking-of-others, doormat or martyr behavior.Enough said. Take care of yourself. Compassionately know what you feel, what you need and figure out how to get it. Catch up with neglected needs, then take care of new situations in real time.- Take Responsibility for your situation, taking initiative to solve versus blaming, complaining or waiting helplessly for someone to save, fix, or take care of you.When you sit still, go inside, allow and confront consciously the darkness and pain inside, do all that you can to deal and heal yourself…you are always rewarded with relief and elevation.- Resilience and Hardiness.By practicing yoga and meditative exercises that challenge our body and confront our imagined weaknesses, we proactively take on a body/mind fitness training that repeatedly shows we can handle ourselves. This builds strength of will, trust in ourselves, and reserve capacity to call upon when hard times hit.- Hope and Purpose; a reason to live which will sustain us and give extra energy when times are tough.When you are in touch with your deepest longings and needs and your highest aspirations – the soul's purpose – you will never be without motivation and hope. This take patience, practice and subtlety to go deeper that the many daily emergencies of the earth.- Connectedness versus isolation and loneliness.Our primary work is to be connected to ourselves for emotions and soul. This is the most reliable and highest form of connection, and makes it easier to connect to everything outside ourselves.- Locating our self, Knowing that we have a place and where we are in relation to everything else.With SOS we do this continually, to know what we're feeling and why, and we discover a greater sense of the vastness of the universe and our very important place in it. We create a sense of safety not from the world alone but within ourselves.- Managing emotions versus getting lost in them.Well, this is our entire Senses of the Soul skill set.So for your holiday survival and healing, practice these, starting with what ever is most missing from your repertoire. Stand strong at ground zero and heal thyself! If you would like a hand’s-on results-guaranteed training in these skills, join me for Emotional Liberation 2016.And be happy these holidays by removing whatever is blocking it!In gratitude, GuruMeher