For some people, Christmas is not an inspirational time of the year because they live in an obligatory mindset. They have to spend money they don’t have, be with people they don’t like, and present a persona that’s not true.

Going through the holidays with that self-sacrificial mindset not only stresses you mentally, emotionally, and financially, but it also affects you physically. Emotions like fear, guilt, and anger produce stress chemicals that break down your physiology.

On this episode, we are here with Don and Brandi MacDonald. They talk about setting boundaries during the holidays so as not to sacrifice yourself for the things you don’t want to do and how to do it without blowing up everything.

Key Takeaways

• The more that we block and numb, the more we have to feel.
• Love and anger can’t exist in the same world together as well as obligations and inspiration.
• You can’t just add a new behavior to an old practice because it won’t sustain it.
• Once you have an awareness of yourself, how you behave changes.
• If you cannot own pain, it controls you.
• Christmas is the sacrificial mindset on steroids.
• Children download emotions and experience from you. They don’t download what you bought.
• Boundaries have nothing to do with other people. They have everything to do with what we’re willing to say ‘Yes’ about.
• Taking a project approach makes you less attached to the one end goal in mind and more attached to the accomplishment of the project.
• You never measure the end outcome, only your input which is the only thing you control.
• In the busyness of life is where your consciousness starts to get numb.
• Resources:
  • Vitality Shift