Weavers’ House Spa Director Alex Hurt explores being 'healthily hopeful' this festive season..
As we leave behind this gargantuan year, how many of us are catapulting ourselves into 2021 already? We need little reminder of where we are at, or where we stand, for the media won’t let us forget. This is my sixth Christmas blog, and each year I think carefully about its message, and this year the core message is of hope.
To be ‘healthily hopeful’ means that we ditch our unrealistic expectations, focus on what can go well for us, and set our sights on what we can control.
Many of us plan out our lives and live in the future, but never visit the present. No longer able to enjoy the moment, but are lost in what comes next, living for the weekend, a holiday or even Christmas. How have we conditioned ourselves to take the sparkle out of today and only allow it to shine on special occasions?
Why are you saving that expensive bottle of wine? Or that table wear marked only for dinner parties? More so, why have you waited to tell the person you love the most how you really feel? What’s stopping you? Have you perhaps created your own rules, conditions to hold on tight for when the time is right?
Fear is real. Fear lives with us, inside us and affects the way we respond to life. It prevents us all from being truly hopeful, and for an over thinker it’s the ultimate ‘head hijack’.
Throw away your conditions this season, take down those tightly controlled walls, and stand in the now. It’s now that matters, it’s this moment. The way it feels, the way it smells and the way it is. As we allow ourselves to be authentic, stripped of future expectations, planning and order to engage with our thinking and emotions, life becomes simple.
Hope means a feeling or expectation that something good will happen. It’s not reserved for religion, but for putting positivity into our mindset. Hope can be practised daily, and it’s not reserved for far off dates and dreams. If we focus on the good, then we hope we will get the good back. In uncertain times, hope is what will see us through.
Christmas is symbolic of hope, a message of reassurance that there is light. Live with hope and allow your present to be filled with goodness. Whilst our silly season will look different, and families perhaps not able to be together, let’s celebrate with all that we have and all that we are. Let’s not wish our time away but live in the now together.
Spending time on yourself to re-calibrate and focus on your own hope can be practised when you check out of your day-to-day life, dial down the noise and step into a different place. If you feel you need some time off, a massage is the ideal way of checking out of your role and into relaxation. Massage is very much ‘in the present’. Increasing oxytocin levels, winding down stress, increasing blood flow and detoxifying the lymphatic system is the sweet spot for feeling great.
To check-out of living in the future, and check-in to some relaxation in the now, or for vouchers to give the gift of spa, call us on 01787 246 246, email weavers@theswanatlavenham.co.uk or visit www.theswanatlavenham.co.uk. We’ll be open over the festive season just closing on Christmas Day itself, 25 December.
We, at Weavers’ hope your festive season is full of goodness and wish you and your loved ones a very happy and ‘hopeful’ Christmas. x