With Christmas drawing ever closer, it’s a great time to take stock, isn’t it? 

Of course, there’s a lot of things we can take stock of, and we get to choose.  

At least, you get to choose provided you don’t slip unawares into the Calamitous 3 Cs – that’s 

• comparing your life unfavourably with those Other People who have more blessings that they could possibly count on all their fingers and all their toes
• contrasting the life you’re living with what could have – and should have – been; if only Mr Nasty had just been Nice
• catastrophizing about your past, present, and future. 

Oh dear! 

Let’s be clear about this: the 3 Cs can be very persuasive, and very depressing.  

Above all, they’re utterly, utterly toxic. 

So, how about giving yourself the best Christmas gift you possible can this year?  

Wouldn’t that be a huge departure from your norm? 

The best possible gift you can give yourself is to let go of the Calamitous 3 Cs.  That’s not to say they won’t continue to reverberate in your head.  

They probably will, like muzak.  

But what of it? 

When you’ve been in a public place and later find you still have some horrid ditty playing in your head, you don’t go out and buy it, do you?  You don’t dance around your home to that muzak, do you?  You accept it as an irritation, a minor irritation, and get on with your day. 

Did you know you can do that with the 3 Cs, too? 

They’re muzak.  

You can hear them.  

But you don’t have to listen to them.  

You don’t have to focus your attention on them. 

Instead, you can focus on all that you’ve achieved this year.  There’s been a lot more than you think.  

Sometimes, just getting out of bed and staying reasonably sane is a fair achievement.  But there’s been a lot more, as well, hasn’t there? 

Even if you’ve been running on empty a lot of the time – which I’m guessing you probably have – you’ve still shared your heart and your gifts generously with others.  

You’ve still been loving and selfless… to a fault.  

So, here’s a thought for you: you are allowed to claim some happiness and satisfaction for yourself.  

You don’t have to get whatever happiness and pleasure you do get by living for – and through – other people. 

You can give yourself permission to be a person with needs, wants, and desires that matter.  

You can start to tell yourself your happiness matters. 

It really is okay for your happiness to matter to you. 

Give yourself permission. 

You’ve spent so long waiting for someone else to give you permission.  That person would sooner submit to an enema every day of the 12 days of Christmas, and beyond, before they’d give you their permission.  (I can’t say I’ve proved this definitively, but it is an educated guess:-) 

This Christmas give yourself the gift of letting go of barking up the wrong tree. 

You’re worth more than that – and you know it. 

You’ve kept on waiting for the permission that’s not going to come. 

Let it go. 

This year, instead of depriving yourself, give yourself the gift of believing you have the right to a worthwhile present and a happy future. 

Will your life change overnight? 

Probably not.  But when you plant seeds in a a garden you don’t expect to go down the next morning and see a full-grown plant, do you?  

That takes a little longer – even if it’s a bamboo. 

And it all begins with planting the seeds.  

When you plant the seed of giving yourself permission, you plant a hardy perennial that will grow tall, and strong, and vigorous.  

Will you do it?