If you’re like most people, the holidays are a bittersweet time of year: fun and festivities, sure, but lots of stress around expectations. How would you like your holidays to go this year?

Guess what: you get to decide if this holiday season will be graceful or stressful.

If this is a new concept for you, hear me out: it really is possible.

If you live this holiday season from a place of Love and the Present Moment rather than from stress, worry, and disappointment, you’ll be surprised at how much joy this season can bring you.

Here’s the thing: busy professionals tend to live their lives in a forward rush: before we even get out of bed, our minds race to the calendar, thinking of what needs to get done today in order for our lives not to explode! We are almost never in the Present Moment, enjoying life’s gifts, unless we are reminded to, because the hectic pace of business-as-usual has us scattered and multitasking 24/7.

If this looks like your life, STOP RIGHT NOW. Stop reading this, and take one deep breath, all the way in. Feel the chair under you (or your feet on the ground if you are reading this on the go), notice the temperature of the air, and any other information your 5 senses bring you: smells, sounds, sensations. Are they pleasant or unpleasant? Either way, doesn’t it feel good to be alive?

Okay, you done? Guess what: you just visited the Present Moment! Hooray!

Let go, just for a handful of seconds, right now, of all of your stress. Fifteen seconds spent unloading your muscles of tension will not slow you down, I promise. But if you do it often enough, it might just prevent illness or disease! Go to the Present Moment as much as you can during those times that typically stress you out, pay attention to how this holiday is different. Like: keep a notebook, and really notice.

Here are your best tools for getting through stressful times, holidays included:

• HUMOR! Laugh as much as you can. Laughter shifts energy from fear to Love, and is a powerful tool
• MEDITATION or other form of Divine Connection to connect you with the Present Moment of Enlightenment
• The DIVINE LOVE BUBBLE exercise to keep you in the frequency of Love all day long (more on this next time)
• CRYSTALS such as Rose Quartz for Love, Black Tourmaline for Protection from EMF pollution and Grounding, Clear Quartz for Clarity, and Citrine for Abundance and transmutation of negativity to Joy!

As I said previously, going to the Present Moment—that place where you can reach Enlightenment for a few minutes or seconds in any day, no matter where you are on the Path—is easy IF you remember to do it: simply notice where you are and what you’re doing and be aware that every act can be—and is, when you acknowledge it—a sacred act.

To take the fire of stress out of your life, remember what you were taught in elementary school and STOP, DROP, and ROLL. Stop trying to do everything at once and simply notice the world and where you are in it. Drop into the recognition that driving in traffic, going grocery shopping, sitting in a meeting, or making food for your family are sacred acts, not just things to rush through on the way to something else. Roll with whatever comes your way: when you’re in the Present Moment, you’re centered and therefore less perturbable. After all, you’re a sacred being on a sacred mission, so work it!