December 2025 - Gillian Monks

As we approach the beginning of a new year, how many of us are assessing all that 2025 brought us, acknowledging all that we achieved in the past twelve months, and, perhaps more importantly, realising all that we meant to do… and didn’t.

The pace of life appears to accelerate ever faster, and there is so much to occupy our attention and fill our time – so many amazing activities, so much to see, do and participate in. How many of us have ‘to do’ lists which hardly ever get touched, diaries with notes of gatherings, meeting and events we sincerely meant to attend but never actually got to, fascinating books to read, films to watch, foreign journeys to make… which simply never happen.

Have you ever stopped to consider why these activities rarely seriously feature in your schedule, why you never get around to attending certain meetings, or why you never actually accept certain invitations to meet up with friends, and so on?

Could it be that while our rational mind decides that something might be feasible, enjoyable or even desirable, we don’t really want to engage with those activities or people. So, we prioritise everything else and continually shove all the wonderful things we never have time for to the back of the queue.

For example, since my teenage years I had longed to learn more about a certain healing therapy, but at that time there were very few people teaching it and those that were didn’t even happen to be in the United Kingdom. Thirty-five years later, it came to my attention that just the sort of course I had longed to attend was being finally being offered in the south of England. Eagerly I signed up for it immediately, with the proviso that there were a couple of other commitments which I had to attend to first before I could proceed with my new studies.

I have always led a full and busy life, but in this particular instance, the months drifted on and I still had not activated the distance learning beginning my new course. I felt conflicted and frustrated. At the end of a whole year of arguing with myself and justifying my actions to myself, I eventually reached the understanding that I no longer held my dream of such studies and didn’t actually want to do the course at all. The confusion and guilt which I had been experiencing suddenly melted away, and I also realised what a weight I had been supporting internally through my unidentified true feelings and unacknowledged decision not to go ahead with it.

For that is another great drawback to all the things we think we should be actively participating in but cannot persuade ourselves to engage in – they carry such an emotional and sometime spiritual weight of expectation, guilt and disappointment that we can sometimes be driven to mental inertia or total paralysis resulting in levels of stress which can produce a dire effect on our mental and physical health.

We live in a society which offers us almost limitless choices. Intellectually, you know that some of these are opportunities too good to be missed and that you should be gleefully grabbing them with both hands – so why aren’t you? The answer lies deep within your subconscious. our intuition is telling us ‘No!’, often for reasons which we cannot identify or understand even if they were explained to us, but at a deep level it knows what is best for us.

So, while you are looking at your new calendars and diaries and perhaps beginning to plan your new year ahead, spare some thought for how you feel – what makes your heart truly sing and what makes you feel flat and depressed. Listen to yourself. Trust yourself. Go with your gut feeling. Prioritise what matters most to you. Be honest with yourself – and possibly others around you who perhaps you have kept having to make excuses to.

Begin this year with the clear intention of being true to yourself. You will function far more efficiently, be a great deal happier and also release others from empty expectations which you can never realistically fulfil.

Happy 2026 – may this be the year in which you find your true self and the path you are happiest walking!

Is time moving too quickly for you? Are you feeling harassed by how fast Christmas appears to be approaching? Do you feel the need to slow time down, or stop it all together while you catch up?

Perhaps one antidote to this is by telling yourself how many days you still have to accomplish everything, not how few days there are left to you. Perhaps you also need to prioritise and decide to leave something out this year. Within reason, only try to do what you can. And before you become desperate, ask for help.

I would just like to point out that ‘Christmas’ is a whole season which contains many events. It is not just one day – the 25th December – but encompasses the whole of that month (and often the end of November as well), as well as the original Twelve Days of Christmas which only end on the 5th January.

How does one define Christmas anyway? For me, it has never just been about decorations, gifts and lots to eat… it is how we feel while we are engaged in these activities. It all depends on our perspective and outlook on life.

My Christmas begins with washing all my pots and dishes on my kitchen dresser sometime in November, riding them of any residual summer dust. This never fails to fill me with joy as I know what the action signifies – the beginning a wonderfully warm and happy time. Then there is the baking of the Christmas cakes on Stir-Up Sunday. It is also in the shortening days, teatime dusk, stormy grey skies and the nip of frost.

Writing seasonal cards and letters, completing making gifts, choosing, sorting and wrapping, cutting the first evergreenery to bring inside to deck the halls – and yes, the planning, the making of lists and menus, the cleaning, cooking and shopping… to me, this is all Christmas, and can bring just as much fun and pleasure as the main day itself, in its own way… given the chance.

Turn back the time to childhood. Youngsters feel the magic of Christmas – that indefinable promise, excitement and presence which lurks in candlelit shadows, snowy scenes and the marvellous anticipation. It threads its way through all the schemes, surprises and plans that we each make… it dodges in and out of our dreams of perfection, it peeps at us from the burgeoning shops filled with decorations and echoes to us from a well-loved Christmas carol.

What we need to do is to catch hold of this ephemeral magic and bring it into our everyday lives. Making the very most of each little situation and occasion is a good way to begin. Play some seasonal music, burn some spicy incense, make yourself a hot chocolate or pour yourself a little glass of wine to help get you in the mood and set the scene. More than that, include someone else, make someone laugh, compliment someone on how they look, lift someone’s spirits, phone them, tell someone how much you care for them… reach out to others…

And don’t forget yourself in all of this: nurture and care for yourself and make sure that you find something satisfying, joyful, and yes, even magical, in the proceedings. This may just be by sitting still and quiet for five minutes and allowing yourself to simply ‘be’.

Remember the natural world, too. Feed your wild birds and mammals which might not have hibernated fully, take extra care of domestic pets, especially those who are growing elderly and might find the cold, wet months more of a strain on aging painful joints. Retreat out into the fresh air as a way of regenerating your energy, and give joyful thanks that it is all there, just waiting to support and heal you.

Yes, Christmas often means lots of extra work, exhaustion, frayed nerves, an empty purse and being at odds with one’s nearest and dearest, not to mention having to cope with awkward and uncooperative people. This is simply life, but all the difficulties are suddenly magnified by that insistent little spirit of Christmas magic which refuses to leave any of us alone during these early winter months. and which spurs us on to increasingly more… but also encourages us to seek that indefinable magical element of Christmas.

Give yourself a few moments. Smile. Open your heart to your tasks, to your people, to yourself… this will allow the magic of Christmas to come to your aid, to enter in, to flourish… and then I can promise you that you can expect the totally unexpected and, yes, a little magic to come your way.

Try it and see…