Here are six ways to embrace a balanced approach to spending during the holidays.

To show up as our best selves, we must be able to EXPRESS OUR EXPERIENCE of life with someone else. Being truly seen, heard, and known is essential to happiness. This means that we must be able to honestly express our past hurt, our current pain, our joy, our concern, our frustration, our confusion, our love, and every other experience we encounter in our lives. We must have someone to see, hear, and know us – our true authentic us.

Today, I want to share with you what happened to me last week that has me thinking a lot about joy and how important it is for all of us to spend time each day doing something we love – even if we only have a few spare minutes.

Yesterday was Book Club Sunday for us - and it truly was a beautiful day! As we waited for our book club participants to arrive, we had our office door open to the lovely view outside. The trees are all changing color, the grass is still green at Sherwood Park across the street, and there were so many families, couples, and friends out enjoying the day.

Yesterday, after Sundays with Annette and Ada (which was wonderful!), we made a quick stop at the grocery store to buy Valentine flowers for Don before heading off to our next adventure. As we were checking out, our cashier just happened to mention that her previous customer had purchased real, official gluten free, dairy free Oreo cookies.