Be in the real

As the Christmas season ramps up and the countdown speeds up, the pressure to be perfect, to look perfect, to have the perfect present already bought, all increase. It threatens to chase all the joy out of the festive season, to leave us hassled, stressed, stretched too thin and wound too tight. 

This year I’m wondering what it would be like to be in the real this Christmas. To allow your and my reality to breathe. 

Not in the imagined. Not in the desired. Not in someone else’s story. Not in the advert.

The hyper-expectations. The tartan-pyjama-ed family. 

I would challenge you - be in your real Christmas this year. Yours. 

This Christmas there is a chance to put aside the grumbling, the long-carried hurts and the stories we have been telling ourselves, all of which may not even be real. 

Put aside your assumptions. Your expectations. Even your hopes and your dreams. 

Be in your real Christmas. 

Yours.

Yours in the messy floor. 

Yours in the less than perfect turkey. 

Yours in whatever food you can afford to put on your table. 

Yours in whoever sits around your table. 

Yours if your table is the TV. 

Yours if your phone is your company. 

Love is with us in all of our Christmasses. The Holy, the divine, the power of the universe, whatever words that bring you understanding of what is beyond ourselves; that which sits, breathes and is, behind our busyness and within our questing and questioning hearts. 

In the quiet. In the silence, in the gaps between breath. Behind the hoping, longing and dreaming, underneath the broken dreams, the disappointments and heart-ache, we can find the contentment and the peace. 

Whatever you are facing into this season, I hope that you sense the reality of love beneath it all, breathe it in and find strength and fragments of hope, and for that to be your home. 

Kirsten Kearney is married to Tom Magill who runs a Friday night yoga for men class at Maitri. Kirsten is a good friend of Maitri Studio a sea-swimmer, a mental health and wellbeing coach, passionate about helping people find their own paths towards making changes in their lives. She is on Instagram as the_hope_coach

We're in the process of talking to Kirsten about delivering one-to-one coaching sessions at Maitri in 2026. Contact her through Instagram for more information.