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Post Holiday shopping is here. Yes, you may get a good deal on some wrapping paper for next year, but more likely you are focused on something else. People who shopped, ate, and stressed their way into oblivion are trying to reset, and are looking for external cues to tell them how to spend their money to fix it.

 

😍: I’m having urges.

😏: Oh, yeah?

😍: Uncontrollable urges.

😏: OhYeah!

😍: Uncontrollable urges to stop by the store and buy things that make me feel organized and skinny.

😐: Oh. Yeah.

 

New Years resolutions are born out of the hedonism of the prior weeks. Your house may already be full from gifts you received (or bought yourself since there were so many “deals” available). But your urge to shop may not be over. Retailers are waiting to pounce as you feel the need to get organized, eat better, and put the holidays behind you. There is always another season ahead where you might find a void in your life to fill with stuff.

 

Here are the next things you might spend your money on:

1. Fitness equipment or clothing for all the exercise you’ve promised yourself
2. Food, vitamins, and supplements for your new healthy diet
3. Huge plastic totes to store your holiday decorations and the crap you accumulated over the last month or two
4. Home décor for un-Christmasing your living room since you feel the need to look at something less festive
5. Look! Valentines stuff is out. Must be time to buy candy to make sure people still feel loved. I don’t see any candy canes, so it must be different than the 20 lbs of candy I have eaten in the last 4 weeks.

 

We want to be sold to because we want change this time of year. It is easy to bend to the pressures of advertising and social norms that nudge us into the next sales cycle. Companies are adept at making us feel that combo of guilt over what we’ve done, and hope that we can make better choices than before. And be someone new and improved.

This year I am trying to reconcile that urge to be a different, healthier me with the need to be the same me, who wears the same work out pants as last year and makes smoothies in the same blender with the broken but functional lid. My inevitable weakness is that I feel that void, the chasm between who I am and that ideal self, who surely got fit because she had a new pair of running pants and a high-powered Vita-mix.

 

Efforts this time of year can get misplaced and go toward shopping for health paraphernalia rather than spending time actually preparing healthy foods or exercising. It is always easier to FEEL like we are bettering our lives with things we buy instead of actually changing habits, routines, or attitudes.

 

Shopping substitutes

It’s so cute that we want to do something positive, but shopping is the easy part. We love to search for things that might be useful or edible. Shopping works well naturally with the human need to gather and hunt, and nowadays we can do this while lying in bed, wearing a sleep mask and bossing Alexa around.  If you aren’t ready to be completely enlightened and free from desire there are ways to use your gathering and searching instincts to do something other than buying stuff.

• Look for healthy recipes online
• Research exercises to do for free at home 
• Read up on free or cheap classes through your library or parks and rec department
• Look at a map of your area to find all the best places to do a day hike
• Shop your own closet for things to wear that you have forgotten about, or make new outfit combos.
• Hold a clothing swap party.
• Shop your own pantry and challenge yourself to make as many meals as possible before having to grocery shop again. There are websites that let you search recipes by ingredients on hand.
• Shop your library for a movie, book, or whatever that you want to get into. Pick something that fills your hole. (In your soul.) Read up on a subject that makes you feel like you are making progress. Learn something new.
• Use your gifts. Like, literally. Use the things you’ve been gifted but haven’t had a chance to enjoy. Take a candlelit bath with the 27 scented candles you’ve accumulated while drinking the wine you got as a holiday hostess gift. Use gift cards or supplies you have for experiences, such as the spa gift card I’ve been hoarding since last Christmas.
• Rearrange your furniture and find things from outside to bring in as décor. Or, find stuff from other rooms in the house that can be repurposed.
• Take on a crafting or home improvement project that you’ve been putting off but already have most of the supplies to complete.

 

Reducing the urge to search and shop

I actually hate shopping at the store, but I do love searching.  I think I crave the mindlessness of paying half-attention to lists of things that are of little consequence at the moment, but give the illusion of making progress.  And there is nothing inherently wrong with entertaining myself.  But I feel the most fulfilled when I am actually doing something, especially if I am experiencing moments of flow, or if I am being present with people I love.  Maybe I am ready to take it to the next level, and increase my happiness.

Things to try:

• Practice mindfulness, everyday.
• Focus on removing unnecessary items and obligations in my environment and routines.
• Put myself on a media budget to reduce exposure to advertising.
• Cultivate energy and reserve time for creating, doing, and connecting.
• Deliberately reduce time used for the pursuit of things, necessary or not.
• Choose a life that doesn’t need escaping from.

Maybe I’m wrong, and shopping weakness is not inevitable.  With each passing yearly micophase, and its corresponding sale cycle, I feel my reserve getting stronger. My focus is subtly changing to gratitude for each little opportunity to experience something different as the seasons roll into the next.

😍: I’m having urges.

😏: Oh, yeah?

😍: Uncontrollable urges.

😏: OhYeah!

😍: Uncontrollable urges to put myself on a media budget so I can focus on our relationship, so turn off the TV.

😐: Oh. Hell no.