This time of the year is notoriously busy and chaotic. Listen to this episode to learn how to slow down and embrace getting still and patiently waiting. It isn’t easy, but it’s totally worth the work!
Show Notes:
Welcome to Episode #119 of Real, Brave, & Unstoppable!
The holidays are notoriously full of chaos, crazy and busy-ness. They come and go in a whirlwind and it’s pretty common for people to pause after it’s over and wonder where the time went.
Wouldn’t you rather enjoy this time of year?
Listen to this episode where I talk about my own work to get still this holiday season. You’ll learn WHY we tend to get so busy (besides the obvious!) and how to slow down and savor the present moment.
Have a listen and don’t forget to leave a rating and review!
Resources
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Podcast host and life coach, Kortney Rivard, helps women who want to live more exciting, more fulfilling lives get out of their own way and start creating a life they love.. Book a call to chat about how you can start changing YOUR life today.
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Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/kortneyrivard)
Other episodes:
- Ep 121: 5 Ways to Make the Mirror Your Friend
- Ep 120: Getting Back on the Goals Bandwagon – Setting Better Goals
- Ep 119: Slow Down! How to Embrace Getting Still and Waiting Patiently
- How to Fix Your All-or-Nothing Thinking
- Ep 117: How to Get Past Your Fears – Do it Scared
The Real, Brave, & Unstoppable full episode catalog
Transcript:
Episode 119:
Hello friends and welcome back to RBS for episode #119.
I hope your holiday season is going well so far! Speaking of holiday season… I traveled back to Minnesota for Thanksgiving this year and for the first time in I don’t know how long, I was able to spend a holiday with my family. I didn’t have my kids with me – they were with their Dad (also in Minnesota), but it was really nice to be able to spend the time with my family and I had so much gratitude for that. I even got to experience an outdoor football game – I went to the MN-WI game to see my nephew in the marching band (well, we went for the football too! ). The high that day was a little below freezing, so I had to dig deep to channel that good old MN cold-weather toughness. It even snowed during the game!
I am grateful I was able to take that trip. This combined with a book I recently read, 29 Gifts, (check it out…) caused me to think about really slowing down to appreciate what is good in my life.
I was pulled to reconnect with my Christian faith a bit – in the past several years I’ve struggled a bit with how to relate to this and have been kind of finding my own way, but I found this a perfect time to do this with it being the season of Advent.
Now, whether you are Christian or not, this episode has lessons. I may refer to some elements of christianity, but you can most certainly relate what I have to say to your own situation whether you are religious or not.
But anyway, to get back on track, Advent is a time for rejoicing in stillness. It’s a time of waiting for the birth of Jesus in christianity. It’s a time for hope and peace.
So, if you think about the typical American during December, how does this line up?
Ummm, yeah. NOt many of us practice stillness in December, do we?
It;s almost like people are all lined up at the starting line, you know, like horses in a horse race, and as soon as Black Friday hits, the gates are open and the race starts. Shopping, planning and hosting parties, going to parties, finding the perfect gifts, making the crafts, decorating… it seems things just keep piling up on the to-do list and it feels impossible to take anything off of it.
I remember when I was married, we used to have this big holiday party every year. It was so much fun, but I think about all the time that went into that party. We carefully curated the appetizer menu (and made all the food ourselves). We’d even try some of them ahead of time to make sure they were up to par. We’d have the house perfectly decorated, and even planned a holiday trivia contest and a white elephant gift game. We had a signature cocktail for the party, specially curated wines and as a finishing touch, we added white paper bag luminaries to line our long driveway. Oh, and let’s not forget the printed custom-designed invitations I designed each year, usually depicting my chocolate lab in some sort of holiday getup.
On top of that, I operated a photography studio, and this time of the year was always the busiest. And then, of course, all of the usual holiday tasks like shopping. Oh, and let’s not forget travel. We’d travel back to MN every year to see family, and we’d have to get all of our gifts back there somehow. This meant planning ahead to ship things (before the days of Amazon prime) or packing things in a suitcase (back in the day when airlines didn’t nickel and dime you for extra luggage). And travel in and of itself was a special treat… like the year we got stranded in Chicago overnight. Or the year I got stuck after Christmas and wasn’t going to be able to get back for several days, so ended up renting a car with some strangers and driving overnight in a snowstorm from Minneapolis to Maryland.
Over the years, I’ve removed a lot of these things from my plate, and my kids are older, so there isn’t as much emphasis on getting the latest hot toy before it sells out and stuff like that. Since my divorce I haven’t hosted Christmas parties and I rarely travel during the holidays. But, I still have noticed that Christmas comes and goes so fast. It feels like I’m just buzzing through life not really stopping to pay attention to and savor the little moments.
So this year, I’m focusing on getting more still. I don’t want to say “getting still”, because like anyone, this is a work in progress for me!
I’m going to talk about some ways to get still and quiet, to enjoy the little things that are so beautiful about the holiday season, but first, I want to talk about why we get so busy in the first place.
Basically, having too much to do is a result of taking on too much. Putting too much on your plate. After all, we are each ultimately responsible for how much is on our plate. Now, you may be saying, yes, but Kortney… I can;t just say no to increased workload at work. I can’t NOT do my Christmas shopping. I have to go to this gathering, this event, that party… and so on.
Well, true with work. However…. Let me tell you about the number of people I have coached who assume they can’t say no to work that is given to them, so they don’t bother to ask if a deadline is hard or soft. They are afraid to say that their plate is already full for fear that they’ll be perceived as incompetent. Nearly every client I coach on stress has some version of this.
And shopping – I get it, but is it true that you really CAN’T not do your shopping? There might be consequences to not doing shopping, but it’s not true that you HAVE to. So, the message I’m trying to convey here is that many people overstress when it comes to getting the perfect gift or spending the right amount of money (which brings up a whole other set of fears). You are in control of deciding what you CAN and CAN’T do. When you start noticing “have tos” and “should dos”, these are potential thought errors or thinking traps and you actually CAN decide on something that works for you. It’s pretty common with stuff like this to think in very binary terms – I either have to do ALL of THIS or I’m not doing anything at all … i.e. failing.
So the shopping thing – overstressing about it or overplanning stems from fear. What if they don’t like my gift? What if I didn’t do enough? Susie really wanted this toy and if I don’t find it they’re doing to be disappointed for a lifetime. Fear-based thoughts.
Parties. I mentioned the one we used to host. It was a lot of fun, yes. But it consumed my time from Thanksgiving (and even before … remember I mentioned custom-designed printed invitations – sent out around Thanksgiving!) until the party. At one point I realized that I was having to cram all of the traditions I wanted to participate in with my kids into roughly a week or two. This comes down to values… what’s more important? Sometimes something that is fun and kind of important gets trumped by the stuff that is really important. Knowing your values helps here.
Going to parties even though you don’t have the bandwidth for all the parties? Fear-based. Bob will be upset if I go to Gladys’s party and not his. I can’t not show up for the work party – I will look like I’m not a team player. Ok, so maybe Bob will be upset, but I can almost certainly promise you he’ll get over it. And, it is possible to have a conversation with Bob about how sorry you are that you can’t attend and you hope you can next year. This one’s about boundaries and knowing what’s really important to you.
And sometimes we stay busy or get too busy because it’s just what we identify with this time of year.
Some people experience grief or sadness this time of year, and staying busy keeps them distracted.
So, there are a couple of themes here.
First, a lot of our busyness stems from avoidance of something else – emotions that are uncomfortable. Saying no to aunt Sally’s invitation could upset someone and then you have to deal with the fallout of that. When, in reality, we all need boundaries and part of being emotionally grownup is being able to communicate with aunt sally AND being able to sit with the discomfort of where that ends up.
The second part of this is, and these two things work together… but a lot of times we forget what’s truly important to us. So in some of the examples I shared earlier, let’s take decorating, for example, if I am stressing about getting my house impeccably decorated, there are two possibilities here – well there are more than two, but two are: I’m worried that if someone comes to my house and anything looks less than perfect, I’m worried about what they’ll think; or the guests at my party will scoff at my decor… option two is that I just really enjoy decorating and how it looks. It makes me happy to see my house decorated. BUT… if this is coming at the expense of peace and calm and it’s creating stress around too many things to do, at a certain point, we have to look at our values – what is really important. What do we need to prioritize?
The holiday season is a combination of these things – prioritization of what’s most important and non-avoidance of discomfort.
So, we have to be able to really get intentional about this, and in order to get intentional, we need to practice awareness. Annnd… in order to practice awareness, we have to slow down. We have to get still and quiet. It is only here where we can start to notice what we are thinking, feeling, and doing.
This is hard any time of the year when we’re not practiced in it.
Yes, it takes practice. It takes making a commitment to slowing down, to getting quiet.
There is so much beauty this time of the year, friends.
If you live in a snowy climate, the beauty of falling snowflakes against a starry sky. Or the glow of the morning sun through the snow-coated trees.
The chill of the crisp December air, the sparkle of the wintry sky. The scent of pinecones and simmering cider. The twinkle of a Christmas tree. The sounds of Christmas carols. The closeness of a family watching holiday movies together. Glowing candles. The excitement in the air as you shop for your gifts.
And when we don’t slow down, we don’t even notice it.
If you celebrate Christmas, it comes and goes so fast when we don’t slow down. The family gatherings, opening of presents flies by and we’re left in a mass of wrapping paper and kind of like, whoa, what happened here? And then we feel totally bloated and crappy cause we ate too much.
Okay, so I’m going to get a little Christmas story-y here. So if you’re not familiar with this like the Christmas story, that’s okay, but I’m going to tell you a little bit about it. Cause I think it’s really it’s, it’s just, it’s such a great lesson or such a great parallel. Um, you know, when when the angel came and told Mary basically that she was gonna to bear God’s son Jesus, I mean, can you imagine that, she wasn’t even married yet. That was no-no that was no, no back then. So first of all, she’s like, how am I? She didn’t know what I mean. That was probably pretty scary. But she totally like, she let go. She surrendered. She trusted. And Mary and Joseph didn’t really have anything. They didn’t have money. They weren’t, you know, they really had to turn everything over to trusting. They had to slow down. They had to really listen for signs of how to handle this, what to do. They were really focused on what was important. And I think there’s so much that we can learn from the season of advent where it’s about waiting. It’s about really tuning into what’s bare bones important and slowing down and waiting for this, you know, big celebration of If you, if you’re Christian the birth of Jesus, if you’re not Christian, let’s just say like family celebrations or whatever, like slowing down and really waiting to partake in these beautiful traditions this time of the year. And this can apply it to any time of the year as well. It’s just like that saying stop and smell the roses. If we don’t slow down and stop, like, we don’t even notice they’re there. And there’s so much that we get from noticing from being still and really noticing what is present for us. You know, what’s, what’s happening around us. What’s happening with the people we care about. Another thing that slowing down does is… Have you ever thought to yourself, I feel stuck. I feel stuck? I feel like I’m going through the motions. Slow down. And connect with what’s important. That’s how we find meaning in life. And if we’re just going crazy and just checking boxes off the to-do list all day, and we’re not really taking a moment to really check in with ourselves. We’re not going to be able to connect to what’s truly important to us. I’ve talked about values a little bit on the podcast. I probably should do another, like a little more in depth episode about it, but values are so important in just helping us make choices in just moment to moment choices about how we show up. as Well as like bigger, you know, setting goals and finding direction in life. But. It’s really worth. I’m a huge advocate for doing the values, exercise, where you Google list of values. You’ll get a list of a lot of words. There are some out there that are shorter lists, but I like the ones that are a little longer. And you go through that list. And anything that’s really like jumps out at you about like, you know, what qualities are important to you in how you show up, like what guides you in creating the life you want to live? What if somebody was giving a speech about you? Like, what would you be really proud that they noticed about you? It’s the kind of, the kind of things that you would strive for or qualities you’d want to possess, even if no one was watching you. And slowing down helps you notice, like where am I out of alignment with that stuff? What, where am I out of alignment with what’s important. And how can I line up with some of those things? How can I connect with some of those things a little more? And that’s just where we find so much meaning in life. Without doing that, yeah, we just go through the motions. And it doesn’t feel fulfilling because we’re doing things that aren’t important. So think about that. You gotta slow down. You gotta get quiet. You gotta get still to be able to notice that stuff. You know, I mentioned before awareness. Slowing down… Is where we find awareness. And what do I always say? Awareness is half the battle. Of, you know, just growing and learning and in this life. One more thing I wanted to just touch on is the waiting aspect of things. So I’m somebody who gets excited if someone tells me they’ve got me a gift, for example. I’m like, I got excited. Like I want to know what it is. Like I don’t want to wait. I don’t want to, I want to know what it is. I don’t really want to know what it is, but there’s this part of me that just so antsy to know, and then I’m like, oh, I can’t wait till that day so I can find out what it is. So I noticed this though.. My partner, he does this every year… He he’s tries to suck me into this. He knows that I bite and this year I didn’t… it was amazing. But he knows. I get really frustrated if he pokes at me with like, oh, I bet you can’t guess what your president is. And. and it does, it gets me, it hooks me every time and I get so frustrated. Not,, not because I don’t know what it is, but more at the poking. And then the curiosity just gets me. But, This year I kind of, I said to him, I don’t want to know. So don’t even, I don’t even care if you do that. I don’t want to know. So why would you do that? So. But I did notice myself saying. Oh, I can’t wait until… to myself, not to him, but I can’t wait until it’s only a few more days and I’ll be able to find out what it is. And it’s this huge box. Like he wrapped it and put it by the tree. It’s huge. It’s a huge box. So of course my curiosity is there. Right? But instead of like, I’m noticing, oh, it’s only a few more days. I can’t wait. Just let these days go by. And then I caught myself and went, ah, that’s not really waiting. Is it? That’s not really waiting. So the way I want to pull all this together. Is, and this, you can apply this to anything that you’re sort of, you know, waiting for in life. Is, you know, that day’s gonna come. But how can you find meaning and joy in the now? In this day, in this day? Part of the fun is the waiting. And if we can just slow down and get quiet. And appreciate what’s here in the now. The other stuff will come. So that’s what I have to offer you today, friends. I wish I would have gotten this out sooner for you, but you can, you can hold this message and practice it next year. Or what I would really love you to do is in the couple of days before Christmas, and in the, in the week, before new years, How can you just really slow down from day to day and notice what’s present in you and what’s present around you. Now. While you wait for this new year to, to begin. I’d love to hear how it goes. Send me an email. Let me know. Um, a couple of things before I go: first of all, if you don’t follow me on social media, please go do that. I’m kortneyrivardlifecoach on both, both Facebook and Instagram. I love showing up mostly on Instagram. I’m mostly over there, but things do cop. You know, do share over to Facebook as well, but I love hanging out on Instagram and I would love to have some more interaction with people and just, you know, have fun over there. I think it’s a neat place to to hang out and sort of build community. So come visit me over there and say, hi. And then the other thing is… if you’re enjoying the show, do me a favor and please go leave a rating and a review for me. It’s really the best way to let other people find, there’s help other people find the show. And I know some people have said it’s really has been enjoyable for them to listen to, so, you know, who knows how you might be helping someone. If you share it. And one more thing I have to just share is that the podcast host that I use sends out every year, like the stats for the year. And I was pretty proud because I am in the top 50% of all the podcasts in terms of downloads and listeners of all the podcasts, this company hosts. Top 50%. I thought that was pretty for small little old me… I thought that was pretty cool. And I’m really proud of that. So thank you for being one of those listeners. So much appreciate you. If you ever have any episode ideas or something you want to hear more about, please reach out. I love when people do that. So, with that friends, have a very Merry Christmas and I will see you next time.
