Hello, and welcome to another episode of Uplift For Her. I am your host, Doctor Mallorie Cracroft. And today, our special guest is me. So I am going to be talking to you today. I wanted to do this episode kind of as a different style of episode than I'm used to, and really dive into a specific need that I think warrants some attention and that is stress around the holidays.
So we are going to hopefully talk about preparing ourselves for this upcoming holiday season. I am recording this now, about a week before Halloween, and I can feel it ramping up. You can see it on social media, people showing their beautifully decorated houses. You can feel it in the shopping ads that are coming at you, telling you all of the things that you must buy to be, you know, up to date. And then it just kind of can snowball from here on out. You get Halloween and then into Thanksgiving and then into Christmas, and it just gets a little crazy from here to the end of the year. So we are going to be talking about how to be aware of that and what we can do to brace ourselves and prepare ourselves to really stay okay for the next few months.
That's our goal. Stay okay for the next few months. Before we do that, I just wanted to give a shout out. This podcast is put on not just by me. So I just wanted to give a shout out to the rest of our team involved. We have John, who's my husband, who's our chief of video and sound.
And then we've got Whitney, my amazing assistant, who helps with all of the coordinating and logistics. And then our editor, Kaesie. So thanks to the whole team, if you're watching this or listening to it, it's because of all of their efforts as well. And so I'm really grateful that we can come together as a team to bring this to you.
We hope it's really beneficial. So let's dig in. First, we want to think about what makes the holiday season so stressful because there's so many good things about the holiday season, right? These are supposed to be fun things. These are supposed to be things that bond us together and bring us together. And it turns out it's not always that simple.
So what are the things that make it difficult? For the first bit, I'm going to talk about
some of the things that make it hard. But the last part I'm going to talk about is what we do about it. So if it sounds like I'm creating this doom and gloom scenario, we will talk about what we do about it.
But the first thing I want to do is just to acknowledge those of you who feel this impending doom that comes with the holidays, because I think it's actually quite common. And one of the first things that comes up is relationships. And this can be really complex. This is not just good or bad relationships. This usually brings up issues with really complex and complicated relationships.
One of the first things that we see is a toxic family or a close friend. Relationships where, you know, I've heard from a lot of patients and friends of, oh, I have to go home over the holidays and my mom's going to be there, and she's going to comment on what I'm wearing or that I'm not married yet.
And, other times there may be a toxic aunt or a grandmother or a father or someone from our childhood. And these relationships can bring a lot of difficulty because it requires going home and joining in the family routine, or setting a boundary and saying then I'm out. I'm not doing the family thing because I can't handle that relationship.
So a lot of people feel some dread going into the holidays because of these kind of somewhat forced interactions, having to choose between either I spend time with my family and have this,
troublesome interaction, or I don't spend time with my family and I miss out. So that's what can be really complicated. Another thing that can be really complicated about relationships during the holidays is oftentimes the holidays bring up milestones in our lives.
Maybe you've had a family member who has passed away and this can mark the holidays as something that is really vivid and sometimes painful reminders of that time that has passed. This is our, you know, first Christmas, not together or this is our first New Year's Eve that I won't be with my loved one. And so even though you're excited about this, this holiday coming up, there may also be that feeling of dread of, gosh, I wish I could just wake up and have it be January, because then I it won't be that constant reminder of the traditions that were with my loved ones, and that can bring on a lot of complex emotions. I think also things like disruption of marriage or divorce or shared parenting can be pretty complicated during the holidays when you have a family event, but your children may be with their dad or something along those lines where you want this. Everyone is celebrating family and togetherness and friendship, and you may be over here saying, yeah, that would be great.
That would be great if I had that relationship. And then lastly, along with relationship UPS, it's possible that you don't have the relationship that you want. Maybe, your marriage has dissolved, or maybe you're single by choice. Or maybe you want children or don't have children, or any number of circumstances like that where everyone around you is saying, this is so great that we get to get together with family, and you're saying, gosh, I'm craving that relationship now.
More than ever. And that can be a really painful reminder again of, I just wish I could wake up and feel like I can get back to the day to day where we just go to work and think about work, and we don't have to suffer through that. So again, I don't want to be doom and gloom, but I do want to leave space and acknowledge that the holidays can bring with them a lot of very complex emotions and a lot of painful emotions sometimes.
And, if we're not prepared for that, then it can really catch us off guard and ruin some days or weeks. And so hopefully we can, at the end, I'll review some strategies that we can use to hopefully enter that prepared and, and maybe cope with some of those things. Okay. Another big challenge that we see around the holiday season is health.
This will not come as a surprise to any of you. I think that we work so hard to get into these health routines. And we talked so often here about what routines are going to support our bodies the best, you know, walking and strength training and getting our protein in and getting our vegetables in. And then the holidays come and it seems like the entire world is conspiring against our health routines.
And, we end up going to bed later because we're staying up late to finish a project for our kids, or a gift, or plan a party or, you know, whatever stresses come up around this time of year, it ends up nudging into our sleep schedule or that routine. We had to really help ourselves, fall asleep well, and stay asleep.
Oftentimes just the the stress in general, like I mentioned, relationship stress or the stress of having to meet everyone's needs and meet certain criteria can be really stressful and that can throw us off and keep us awake at night, or keep our brain spinning in sort of a fight or flight condition where we might feel like, gosh, I'm really getting stable. I feel like I'm managing my stress, I'm recovering from my stress.
And then the holidays hit and everything kind of comes rushing back to us, so that can be really difficult. I also think that our physical health, especially when it comes to food, is so hard around the holidays, so much harder than we want it to be. And so maybe we've gotten in this routine of like, I get my protein breakfast with some veggies, and I get my lunch and I get my dinner.
And I'm really starting to meet these goals consistently.
And then the holiday comes, and all of the well-meaning neighbors and friends and family want to drop cookies off at your door or bring you a pie or, bless their hearts, they just want to bring you something filled with sugar and carbs and say, we love you so much.
And here is our proof in this, you know, sugary carb dessert. And that can be so lovely that they are doing that, but can also really throw us off of our routine. We also go to family gatherings, where oftentimes these celebrations bring about our favorite foods and our richest foods. And so it might be a potluck spread of everyone's richest food.
And so it ends up being a spread of, you know, really heavy foods with, sort of scarcity of vegetables very frequently. Or maybe it's one salad and our favorite dessert. And so then that can bring about both not feeling well. If you've been on a health journey where you're really starting to get your food dialed in, it may actually feel like, oh gosh, I feel terrible because I indulged and now my body is not happy with it.
Or you may enter into that shame game of, oh gosh, now I shouldn't be eating the thing and I'm not supposed to eat the dessert, but now I'm really craving the dessert. And why am I such a terrible person? Why can't I just stick to my routine so I can bring a lot of really complex emotions there, just with food?
And that can sort of be a downward spiral for some of us because you think, oh, I'm just going to have a little bit, and then we have a little bit and then we have a little bit more, and then we have a little bit more. And then we feel terrible. And then our cravings come back and then we get stressed and then we're tired and around and around it goes.
So it really can be this downward spiral of not feeling well. And again, the purpose of this is not to be doom and gloom. It's to say let's recognize it. So hopefully then we can make a game plan. And that's my purpose today is to say, can we make a game plan? Let's go into this with our toolbox full of tools that we will be ready to face these difficulties, not to just say, like, aren't the holidays the worst?
That's not at all my intention. So definitely maintaining our health habits can be difficult. Also, if we are on a good exercise schedule, these extra events come up that can interrupt that. Maybe we need to be somewhere earlier in the morning, or maybe we need to stay out late at a concert or something late at night, and then we're too tired to get up in the morning and do our workout.
And that can sort of perpetuate then this falling off of our routine that was supporting our body so well. Now when I talk about this health routine, I don't mind so much the fact that we break the norm, that that is not what I'm talking about when it comes to the stress of the holidays.
I think if we are eating really healthy and we go out to dinner and we have a dessert, that doesn't really bother me. That's not the issue here. The issue is where we feel terrible, or we notice that our symptoms come back or our gut symptoms, or we're exhausted or our headaches come back. And if it then creates this negative downward spiral of, now we're eating this way more and more and more, and gosh, we've lost the progress that we just spent the last two or 6 or 12 months making.
Now we're sort of back in the weeds again, trying to pull ourselves back into that healthy routine. So this is not about criticizing anyone who comes off their health routine by all means, take a break from your health routine. But how do we not lose our progress? How do we stay feeling good and keep our bodies working the way that we want them to?
And then the last point I want to make about our health routine is for those of us with young children, I have three young children. They're almost eight and four and two, so I am. I am in the young children's side of things, and the number of people that just want to give my children candy becomes quite aggravating at the holidays.
You know, when you're trying to do all of these things for yourself, I say, okay, I want to really limit my sweets, and I really want to increase my vegetables and increase my protein and make sure I'm drinking enough water. And then everywhere we go, someone wants to give my kids a sucker or give them a cookie, or give them a soda or, you know, give them a bunch of candy filled with dye that they don't respond very well to.
And now they're hyperactive, and now they can't get to sleep on time. And because they can't get to sleep on time, I can't get to sleep on time. And then they're not sleeping restfully because of all of the garbage in their little bodies. And then they're waking me up at night and around and around it goes. I also think it's worth noting that these kids, it's really difficult for them around the holidays to, you know, their little bodies need certain habits and a place for their brains to focus the way that they need to focus.
And so just a reminder for all of us, myself included, that when these kids don't get the routine that they need with eating some healthy foods and eating some vegetables and not eating too much sugar and drinking plenty of water and getting some exercise and getting enough sleep. When these little ones don't get that, their behavior may really suffer and that may make us want to lose our mind.
So we want to kind of think through this and think, okay, I know this is going to happen. It happens every year that the kids start losing their behavior and or having misbehavior. And then I get mad and then I'm yelling and they're unhappy and I'm unhappy. And then the holidays just feel like this big burden. So how can we prepare for these things so it doesn't feel so burdensome?
As we start noticing these behaviors and how can we hopefully prevent them from experiencing that? Because it's not very fun to have your body kind of spit out bad behaviors. If you had PMS, then, you know, it's not very comfortable to feel like you're behaving a certain way, and you can tell it's not really how you want to be behaving, but you also can control it.
We want to help protect our kids from that. We don't want them to feel like they don't have any control about their behavior. And now they're getting in trouble and losing privileges and having these negative interactions when they really don't have complete control at that point. And I'm talking about little kids because that's my kids age.
But this is 100% true for bigger kids all the way up to adolescence, all the way up to us as adults. So maintaining our health habits through the holidays can be fraught with difficulties. It is really, really complex and really can be frustrating and can create this sort of snowball effect. And then the last sort of negative thing I want to focus on before we talk about what to do about it, is the idea of pressure and comparison.
And man, this goes crazy at the holidays and can be such a source of negative feelings and negative emotions and stress. And so one of the ways that we see this to a very magnified degree is with social media. And just a note, when we're scrolling through social media and we see the influencers whose homes are all perfectly and beautifully decked out with pumpkins and scarecrows and hay bales, and then Christmas trees and and perfect, beautiful Christmas lights, it's just a reminder for us that that's comparing apples to oranges.
Most of us are not influencers whose job is to display their home and to display their lives. And this is not in any way a dig on influencers, because I think there's a lot of joy that comes from getting a peek into these influencers' lives and to see like, oh, that's a good idea. I'd love to try that.
So this is not in any way a criticism or a dig, but we want to be aware of what our brain is doing at the time. So if our brain sees that beautifully decorated house and thinks, gosh, why can't I have that? I've always wanted that. Like, why can't I just get my act together and get my house decorated how I want it to be?
Why can't I keep my house tidy? Why can't I keep my kids under control?
It's not always reality. Oftentimes what we're seeing from influencers and from social media is one little glimpse that they turned the camera on after they cleaned their house and after they sent the kids, you know, to go do something in another room so they could film that video.
No shame here. I'm not criticizing at all. But as a consumer of this content, we just want to be aware of what our brain is thinking, because oftentimes our brain tells us that's how it should be. That's what we should be doing. And that's just not true. That's not really reality. It may be some people's reality.
If you're feeling bad, you can come to my house and I will show you. But not everyone has their house perfectly decked out. Not everyone has everything perfectly tidy. Oftentimes the toys are sort of spilling out into the main living space instead of staying in the toy room where they belong. Or oftentimes a kid's hair isn't done or that the clothes are messy.
Or, you know, maybe we're decorating cookies, but it's a disaster. And that is what we want to kind of focus on is what is your reality and how do you feel about it? Instead of looking at something that may be a little bit sculpted for viewers, content for viewer consumption, don't compare to that. Recognize that it's there.
Take it for what it is, enjoy the beauty of it. Enjoy the aesthetics, enjoy the ideas, but don't let it get to you. And then another source of pressure outside of that comparison is just the pressure that we have to do, to do so much to volunteer in the classroom, to get the perfect gift for every one of our family members, and then to get the perfect gift for our neighbors and our neighbors and our kids' friends.
And, you know, it just has this snowballing effect. I don't know about you, but I feel like our culture is at kind of an impossible point right now. There's just so, so much, there's so much in terms of what we're taking in. There's so much of the content. There's so much of the noise, there's so much Christmas music, there's so much candy, there's so much pressure that you need to have this TV or this home or this decoration.
There's just so much. And then you add to that all the things that we're supposed to do, right? Some of this comes from me. We're supposed to meditate and we're supposed to exercise and we're supposed to eat our vegetables and we're supposed to. The list goes on and on and on, and I could list that, but I don't want to overwhelm you.
You know what I'm talking about. There's just so much placed on our shoulders. And as women, oftentimes we have the logistics burden of managing that, of saying, okay, little Susie needs to be here at this time, which means I need to go get the gift so they can take it. And I need to wrap it beautifully. And then I need to go get the other thing for the other party.
And I need to make sure that my home is clean and that I've made the special dish for the party. It's just so much. And we are shouldering that burden a lot of the time, and some of us are better than others at asking for help. But even if you ask for help, that mental burden is just there.
So this is in no way meant to weigh you down and be like, awesome, great. I'm super excited for the holidays. It's just as I've mentioned before, let's acknowledge it. Let's just acknowledge that this is heavy, and that doesn't mean that it's always heavy. There may be really good times, but there are some heavy aspects of the holidays that I think by acknowledging.
Number one, I hope you feel like you're not crazy, that you're not weak, that you're not unique. If you feel like this dread for the holidays, that's pretty common. And, also, is there a way we cannot feel that way? Is there a way that we can manage this upcoming holiday season where we don't have to feel so much burden and so much dread and so much relief when we finally make it to January, when this is supposed to be a fun time.
This is supposed to be a celebratory time with family. So now we move on to how we do this? How do we actually keep that sense of hope and that sense of management about ourselves so we can have a really great holiday season?
So I have four main categories of tools that we can use to help prepare ourselves for the holidays so that we don't feel like we're going to lose our minds and we don't feel like our bodies are falling apart and that we're just barely going to survive. But we want to really thrive through this holiday season and to be really happy and to have I mean, maybe we're not happy.
Maybe it's just our experience that does have some sort of painful parts or some sad parts, but it's ours and we had some direction over it and some management of it. So the very first tool I want to talk about is just self-awareness. This is part of that, right. Listening to it and kind of thinking ahead and saying, okay, this happens every year.
What are the hard things for you? Is it the relationships? Is it the health changes? Is it the money? Is it the stress of just, I've got to have everything be perfect. I've got to have everything just so or people aren't going to think that I'm, you know, keeping my stuff together, that I'm, that I'm managing myself.
Well, where are the things that you find are the biggest stumbling blocks for you coming up? For some people, that's fatigue, intense fatigue, and that can be physical fatigue, but it can also be mixed up with emotional fatigue of just like there's just too much. So the first thing we think about is just self-awareness. What are the issues for you?
The second part of self-awareness is recognizing how you feel at the moment. So part of it is thinking ahead and saying, okay, I know that that dinner with that family member is going to be difficult for me. And then we'll one of the next tools is what we do about that. But for now, just recognize, okay, I'm going to need to do some homework before I go into the situation.
The second part of self-awareness is knowing in the moment I can feel my body revving up. I can feel that temperature sort of starting to boil, and I'm starting to lose it, and I'm starting to get impatient and irritable with kids. That's the moment that is key data for you to take note of, to say, okay, I see it, I see it, I don't need anyone to tell me.
I can tell that I'm not keeping things together as well as I would like. Ideally, we want to prepare so we don't get to that point, but if we do get to that point, we certainly want to catch it. Instead of getting to the point where we say something that we didn't want to say to a family member and blow up the family dinner, and no one speaks to each other for months, right?
We certainly want to catch it before we yell at our kids and say, why can't you just keep it together? Why can't you just behave yourself? You're losing all screens forever, you know, we want to avoid getting to those extremes, so at least catch it in the moment where you say, I think I'm about to say something that I shouldn't and don't want to say.
That's a great moment of self-awareness for you. Then to implement the tools we'll talk about in a moment. So self-awareness is really, really key. I think you can also think through what are some of your triggers. Is it your kids? For some people it's that we love our kids. But they come with a lot of sensory stimulation.
They come with more noise, they come with more touching, they come with more visual stimulation because they're just wiggling and moving and twitching. Some of them are hanging on us or grabbing our hair. And for those of you with older kids, sometimes that's them getting dysregulated and maybe feeling revved up because of the stress of the holidays.
So they may be taking it out on you by being, you know, snippy or rude or, sassy. I guess maybe they're not in their best behavior and that can be really dysregulating for you. So prepare yourselves by having that self-awareness of what are my triggers when I get into a stressful situation, what do I need to be watching for?
Is it getting overly fatigued or is it visual stimulation? Or is it sound stimulation? Because that's how we then implement the further tools to keep ourselves in a place that's really good. So self self-awareness is that first big tool. And this can be simple. Like you could just listen to this podcast and think about it. But you can also write it down like take a moment to journal and write it down.
This is also a really great opportunity, especially if you've had problems in the past around the holidays or family gatherings or, sort of stresses around events with kids. This is a really great time for you to hunker down with your partner or your husband or your mom or your in-laws or whoever is involved to say, can we do some prep work?
Can we do some strategic planning, some battlefield planning? Can we sit down and talk about it like I need you, partner, to understand what's difficult for me and would it be okay if you can support me in this way? So maybe that's noticing. Okay. When I get a lot of sound stimulation, when the kids are loud and the music's on and the TV's blaring and people start raising their voices for me, I really struggle with that.
So partner, support, partner, husband, if I do this. Q if I tell you, do you know what this is a bit much for me. Can you help me remember to go for a walk or can you help me remember to go have some alone time? Can you support me in this way? And this isn't going to be right for everyone, but personalize it.
Don't take just my words and say, well, that would never work for me. Of course, it's not going to work for everyone, but personalize it to say what are some ways you can game plan with your partner?
Also, game plan with your kids. Your kids are in there as well and they may be old enough to recognize, gosh, these are.
This is so stressful when I feel this way and if they're not old enough to recognize that this is a great time to teach them, like, okay, kids, we're going to this Christmas party, it's a little bit late. We haven't had a lot of healthy foods the last week where we kind of had a lot of busyness, a lot of late nights, so you're probably going to be a little more tired.
So here's something that we can do. We can take a break. We can take a walk, you know, educate your kids to be able to recognize when they start feeling red. Also helping them recognize at the time when they're starting to get revved to kind of get down to their level. Lower your voice, put your hands on their shoulders, and say, okay, wow, this has been a big day.
Let's just kind of regroup for a minute. You're not in trouble, but it seems like your body's feeling really revved up. Now, I know I have little kids that don't always work. Some of them scream and pull away from you. But don't hesitate to try with these little kids and with your older teenagers to be like, wow, have you had any vegetables?
Are you hungry? Do you need to go for a walk? Do you need to maybe take some time off screens, like you're seeming like your temperature is rising or your energy temperature or your I call it revved a lot. Like, it seems like you're revved up. Is there something I can do to support you to get that down?
So teaching them that self-awareness at the time.
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So those are the things that we can do along with self-awareness. To game plan, remember to sit down with your partner, your team, your village and say, hey, last year we did this Christmas party. We went super late at night. Could we start it this year at 3 p.m. so that we're not here until 11 p.m.?
So there are things we can do to preempt it now, I know that a lot of relationships are complex, and not everyone is going to be able to use all of these tools, so take them. If they work for you, leave them. If they don't. The second big category of tools is boundary setting, and I have maybe an unpopular opinion with boundaries.
I think that there is a place for them. Absolutely. And one of those places is for safety. So if you find that the holidays bring about unsafe interactions and that can be truly physically unsafe, that is a different conversation altogether, but emotionally unsafe. Maybe you have a toxic relationship with a family member or an estranged relationship where you're trying to be involved with the family, but you don't talk to that family member ever, and now you're going to be in the same room at dinner table, and they're going to be talking to so-and-so, and you're going to feel triggered.
These are the things that come up with the holidays, and boundaries are about recognizing where you need some additional safety and putting up a wall. I really visualize it as a castle with a wall around it. You are in your castle, you stay in your safe place and you build a wall and say, I'm sorry, I can't allow you to come in here.
I can't allow you to talk to me that way. And sometimes that boundary looks like not attending an event. Sometimes that boundary looks like staying in another room. Sometimes that boundary looks like having a very, memorized verbal response, because you know that the same thing is going to happen and it's going to come up and you want to have a verbal response ready, memorize it.
Know that if you need a safety response that you haven't memorized. So maybe that is. Thanks for sharing your opinion. I'm going to excuse myself to go for a walk. You don't get into it. You don't insult. You just say, I don't want to engage in this conversation. And you can say that I don't want to engage in this conversation, but you can also say that that's really an interesting opinion.
Will you excuse me? I'm going to go for a walk. I'm going to go to the other room. Have that way. Memorize to disengage to find your safe spot. And sometimes that's about knowing like I don't go to that event. And that is perfectly okay to understand where your boundaries are. Here's maybe the nuance that I think is important is that having boundaries is about having walls up around us.
When we have walls up around us. Imagine that castle, you've built this giant wall. You are very, very safe. No one's getting through that wall. But also you're not living, you're not exploring, you're not being vulnerable. You're not stretching yourself. You're not going out to meet, you know, in the castle and county, new villages, whatever and boundaries can keep us from that.
And so this is not something that I can tell you where that nuance is. You need to think through that and say, okay, this is a boundary that I need to keep me safe, but also continue to question your boundaries, because sometimes we put boundaries in place to keep ourselves safe, and then they just become a barrier. They just become a wall.
Sometimes as we keep ourselves safe, we get stronger, we get wiser, we get tools. We get to understand how we can stay safe with that same toxic person. Or maybe they change over time. And so question your boundaries. Keep yourself safe, but also find ways to see if that wall that was keeping you safe is now just keeping you from experiencing life.
It's not just keeping you from having a potential relationship. It's not black and white. It's very nuanced. And so you're the only person that can do this. I do find therapists can be really helpful to move through this. If it's really a deep rift with someone that you can really talk this through and say, I think I'm ready to lower my wall a little bit, but I need to help.
I need help understanding how to lower the boundary so I can soften my experience? Or I can be vulnerable so I can build other relationships but not go back into that same spot. Sometimes you do need a guide to help you heal that way, and I would encourage that. If you have an extreme family relationship, like a toxic parent or sibling, or you have an estranged relationship with a family member, if it's new, you're probably going to be more in that boundary setting zone.
But if it's been there for a while, you may want to get to that point where you say, I'd really like to soften this. Can I make less of a brick wall? And can I turn it into sort of a, a wavy fence, a suggestion of a fence that says, this is still where my line is, but I'm happy to see you.
I'm still happy to connect with you. And that's if it's significant. I would work with a therapist, 100% because it can be really difficult to navigate that pain and that relationship on your own.
But question your boundaries, keep them in place when you need them, and then look for ways that you can be vulnerable, that you can put yourself out there.
I think in our current culture, the word boundary can be used in a pretty trite way where it's like, I have my boundaries, so I'm not going to participate in that activity because that's too hard for me. And sometimes I'm saying it mockingly, but like, sometimes that's the right thing to say. And sometimes we should stretch ourselves.
Sometimes we should push outside of ourselves. And instead of all of the self-awareness and focusing on myself and how I feel and how I stay safe and how I think and how I view the world, sometimes we need to push outside that and say, how do other people view the world? What are other people doing? What's going on outside of me?
How can I stretch myself? So there's definitely nuance there, and only you are going to understand where you're at along that continuum. So yes, boundaries can be a tool. As we talked about these hard things around the holidays, right? We talked about toxic relationships. We talked about food and health, and keeping those routines going. And we talked about the pressures to conform and the comparison, those intense comparisons of having to be perfectionist or to keep up with the Joneses and boundaries can be a really great way to say I don't go beyond this. Like I reached my point of participating in events and then I don't go to that next event.
I recognize that I need a break, and that's too much time commitment. That's too much financial commitment. There's my boundary. I'm not spending more than this amount of money. No matter what someone tells me that I need to buy to be, you know, to belong or whatever it is. I have my boundary. This is our budget. This is where we're staying.
This is my time budget. This is where we're staying. I need to have the kids in bed by 10:00. That's where we're staying. Boundaries can be really helpful, especially if you take them in order. So you have self-awareness. You understand what's so difficult for you, and then you set that boundary and you say, my family doesn't do well.
When we go beyond this point, but then soften that where, where you're able to to say, maybe we stretch ourselves, maybe we see if we can move to the next level. Now, that's not going to be a money right. Like you should spend more money, see how you feel when you spend more money. But just notice that the word boundaries are not totally clear cut.
Some things you should have boundaries. Keep yourself safe. Keep yourself out of harm's way. Other things stretch yourself.
Put yourself out there to meet new people. Maybe if I mentioned some of those scenarios of relationships, of marking, those milestones of maybe a loved one who's passed, and going to this event has been really painful for you in the past.
So you haven't gone, you've set that boundary and said that event is too painful for me to go to since losing my loved one. Maybe that's the time that you say, I think I'm going to push my boundary this time. I think I'm ready to stretch and to be vulnerable and to see, like maybe it'll be some discomfort and some pain, but also maybe that pain is part of the healing that I need to experience life again to kind of get back out there.
Same thing if you are the type of person that your relationships aren't what you want it to be, maybe you are divorced and you didn't want to be, or maybe you haven't found a partner yet. Or maybe you'd like to have children and you don't have children. And so you've avoided going to activities with children because it's just too painful.
That may be a really appropriate boundary for you, and it may be an appropriate time for you to be vulnerable and stretch that boundary and say, I want to try it. I want to find healing. I want to acknowledge the suffering and acknowledge the pain that I feel in that scenario, so that I can live with it and give it space instead of avoiding the pain of a scenario.
So I know this is probably difficult because I'm talking about specific scenarios, but I want to keep it kind of vague and I want to keep it kind of broad. I'm hoping that you can start to see your own life in some of these scenarios and see how to apply these things. So the first tool is having that self-awareness of what's going to trigger you and also your family, and setting down, setting those expectations with your family.
The second tool is to set your boundaries and also question your boundaries. Think about when to stretch them or soften them, or make them stretch yourself to be vulnerable. The third out of four tools. The third tool is to then be proactive so once we've gone through this, we've said, okay, I know perfectly well what is going to be really difficult for me this holiday season.
Now I'm going to be proactive about it. One of the ways that I see this come out the most is in our health and wellness routines. So this is where we can really by preparing, get some plans in place. So we know that the holidays run amok with our schedules. So what is most important to you? One of the things I would recommend to be top of your list is you get the vegetables in.
I don't know if that's what you were expecting me to say, but the vegetables are key for so many reasons. One, because they provide nutrients that are anti-inflammatory. They provide nutrients that help our bodies detoxify and get rid of all of the crap that we get exposed to. It's vegetables that really help with that.
And I know that sounds oversimplified. It also keeps our gut running smoothly. So as we do have more treats, we do have richer foods. Maybe we've been mostly gluten free and now we're going to indulge because it's Thanksgiving. So we're going to have a yummy role. It's the vegetables that are going to keep your body in that stable state.
Now, it may not work completely, but don't forget the vegetables, especially for your children. So what proactive steps knowing that that is going to be a barrier for you or like, gosh, our diets get so bad over the holidays, what can you do? Proactive ahead of time to say how am I going to do this? Does that mean you buy bagged salads?
Does that mean that you keep a veggie platter from the grocery store in your fridge? Does that mean that you say like, okay, from for the next three months, two months I will always have celery and carrots in my fridge, and then I am just going to put them out on the table as many times as I can, and hope that as the kids go by, they grab those vegetables.
It can be something as simple as that. Another thing that I think can be really helpful is being proactive, because we do have a lot of group eating, during the holidays with family gatherings and social gatherings. If it's a potluck, volunteer to bring the vegetable and bring something that you really enjoy and bring a lot of it.
Because that's what you should eat when you go, here in Utah, we have a weird food called funeral potatoes. That's cheese and potatoes and cream and it can be delicious. So I'm not mocking it. But oftentimes you go to a family gathering or a social gathering and it will be like funeral potatoes and pasta and just dish after dish of heavy foods.
So be the person who brings the giant platter of green beans. Be the person who brings the kale and the brussels sprouts salad. Be the person who volunteers to bring the big mixed salad with all of the vegetables and nuts and seeds in there. Bring that and then eat that. Eat that primarily, and then you can indulge in a couple other things, but if you can go there and have that, then, you know, okay, I am going to make sure my body is fueled.
This isn't about like, you shouldn't eat that. Shame on you for eating that. That has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. I'm talking about making sure you're fueled. So you make sure when you go to a potluck that you will be fueled by what you brought and then indulge a little bit, you know, get the other things, and have the other side dishes.
But make sure that the core of it is well fueled.
Another proactive step that you can take to maintain those health habits is to eat before the party, right? Some of us, I'm sure some of you have heard that, and I think it can be really effective to say, okay, it's Sunday night, you're looking at the week ahead.
You have something every night, a concert for the kids or the grandkids. You have the family gathering and then you have the work social, and you know that none of them are going to serve you any vegetables, and you might end up eating out because it's going to be rushed. Or maybe you go for a treat after the concert.
You can know that these things are going to happen if you think ahead. So what can you do? Well, maybe you make that giant salad with brussel sprouts and kale, and you keep it in your fridge and every night you eat it before you go to your event. So, you know, yes, whatever you eat is what you're going to eat.
But can you pre fuel, can you make sure that you get the chicken in. Can you make sure that you get the vegetables in.
This can also be really helpful for kids. So can you make sure before you're going somewhere that the kids have a healthy snack? Or can you bring something with you? And this can be teenagers too.
You can make them make it themselves. You don't have to do it for them. But can you say like, hey kids, we're going to this event, it's going to be late, and then we're going to go out to dinner after, which means we're probably not going to get very healthy food. So go cut yourself a carrot and eat it.
Go get yourself some celery and hummus. Go get yourself a handful of walnuts. Go get yourself something like that. Kids are going to think about this on their own, most of them. And you're probably not going to think about it. Always. But this is the time to think about it, to plan ahead and say, okay, I need to get some Ziploc bags filled with some of these healthy snacks so I can grab and go because this week is insane.
Be proactive, identify where your barriers are, and then be proactive about it. Same thing with sleep. Like I know for my mental health, I can't go many days in a row and have very little sleep. I don't do very well, so I know that for me. So if I'm looking at the week ahead and I see I have an event every night, then in that planning session with my family, I may say, okay, one of these nights we've got to get myself and the kids in bed on time.
So which one of these can we make sure to do? Maybe we have to duck out early to make sure that we just all get a break and then plan ahead? Another really important step for being proactive is avoiding stimulation so the holidays can be extremely overstimulating. Like I said, if you're also having sugar and dyed foods or really rich foods that just aren't stabilizing your body very well, and now maybe your exercise routine has struggled a little bit and you're inside a bunch because it's cold outside.
That stimulation can get to be too much really quickly. Maybe it's the music, maybe it's the visual stimulation, maybe it's going to concerts and you're surrounded by people who recognize your own need for space and that can be silence. So hearing space, maybe that means you go sit in your car in the driveway while the kids are with, you know, dad or on their own or whatever.
Maybe you go sit in your car, no sound. You just sit there. Sometimes we think like, I'm going to escape and go listen to a podcast or I'm going to escape and go listen to some music, maybe don't maybe find that space for silence, my favorite space for silence. And you'll probably laugh, although you'll probably hear this from me if you followed me, Is the toilet. The toilet can be a really beneficial time for space because you go right? Most of us don't skip going to the bathroom. If you do, you shouldn't. So we go quite regularly. It's also one of the times that we're usually not with other people. Not always because I've got little kids, but usually it's a time that we are by ourselves, even if it's a bathroom stall, wherever it is, if you can escape to the toilet and just take a breath, just go find that silence.
Let your brain reset a little bit, do a little mental work to say like, hey brain, how are you doing? What do you need? Do you need some silence? Do you need some vegetables? Do you need some water? Do you need some sleep? Like what's going on? You're feeling a little revved. Use that space to say like, what's my reset here?
Do I just need to calm it down? Do I just need a couple breaths and then I can go back in there? Do I need to go home? Do I need to say like, yes, there's some social pressure to stay at this and I do want to stay at this and I've got some FOMO. But I think what would be best is if I go home or I think what would be best, even though I want to stay and be involved with my friends, I think that little Johnny, I think that he needs to go.
I think we need to take him home so that he can have his reset. So while we are checking in with ourselves, it's also helpful for us to check in with our kids or for our kids who don't have this skill set to say, I don't think they're okay right now. Like, this isn't serving them very well. This isn't bringing them a lot of joy.
Like, I think we need some alone time now. That can be whatever you want it to be.
But have that space, that space of thinking, that space of sound, that space of breathing close your eyes so you get that lack of visual stimulation. Go by yourself. So you get the lack of touch stimulation from kids and groups of people.
ET cetera. Find space. That's a really important part about being proactive is we can find that space. And then the last thing I'll say about being proactive, especially when it comes to our health, is find movement. This is particularly difficult in the winter if you live in a cold climate like I do. It's very easy to be like, well, I don't go for walks.
I mean, it's snowy, I don't go for walks, it's 30 degrees out. You can go for a walk, though. You can put on a coat, put on a hat, go for a walk.
This is coming from someone. I did not grow up with this. Our family culture was not a culture of let's go for a walk.
Let's go make sure that we're moving our bodies. We have lots of other wonderful things, but that was not part of my upbringing. That was not part of my culture. And so that's something that I have learned actually from my husband and from his family, like, let's go, move, let's go, let's go kick a soccer ball.
Now, I'm not very good at kicking a soccer ball, but maybe I go to the park and watch as they kick a soccer ball. Or maybe I get involved and don't care if I'm not good at kicking the soccer ball. But if that's not your culture, you get to make it your culture. If you want to. You get to be proactive to say, you know what?
I'm sick of feeling? So, cooped up inside. Like I need to go find silence. I need some fresh air. I need some nature. Hey, kids, want to go for a walk with me or. Hey, mom, you want to go for a walk with me?
Like, let's go have some social bonding. Just you and me. Like, there is such a benefit to that. And it's okay if it's cold. It's okay if you're a little uncomfortable. It's okay if it feels weird to you or if your family will look at you like you have two heads. If you're like, does anyone want to go for a walk with me right now?
Go for a walk.
Go stretch your legs. Go stretch your arms. Go run around. Whatever it is, be proactive to say, I think I need this right now, and it's okay for you to create a new culture for yourself. The last tool that I'm going to throw in there is in honor of my mother, who is lovely.
And one of the things she has always told us growing up is when all else fails, go surf, go think of someone else, go do something nice for someone else. And so this one is for her to say when all else fails, if you're feeling overstimulated, if you're feeling like it's just all too much, can you do something nice for someone else and
I know what most of us are going to do is to think then to like the Pinterest ideas for service, like, oh, I could go print out these tags and I could go, I could go make a batch of cookies and then wrap them up with gold ribbon.
I'm not talking about that. If you want to do that, that's fine. But I'm talking about getting to your wit's end and say, I've got to turn outside myself instead of turning inside myself, which is everything else I've been talking about today. But I need to turn it outside of myself. Can I just go give someone a hug?
Can I go call my neighbor? Who? Maybe you know, a widow by herself? And can I call her and go for a walk with her?
Can I do something just to get outside of myself a little bit? And sometimes, especially at the holidays, that can be a really lovely thing to do, because we do get so turned inward and so focused on things like, this is our family culture, this is our family event, this is our family tradition.
And those are lovely, lovely things. But they can cause us all to turn inward when we could be turning outward again. There's nuance here. I don't want to add to your burden. If you're already feeling like I have so many things to do, and she just told me I should go do something nice for other people. But listen to yourself.
Turn to your mind and say, what are my needs right now? Do I need to turn more inward and have some alone time? Or do I actually need to turn more outward and say like, okay, Mallorie, I know you're stressed. I know you're overwhelmed. I know you've got a bunch to do, but like, let's forget about all of that and just go focus on someone else.
Not in a fancy Pinterest way, but in a way that's just giving. And so with that, I hope this has given you some good ideas. I think that the holidays have so many wonderful things about them. It is a wonderful time for us to gather. It's a wonderful time for us to meet with people that we don't meet with on a regular basis, and it's a wonderful time for us to celebrate and indulge and to have things that are outside of the norm.
I think that, in traditions, that's meant to be like two days out of November to December, and instead it ends up being weeks and weeks and weeks. And so we do have a little bit of a runaway culture, and I don't have all of the answers for saying, how do we fix this? But in the culture that we're in, can we prepare ourselves to handle it with grace and to handle it with resilience?
You know, to feel a little more sturdy instead of feeling like we're getting swept up and trampled on. And just like I, I'm not sure if I'm going to make it through December, I'd love for us to feel more more empowerment, more strength, more awareness, so that we can keep it from getting to the point where we feel like everything's falling apart, and instead we can pick and choose those moments that really bring us joy and bring us life fulfillment and help us feel like, gosh, this is what it's about.
Instead of feeling like we have to pay attention to what everyone else thinks we should be doing with our holidays, like what we've got to do the cookie bake, and we've got to do the kids gift exchange, and we've got to do the the million other things that the other people have told us are our traditions. You get to choose your traditions.
You get to choose your health routines. You get to choose how to indulge or not indulge. And it can feel so empowering to do so, and it can feel so much more stable to do so.
I hope that this has been helpful to you. I really want this to be helpful to you. If you have other ideas that you can help our community and help, give other people ideas of what they can do, please leave us a comment.
Whether you're coming to this episode from Instagram, you can leave comments on the post that will be there, and then you can also comment on the YouTube video. We'd love to hear from you. We read all of those comments and I respond to all of those comments and I find them super valuable, so we'd love that. I wish you a very Happy Holidays.
Thanks for listening. And come back next time for another episode. And remember, this information is for education only and not intended to be medical advice.
