The Special Needs Mom Podcast

Reimagining Christmas When the One You Pictured Does Not Exist

• Kara Ryska • Episode 281

Share episode

Send us a text (Note: we are not able to respond but LOVE to hear from you!!)

There is often a version of Christmas we carry in our heads. Quiet. Cozy. Predictable. The kind that feels comforting but somehow never shows up in real life.

In this episode, I talk about the grief that can surface when the Christmas you imagined does not exist and how common that experience is, especially for special needs moms. Between medical needs, disrupted routines, and the sheer weight of caregiving, the holidays can feel very different than what we expected.

I share a simple framework I use to help reimagine seasons like this one. We talk about noticing when expectations are quietly hurting us, releasing the version of Christmas that no longer fits, and intentionally generating something new from the life we are actually living.

This episode is an invitation to stop chasing a picture that causes pain and to create a version of Christmas that feels more honest, grounded, and possible.


Speaker:

Hi, I am Kara, life coach, wife and mom to four incredible and unique children. It wasn't all that long ago that my son received a diagnosis that had my world come crashing down. I lacked the ability to see past the circumstances, which felt impossible and the dreams I once had for my life and family felt destroyed. Fast forward, past many years of surviving and not at all thriving, and you'll see a mom who trusts that she can handle anything that comes her way and has access to the power and confidence that once felt so lacking. I created the Special Needs Mom podcast to create connection and community with moms who find themselves feeling trapped and with no one who really understands. My intention is to spark the flare of possibility in your own life and rekindle your ability to dream. This isn't a podcast about your special needs child. This is a podcast about you. If you are a mom who feels anxious, alone or stuck, then you are in the right place. Welcome.

Hello and welcome to the Special Needs Mom podcast. I'm very glad you're here and it's always a little tricky deciding, the content I wanna bring you during, like these holiday times. And so it's like, do I wanna go light and fluffy? Do I wanna go deep and heavy? somewhere in between. And today I decided where I landed was I want to give us a way to notice the experience we're having and shift it if we want to. So what made me think about this is my son Levi, who is 16. He's a big fan of Hallmark movies or those types of movies, the real romantic Christmas, movies, and actually my husband and I have been joking about, like we were watching some movie, I don't remember what it was, but it was 100% predictable. And so he and I were like watching it, like telling each other what's gonna happen. still fully wanting to watch it, but also laughing at like knowing exactly what was gonna happen. And did y'all know That's why we like Hallmark movies so much is because they're predictable, they're comforting for that reason. So, back to Levi, he is a big fan of the. Cheesy, idyllic, movies or the movies that are set in idyllic towns, and he's been asking me lately, he's like, mom. Do those towns really exist? And he's not saying speci, he knows that that's a movie town. He doesn't think that that's specific town, but he's like conceptually saying, does this really exist? We do not live in a small town. We live in, the north part of San Diego County. So, I would say not a small town in any way. A lot of people. A lot of not very attractive parts, but a great place to live. I'm not complaining, but not a cute small town. And, like, I don't know, picture if y'all watched Gilmore Girls like that. So he's asking, do these exist? And I'm thinking to myself, I don't know. So I answer'em honestly. I'm like, I don't know. I, I mean, I think in some ways some cute small towns exist, but I don't think they're quite as amazing as movies. make them out to be. I mean, I haven't been around everywhere, but I do know movies have a, have a knack for, you know, making things seem bigger and better, or maybe not bigger, but better than they are actually in real life. But, so if you live in one of these towns and you're like, Kara, it exists, I live there, let me know because Levi and I will be packing our bags and, we'll wanna have a little chit chat about the medical care and, appointments, in that town. But, we would love to know. So use that text feature and you let me know. Joking aside, it got me to thinking about Christmas and about this idyllic nature of it, and I think this actually applies regardless of us being special needs moms or not. I think this is a very common experience that we as adults, I think it's probably for kids too, but as adults, we find ourselves in, I find myself like longing, I think the word is, or the experience would be described as longing for this Christmas, this experience that I want. It's almost like something I wanna like get back to, or like I'm searching for something, but I can never find it. So therefore there's this longing and It's only when we pause and we ask ourself to reflect or question this experience that we start to say, or I can start to say, I'm not sure if this idea is actually a real thing. I think it's just this. Almost like cartoon like reality that doesn't exist. I mean, that's where I'm landing. Do I love Christmas? I do, but do I ever have that moment where I am sitting peacefully by a fire sipping eggnog and having like nice adult conversations with people I love. No, I've never had that experience. I live in Southern California and it has been like seventies and eighties for the past couple weeks, and I am not complaining about this, but also it is not the picture I have in my head of Christmas. And so I think I'm constantly trying to kind of make sense of like not wanting to miss Christmas because I'm clearly not having that snow I am not ice skating. I am not wearing coats and cute scarfs. None of that is happening in my life. Not to mention all the complexities that then enter the scene with having the children that we do. I'd love to hear, and I do welcome you to share the vision or the ideas that come to your head when you think about your ideal Christmas or your dream Christmas or Christmas in general, before you question yourself. It probably looks more like a movie scene like mine, but I would be really curious to like hear what you picture. And again, you can use that text feature, that is on the show notes just to share with me the visualization that you have when I ask you that question. And so again, my guess is that your scene is drastically different than your actual life.'cause Christmas movies, as we know, does do not include scenes of giving kids medications. Or going on daily dialysis or the chaos that we experience from having our kids home during Christmas break. Break very much being in quotation marks because I think we know it's not a break, and so it is easy to see when we look at these disparities, why you might be let down. Even just experiencing a lot of grief during Christmas. There's this thing you thought you had and you don't have it anymore. So I have a proposal for you, and that is that we recalibrate Christmas, we recalibrate your expectations. I think it starts with looking at your actual life. And then creating from there. So alternatively, it's not looking at the life you had before. It's not looking at other people's lives. It's not looking at the movie life, it's looking at your actual life and then creating from there. But don't you worry, I think it's important to acknowledge that it's not creating an either. Or like either you don't have Christmas or you do, it's really creating your life and Christmas. That's kind of what I'm getting to. So I think starting with for you, like what's important for you? What's important for you in this season of your life's a Christmas, new Year's, all that. And of course, if you celebrate other holidays like Hanukkah, I hope you're already transposing, you know, replacing Christmas for Hanukkah. But is it the food? Is it the people? Is it the gatherings, the gifts, the spiritual component of it, obviously. And if none of it's for you, maybe it's just that you don't wanna feel so stressed out with your child home during break.'cause I would say pretty much with certainty, for those of you that don't homeschool, your child's schedule is different than normal. So I'm gonna give you a three step process for this recalibration, and it starts with notice. So there's gonna be three steps, notice, release, and generate notice when you are living in the default experience. For me, that's gonna be like when I go back to this scene that for whatever reason, always pops into my head. That's gonna be the noticing, okay, default experience popped in my head and now I'm feeling kind of sad or longing or like I'm missing something because that is not the life I'm living. And using that example. So if it feels light and amazing, keep it notice. And then that would be when you shift to gratitude. Now if you're like, yeah, I don't love what I'm noticing, or I don't love how I feel about this thing, this is when you move to the next step, which is release. And just like it indicates, the word indicates. This is when we get to let it go. This idea comes into your head and rather than just accepting it, this is when we get to intentionally send it off and say, thank you for visiting me, but I will let you go. And I'm, you're not gonna audibly talk like that, but you get to bring intention to say, that's a thought, that's an idea that came into my head, but I'm going to essentially reject that idea. Next step, after you've released it, you are going to generate, and this is when you bring intention. One good question to help generate is what do you wanna create or expect instead? And this is where you get to find what works for your life. And when you're doing this process, I think this generate part, is the part I think that shifts you most back into one, it's hope, right? Because it's the hope of things being different and with the idea of them being better, but also of into you being able to generate, which is. Kind of the opposite of feeling trapped or powerless. And so even just shifting into the questioning what you want to create instead generally will feel much, much better. Even if you struggle with coming up with ideas, so back again to this example that I've used. So my notice is, okay, there's this like picture of this quiet, fire filled, eggnog filled Christmas. That is not what I'm experiencing, and then release is gonna be okay. I'm reminding myself that's just this picture that comes into my head. It does not actually exist. And that is also not my life. And then the generate is gonna be, well, what is important to me right now? What do I wanna generate instead? And so this is when my mind will go into creative, like, okay, like what does it look like to create an enjoyable Christmas for me and my kids? Okay, maybe that's gonna look like me intentionally scheduling something that is. Fun and investive. So I might schedule like a cookie day or movie night with my kids, or even just having a conversation with them about what's important to you during this season. or if, if it's having a break from my darling children, it's maybe it's texting a friend saying, Hey, you wanna go out to ha, coco, or, I don't know, to do something, that. It does feel special. Okay. Well I wanted to keep this episode intentionally short and sweet, and I think I did that so well done. Me and I will visit you next week with an episode on Christmas Eve. It will very likely be, light as well and or maybe even, something amazing from the archive. I haven't decided yet. And with that, I will send you on your way to notice, release and generate. See you on the next episode.