The Ode To Joy Podcast

Resilience And Gratitude In A Heavy Season

• Elena Box • Season 3 • Episode 4

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We explore resilience and gratitude during a heavy holiday season, naming the small, unphotogenic practices that keep us steady. Gratitude shifts from performance to nervous system relief, helping us notice what held us while we endured.

• reframing gratitude as support orientation, not a moral duty
• winter as endurance and resourcing the body with warmth and rest
• noticing internal wealth by what didn’t collapse
• simple rituals that regulate the nervous system
• allowing private, messy gratitude alongside grief
• seasonal self-check prompts to track support and capacity
• redefining output, capacity, and expectations in winter
• acknowledging financial stress and choosing honest boundaries
• blessing for the tenderhearted and the newly bereaved

Seasonal Check-in Journaling Prompts:

What helped me make it through this week?

  • Where did I receive support, even indirectly?
  • What part of me didn’t give up?
  • What still feels intact?
  • What do I trust more now than I did before?


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Speaker:

Hello and welcome back, dear listener, to another episode of the O to Joy podcast. I am Elena Box, and I am joining you in a very different situation than I normally am. I am currently recording from my kitchen while my daughter is awake because she is in this weird um in-between stage of transitioning from two to one naps. I put her down for the nap and she was like, nope. She slept for 20 minutes and she was like, I am up. And here I am making sure that I continue to stay true to my word to put out episodes every week. And I was just so pumped to record this one. And so you and I are on a bit of an experimental episode, and we're just gonna see how it goes. Right now, she is chilling, she's playing with her toys. I turned off her little DJ set. Um, so hopefully we won't have any interruptions. And if we do, we'll just go with the flow, which is all really what all of my work is. So if you're new to the show, welcome. My name is Elena and I am based on Long Island, New York. And I am a shamanic practitioner, I am a death doula, I'm a yoga teacher, I'm an actress, I'm a comedian. What do I not do? That's the question. But really, I what I do is I weave everything uh together. All of my training, all of my yoga uh practice, my uh expertise in death midwifery. Um and really I'm in this new season of life of mothering as well and running my own business. So I work a lot one-on-one with people who come to my home studio, uh, Calliope Commons Ritual Studio. And we do one-on-work, uh, one-on-one work, um, processing grief, um, processing really big life transitions. And then I also work uh with clients in hospice um and their families, and that is really, really rich work. And so that's kind of the name of the name of the game this episode is really talking about resilience, really, and and framing it in the term in the in the frame of richness. Okay, so we're in this season. I'm coming to you from my little kitchen studio, 18th. So we are really in the holiday season. And last week we talked a lot about grief in the holiday season, and there's just so much that comes up during this time. And I don't know about you. There's been a lot of heaviness in the world lately. I mean, even if you haven't been listening to the news, there's just a lot going on. And, you know, I was talking about this yesterday. I ran into get this, the hospice nurse who helped us through my father's passing. She was at the nail salon and I was like, she was on the phone and I was like, I need to say something because I went to the bathroom, I was like, you know, do I do I need to say something? And I felt my dad come through and he was like, Lina, she's a she's an angel on earth. Yeah go and go and talk to her. So I went and I talked to her, and you know, she was talking about, I mean, first of all, she was so grateful because I told her, like, listen, you know, how you showed us how to hold my father through that process is what really inspired me to become um a Death Doula. And she was so grateful because, you know, she's the 'tis the season, right? Um, there's a lot of loss that happens in this uh season. And, you know, from a spiritual shamanic perspective, you know, I kind of view it as a portal. So oftentimes a lot of souls exit around the holidays. And so, you know, this uh this um hospice nurse, her name is Kathleen. If you're listening, shout out. She's got a lot going on. So, you know, she was really feeling the heaviness of the season. And really what this all comes back to for me is what I've been feeling into is instead of leaning into the kind of overwhelm and all that comes with um the holidays is just leaning more into gratitude. And that can seem really, I don't know. I want to use the word trite, but that's not really it. It's almost like I don't want it to come across as saccharin, like just be, just be grateful, right? And you're kind of like, well, there's there's a lot going on, right? But this is what we're talking about in this episode is how to really acknowledge the richness that you have in your life. I mean, so let's let's get into it. Let's let's name the month, honestly, right? So we're in December, which means shorter days. Okay. Shout out to the solstice coming up here on the 21st. Thank you. You know, so it's getting darker earlier if you are in the northern hemisphere. If you're in the southern hemisphere, hope you're enjoying the weather. It's cold here, by the way. There's ice on the ground. And again, we're we have really full calendars. There's a lot going on. It feels like last weekend we had three one-year-old birthday parties. My husband was like, Why so many birthday parties? And I was like, Well, listen, all of our friends are all turning one at the same time. So that's what we're doing. And of course, he had a great time because he loves playing with kids in a ball pit. I mean, who doesn't? But yeah, I don't know about you, but there's a lot going on. Okay. So, and the other part that we mentioned last uh week in the episode is memories coming up. Okay, so it's like those long memories. It's it's it's not only the lead up to the holidays, it's not only like that time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but then it's also like the time between Christmas and New Year's. Like there's a lot going on. So that can also mean what one might call really thin nervous systems, especially if you're in the cold. Um, you know, it's so important to resource yourself well. You know, I've got a really nice pot of soup that my friend's mom made us, and you know, making sure that you are really nourishing yourself in a way that helps to calm the nervous system. Okay. Wear those socks inside. We can't have any cold invasions on those feet. All right. So let's just check in here, okay? Quick little reminder, right? Winter has always been a season of endurance, okay? You know, before it was a season of sparkle, it was a season of making it through. So shout out to our forefathers, like the people who came before us. You know, it was a lot about had you done enough work by chopping the wood, stocking your pantry, you know, canning all of your foods, your harvest to make it through the winter. So are you well resourced? Okay. And so that's that's a big, that's a big part of it. All right. So again, we're gonna tie it back into the last episode, which is that resilience is what gets us through the holidays. And then we're gonna frame it into gratitude, and gratitude is what shows us what carried us. Okay. Mm-hmm. Let that one land. So think about this. If resilience is how we survive the season, gratitude is how we realize we didn't do it alone. Huge, it's a big one. Okay. So let's talk about gratitude as a resilience skill, not a moral requirement. If you hear my child banging in the background, she's working on chopping wood, right? So she's getting ready for the winters in the future, right? So let's talk about gratitude. It's not a rule, you don't get a gold star for being grateful, okay? You're sitting there like, I'm just so grateful, right? You're not gonna get a gold star about it, you know? And it's also not something that you owe the universe, okay? So you being grateful, I mean, let's we we have to kind of reframe it, okay? So, so gratitude is a nervous system exhale more than anything. So for me, sometimes when I feel like I'm putting too much pressure on myself to be grateful, is really kind of taking the load off of it and just framing it in terms of how can I just let my nervous system X here and just be like, like actually in the grand scheme of things, everything is is okay, right? And I didn't do this alone. I didn't get here alone. There's a lot of people both in real life and also on the other side who have helped to get me to this place. So it's a way of orienting towards support instead of threat. Okay, so in grief and in stress, the brain scans for danger. So the brain's like, oh my God, you know, where are the fires? I gotta put them out and right away, and maybe I left the oven on and I listen, I'm standing in my kitchen, so the stove is off, right? But that's the way that we learn to keep ourselves safe, is like, you know, noticing where the danger is. And so when we reframe things in terms of gratitude, we gently train the brain to also scan for resource, resource, resource, resource. Okay. And this keeps it very aligned with resilience work. Okay. That's the name of the season. It's the whole theme of the season. Okay. So feeling rich in this time of, oh my gosh, let's go to the star. We gotta get gifts and we gotta get little stocking stuffers, right? Um, it's it's it's a time when so much is framed in terms of like uh consumerism, right? And so instead, the reason why I'm offering this is also to think about your internal richness, which is really knowing what has sustained you. Okay. So it's not, you know, what am I grateful for? And I gotta get out my gratitude, sure, and all, right? It's more so what has kept me going through this season? What has kept me going through this season? What has quietly supported my resilience? And it might have been something super quiet. You're like my my ritual of putting lotion on my feet every night before bed. You know, that might be something super simple that has helped you to maintain your resilience. There's a small little child who's walking my way, and we put beef tallow on her skin every night because she's been having eczema and she's smiling at me and she's reaching up to me, and you might hear her chime in. We're just gonna see how it goes. She's rubbing my leg currently. It's very nice. Thank you, sweetie. Thank you so much. So let's continue. We're gonna talk a little bit about examples, right? So think about routines that you kept. And this could have been, you know, as we began to move into the autumn and into the fall. What are some routines that you have kept that have helped you in this season? Okay, think about that. Lock it in, lock it in. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay, you got it? All right. Next, think about a person who has showed up consistently. Now, this is somebody who's in your DMs. They're sending you memes. You know, maybe they're bringing you soup. Shout out. Shout out to Natasha and company. Okay, they have kept me well fed. I also had a beautiful piece of toast with some pate that my friend and neighbor Melanie made. Okay, that is so epic. And thank you, thank you, thank you. So grateful. And these people have showed up for me consistently. Next one, think about a moment of laughter when you didn't expect it. Okay. This one's coming up for me. It's kind of ridiculous, but and and I mean, hopefully you don't have uh problems with scatological humor. But the other day, my husband was changing the baby's diaper, and he was, he said he was like, I was just thinking about how proud I am that every time I put it in the diaper genie, I never got poop on myself. And he comes screaming out of the changing room, and his hand is just covered in poop, and we are dying laughing. And he was like, I need help, I need help. And we got, yes, we got through it as a family. You know, who knew, right? Just a regular, regular uh diaper change, a little doodoo diaper could turn into a really funny moment. We love that. You know, that helps me to feel those like big belly laughs, which there are so many when having a little one running around, a little one-year-old. Um, yeah. So we love those little unexpected moments, okay? That's that's my baby singing, if you can hear it. Here's the next one: your body continuing to function under stress. This is a big one, okay. A lot of times we have to give our bodies credit for all of the work that they do. So thinking about a moment where you're like, my body continue to do the thing. I was able to continue to breathe, you know, base level breathe. I was able to take a walk around the block when there was that really, really tough moment. Okay. Next one. Think about a practice that still works even when you're tired. Okay. Mm-hmm. Now, this one can be tough. A practice that still works even when you're tired. Right? My baby's throwing a ball. She's learned how to throw balls. So that's what you hear. That is what you hear. So framing it in terms of feeling rich isn't about having more. It's about noticing what didn't collapse. Feeling rich isn't about having more, it's about noticing what didn't collapse. Big, right? Mm-hmm. So resilience didn't mean you thrived necessarily. What doesn't mean you're like, I'm living life, everything's great, I'm living large. I don't know if you know any of you guys ever played The Sims, but you know, it's not the expansion pack, you know, the live-in-large expansion pack. Okay. It's it's the like, okay, you're here, right? You're in your body, you've hopefully got a roof over your head, you've got food in your belly, okay. You're here. So it's an important moment to give yourself permission, right? Resilience doesn't mean like this big glow up, okay? Resilience doesn't mean that you're all of a sudden loving the holidays. Resilience often looks like just getting through the day. Okay. If I have any fellow mamas here or people who are going through anticipatory grief who or who are in a grief cycle or huge life shift. Sometimes just getting through the day can feel like a marathon. So, you know, pat yourself on the back on the back for that. Okay. Resilience often looks like feeding yourself. Okay. There's times where I'm like, I can survive on coffee. What do you mean? And then I get to like 2 p.m. and it's right. You know, I need to eat. And thank goodness I have a wonderful stocked fridge and pantry. And sometimes when I don't, it's like, yep, and it's time. We got it. We let's put in the Whole Foods order, you know. And sometimes it's like, I'm gonna get the pre-made soups. Shoot. It's healthy, it's organic. We're getting the pre-made soups because it's quick and it's easy and it's nourishing. Resilience often looks like canceling plans. I know, I know. Okay, but sometimes we have to be honest with ourselves. Sometimes we have to kind of check in and be like, listen, I have overshot my capacity right now. And I have to be really honest with where I'm at. If it, I love the phrase, if it if it's not a heck yes, it's a heck no. So if you're not like, yeah, I have enough in the bank and in the tank, rather, to go to this event. I have enough on my social battery. Um, if it doesn't feel like that, it's okay to say no, right? And it's okay to take care of yourself in all aspects. Okay. Resilience also often looks like asking for help. Huge asking for help. It can be so vulnerable to do asking for help. I know, I've been there. But here's the thing: giving yourself permission to ask for help and being okay with the no and knowing that another person's no because perhaps they're not, they don't have the capacity, right? It doesn't mean anything about you or your worth. So that's a big one, right? Asking for help. Like I don't know why this is coming to mind, but like before I, you know, spoke to this hospice nurse yesterday, there was a moment where like this fear came up where I was like, you know, what if I'm rejected? What if she's like, I want nothing to which like in reality, why would she? Right. But there was that fear of rejection. Like you're coming, you're walking up to someone that you don't really know very well. But it was that moment where like I wanted to make that connection because it felt really important, you know? And thankfully, right, she received it. And not only that, she was like, this is the best Christmas gift I could have ever received. Thank you so much for talking to me. And so that was a vulnerable moment. And it can be asking for help from people that you might not know very well. It might be neighbors, right? I don't know about you, but you know, I grow, I grew up uh walking over to my neighbor's house and asking for a cup of sugar when we were baking. And you know what the truth is? If people have the sugar, if people have the capacity, it's a gift to them also to help. So keep that in mind. All right. So gratitude in this context becomes it becomes tender, right? It becomes honest and it can also be unimpressive and powerful, right? It can be something that's super mundane and yet really, really, really powerful. Okay. So you could say sometimes resilience is just not disappearing. So if you have this tendency, which I have definitely had in the past to just completely disappear, especially during moments of of grief and upheaval. And like I said, take care of yourself if you feel a capacity 100%. But you could also reach out to people and say, hey, this is what I'm going through right now. And, you know, can you maybe bring me some leftovers from the party? You know, I'm laying in bed, I'm watching my trashy TV. Help, help, help somebody out. And so that might be your resilience, is just not disappearing. Okay. So we're gonna let gratitude be small. We're gonna let it be quiet, and we're gonna let it be unphotogenic, okay? So right now I'm let I'm I'm feeling grateful that my child is playing with her little truck in the background, which you might be hearing, and the perfectionist Virgo side of me is like, oh my God, we we can't release this to the masses. What do they think? It's not perfect, right? We're gonna let it be unphotogenic, we're gonna let it be messy because I don't know about you, but we're also in this time of like, oh goodness. I don't wanna say it's a battle with AI, but we're definitely in a moment where being a little bit scrappy and being a little bit more human feels better, right? Than seeing something that's really polished and really gorgeous. So I'm gonna let myself a lane into the imperfection here. So we're tying this into the performativity that comes with holidays is just put on a smile, right? And, you know, put on the sparkly shirt. And so we're we're shown a version of gratitude that is loud, it's decorative. It's, you know, did you send out your holiday card? Which I did, by the way, and it was my first one ever, and I'm really, really proud of it. But listen, I'm like that felt good for me to do. And it was really, I had so much joy in sending that out to people. But you know, like this year we also made a choice, you know, we're not gonna put lights up on the house. That felt like too much. So we're shown this form of gratitude that's super public, but I want to help reframe this sense of resilient gratitude, which can often just be a cup of tea, right? A text thread. Okay. The other good one, a deep breath in the bathroom. Sometimes that's all you need. So the other day we had a friend over. If you're listening to this, which I I hope, I really hope that my my My daughter learning how to uh roll her truck on the ground is not. Oh, it's so loud, it's so loud. Let's hope we can redirect her. Oh, she's going in the other room. We'll see what happens. So the other day we had a friend over. He lives alone. If you're listening to this, I won't mention your name, but he lives alone and he's single, just so you know. And he hadn't had a home-cooked meal in a long time. So we invited him to stay. I cooked him two. I looked, cooked him lunch, I cooked him dinner, and then in the middle of the day, we had a beautiful cup of tea. Like this really gorgeous loose leaf tea that I had bought at the Sheep and Wolf Festival. And it was just the nicest thing, super cozy. We have the Christmas tree up, and that just felt it filled up my heart in such a big way. And like a text thread, a text thread sometimes can feel really like, oh my God, so much pressure. But for me, just knowing that I have this group of women, of of mothers, of friends that I can tap into when I feel like I need a little bit more resourcing or just to be witnessed is a huge, huge, huge, huge um uh boon to my to my resilience. Okay, so we're gonna normalize private gratitude. We're gonna normalize the unshared gratitude. Like this isn't necessarily going on your Instagram stories, although you can if you want to. No shade. Ain't no shade, right? Um, and the other thing that I really want to emphasize here is that gratitude doesn't cancel grief. Okay. So, you know, I've I've had some clients come to me and feel almost a sense of guilt for the moments of joy, especially when they're in active grieving or anticipatory grief. You know, it's okay to feel gratitude. It's okay to feel those moments of like, yeah, you know what, and this actually feels really good. And you don't have to necessarily hold on to it and like, you know, white knuckle it or anything like that. Just acknowledging those moments of gratitude is a big thing. And it's okay, the grief can still be there. So a resilience-based gratitude practice. We're we're gonna go through like a little seasonal check-in for you. Okay, honey. So I'm gonna invite you to ask yourself a couple of questions and I'll repeat them. So don't worry. You can write them down if you want. Check in with yourself. Maybe you place a hand on the belly, a hand on the chest, ground yourself into this moment, and we're gonna do it together. Okay, so question number one: what helped me make it through this week? What helped me make it through this week? Next question. Where did I receive support even indirectly? Where did I receive support even indirectly? Yeah. Next part. What part of me didn't give up? What part of me didn't give up? Mm-hmm. Yep, yep, yep, yep. I'm not giving up on this episode, even though my daughter is she's so cute, but she is rolling this car all around. By the way, she rarely rolls this car all around. So it's like, yeah, it's that's and it is what it is. Next question. What still feels intact? Mmm, some days my sanity to greater or lesser extents, right? What still feels intact, right? Could be a certain practice of yours. Next question: What do I trust more now than I did before? What do I trust more now than I did before? Big ones. So these are going to be in the show notes. If you want, you can journal them out. If you want, you can just write them down and help them, you know, have them be as a guide to help you through the rest of the week and through the holidays. And so, you know, these aren't questions to answer perfectly. They're just questions to sit with, okay? Just sit beside these questions. And again, we're letting go of perfection. So let them land where they land. And I find it super helpful when I'm journaling. I take this from my writing teacher, Natalie Goldberg. Um, she wrote a book called Writing Down the Bones. Great book if you are a writer of any kind. Um, is just letting your pen go to the paper and continue to let your hand move, even if it's gobbledygook, gobbledygook. Just let it go. Okay. So let yourself answer these questions as they are, okay? You don't have to answer them perfectly. Okay, so let's redefine wealth. We're gonna redefine wealth for the winter season, which means, okay, we're gonna let winter wealth look a little bit different. It can mean less output. I mean, here I am. I'm putting out an episode, and that feels so good. And I'm not posting as much as I feel that I should on social media and this and that. I'm just kind of like, you know what? This is what feels really good, and that's that feels like enough for me. So less output, more containment. You know, we want to be contained, we want to be literally bundled up, cover your neck, cover your feet, and also create a nice little cocoon for yourself so that you have a place to retreat to and be held in, okay? Which also means fewer expectations. Let go of the expectations that you might have placed on yourself to go out and be sparkly and you know, have that midnight kiss at New Year, whatever that is, like let go of the expectations. You might just perhaps simplify your menu for the the holiday meal. Just let go of the expectations, right? And so we also want to name, you know, as we as we redefine wealth for the winter season, we want to name some non-monetary wealth, okay? Which is safety. It's rest, it's choice. The fact that you have a choice. Huge, huge, huge, huge emotional honesty, right? Being honest with your capacity for things, communicating your needs and expectations clearly to your loved ones. My child is currently clearly communicating that she is banging her little car on the window. She needs attention. Um, so we're gonna be hanging out after this. And it's time off from pretending. Okay. So you can take time, just be with you, right? So we're gonna acknowledge, we're gonna take a moment, we're gonna acknowledge, you know, you might be really financially stressed right now. You might be like, I don't know how I'm gonna, you know, buy all of the toys for Tommy and Timmy and little Jane and John. Okay. It feels like a lot. Or do I really have to? And so we just wanna hold space for that, which that is a very real reality for many right now. And, you know, that doesn't mean that, you know, your life is empty and you failed and all these things. It's like it's a very real thing that many people feel right now. So we're just gonna hold space for that. And then we're gonna close out with God bless the God. I'm so grateful for this child. I hope, I hope all of my uh post-production helps to at least alleviate some of the banging around. We're gonna just offer a little seasonal blessing. The seasonal blessing from my child to your ears is this little car that could, and I'll tell you, this car is getting more action than maybe it it ever had in its entire life, okay? But here we are, okay. She basically blew through the nap. Here we are, okay? This is the reality of being an oncha and a mom, right? Seasonal blessing for your resilient heart. So we're gonna just ground in, we're gonna be here, we're gonna feel into our feet, we're gonna feel into our hearts. And you and I, and my small child running across the ground, take a couple breaths into your heart. And we're gonna send out a blessing to those who are just barely holding it together. And we're gonna tune into our hearts and we're going to send a blessing to those who are tired of being strong, right? We're gonna send a blessing to those who are tired of being strong. Yeah. Oh my goodness. We're gonna send a blessing to those who are grieving old versions of the holidays, to those who, you know, it's their first holiday without their loved one, and it's very different. Okay. So sending blessings to those people and to just offer that if you're still here, something in you worked, something in your life supported you, and that is real wealth. Okay. Resilience shows you what you are made of, gratitude shows you what held you. Resilience shows you what you are made of, and gratitude shows you what held you. And so I hope that this next week gives you so much that feels like your cup is being filled. And I'm just holding you in my heart. And thank you for being patient with me as I continue to put out content at my capacity with what feels good in between naps, as the uh, you know, stay-at-home mompreneur that I am. And if you are feeling called to come and book a session, you know, the holidays are a really potent time. So again, I am offering uh one-on-one session containers. So if you are feeling called to come and work with me weekly, we have some really gorgeous offers on the website right now. So you can always book a little discovery call and we can chat about it. Um, I'd be happy to support you. Um, so I'll talk to you again very soon. I'm wishing you and sending you so much love.