The Air We Breathe: Finding Well-Being That Works for You

E29. How to Create Holidays That You Enjoy with Health Coach Heather Sayers Lehman

• Heather Sayers Lehman, MS, NBC-HWC, NASM-CPT, CSCS, CIEC, CWP • Season 2 • Episode 29

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Solo Episode: Today’s topic is deciding how to navigate your holidays.


Resources:

My 3D Journaling Guide: www.heathersayerslehman.com/journal


This episode covers the six pieces I believe are most important to navigating the holidays. We start by understanding our role in the holidays and setting clear boundaries to make the holidays enjoyable for ourselves and those around us. Who knew we could do that?! 


We will discuss what we want our January to look and feel like because the holidays will impact our January vision. 


We will also touch on mindfulness and working through conflicts that may arise with family members who don’t necessarily like or respect our boundaries. 


And finally, this time of year may bring up a lot of feelings around food and drinking. I will provide some tips on navigating that area of the holidays.


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Resources:

My 3D Journaling Guide: www.heathersayerslehman.com/journal


Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to this episode. Today we are talking about holidays. I wanted to do something fairly timely for this part of the year because two reasons. I see a lot of people during the holidays and it's so stressful for them. It feels very chaotic, it feels very messy. Then I also see people at the beginning of the year who are just completely gung-ho and they are ready, ready, ready to make some major, major changes and they might have then completely let go of any healthy habits they had in November, december, because they're like you know what January is coming, who cares? And then people that might have regretted making those choices in January. But I feel like there are so many extremes within these two options and obviously there's a bit of a middle ground that we can get to where we do focus on our habits without feeling like we're really white-knuckling our way through the whole thing. So today I'm going to talk about kind of like the foundation I usually do talks this time of year about how to approach the holidays, because I also I do not like the holidays and January to be made all about weight, weight, weight, weight, weight, weight, weight, because I think for myself there are so many other components, especially mental and emotional health, that weave into the holidays because you might have more family or, on the other side, you might have less family.

Speaker 1:

You've got all of those dynamics. There are a lot of financial issues that come up, especially if they're present giving or they're giving and then we don't have the money. Like there are so many tricky dynamics there. But then it can be a very lonely time of year as well. It can be a time of year where people's grief is very challenging because they've lost loved ones and the holidays just bring that all up. So it is very, very stressful. So my point in talking about this is not to make this a weight conversation, because those are conversations I'm usually not having. But when we are looking to support our physical, mental and emotional health, these are some things that I think are very helpful. I should say social health as well, because relationships are very important. So we're going to dive in.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to talk about these different components understanding and acknowledging your role in the shape of holidays. Also, next step is deciding if you want to do anything differently. Maybe you rocked it out last year and you had so much fun you don't want to do anything differently, which is fine. Maybe last January you said never again and you were going to do it differently. And now this is your opportunity Create a plan including other people's roles in the changes you want to make, explaining the plan well ahead of time to get buy-in, enforcing the plan and then enjoying.

Speaker 1:

So when I talk about being in self-responsibility, especially within the coaching realm, I see a lot of people this time of year have a strong blame game and my holidays stunk because of this person or that person. I don't doubt in any circumstance that people make it very challenging, and I also know that we have some choices that we can make as well. So I never want anybody emerging in January just bitter and resentful because other people informed too much of their holidays and then created something that they didn't like. So if we look at kind of steps that I like, I always like to create a January vision. So as we roll through the holidays here, like, what do you want your January to look like Again, especially not just weight related, but what do I want my January to feel like? Well, I would like to. My two words all the time are peaceful and content. I want to be peaceful and content.

Speaker 1:

I'll talk a little bit about what I don't want. I don't want to be stressed about money I spent that I probably shouldn't have, time that I spent with people that I'm not jazzed about being in family dynamics, that I do not love being around people that I don't like partaking in activities that I don't like, because I don't want to emerge again resentful and exhausted. So one thing that's very helpful is to like what did I not like about January's past. Like what do I know is my thing that I'm like, oh, never again. That could be the financial piece, it could be the timepiece, it could be I didn't rest enough. Could be I ate too many things that hurt my stomach. I really gave my bowels a run for the money. Like, could be, I drank too much.

Speaker 1:

But what do I not like about how I feel in January? Because maybe, like, physically, I'm just, you know, feeling pretty bad at this point. Maybe I'm very lethargic, I'm tired. My, you know, gerd, is really bad. I've got a heartburn all the time, you know, whatever that might be.

Speaker 1:

But really, looking at what I didn't like about previous January's and part of that is understanding and acknowledging, like, your own role in that, because I made all those choices. So, if it was giving myself heartburn, if it was drinking too much, if it was spending too much, like those were my choices. Because, again, I really can't change anything that I'm not going to take responsibility for. So it is very helpful for me to say like, yeah, those were my choices, because then it gives me more freedom to move forward in a different way. If I'm blaming people, I don't really have to change anything because it was my fault. So taking responsibility is a big key.

Speaker 1:

So what would you like to be different this year? Okay, so if I get to choose what my January is, I want to be able, like, to look at my bank accounts and be like great aces, like you did really well, like you said you were spending X and you spent pretty close to X. Like proud of you. I feel better. I don't feel as financially shaky, I'm not paying off debt, whatever it is that you find triggering about that. And again, maybe it is like I don't want to have to have a dry January because I soaked so much up in December, so that you can actually say like, okay, you know what I just it's got to be less booze and we'll talk about, like, how you end up creating a framework for that. But yeah, I just want it. What to be different? I just don't want to drink as much. That could also go for eating, it could go for spending, could go for sitting out of activities or doing too much activities. And always like.

Speaker 1:

What feelings are you looking for? Might be feeling confident, feeling competent, feeling more carefree, feeling proud, feeling peaceful there are so many different adjectives that you can use to describe your feelings at that time. And this, again, like is absolutely like what you think, not what anybody else thinks, like what is really important to you, because some people do have a priority of like, I'm going to run myself ragged, you know what. I'm going to crawl into January, but I will have seen everybody I wanted to see, I will have tasted everything I want to, but you don't have to have that same. You can say that no, I just want to feel like December was pretty much like every other month, like I didn't like do what I consider too much or do more than I wanted to. Like, I feel pretty good about it. So the next thing like.

Speaker 1:

If I say Again like, let's just say I'm picking peaceful, confident and content. So very chill and feeling very good about myself. So how do I create my priorities that support those feelings? So I just call those my January feelings, which are gonna mostly like my regular feelings, but reiterating to myself. So then, when I look at these different things we have so we've got events, we've got drinks, we've got foods, we've got gifts, we've got different interactions and we've got different attitudes this by no mean is the all inclusive list, but when I'm looking at all of these different things, what choices do I need to make around these pieces that will support the feelings I want for January? So if I want to feel peaceful, confident and content, would I choose a ton of different events? Would I choose, maybe, to travel with my small children? Would I choose to make sure that I've got every parent, sibling, cousin, niece and nephew present? What exactly does that look like to me? So, of these six things events, foods, drinks, gifts, interactions and attitudes those are all things that we can make choices ahead of time.

Speaker 1:

Many times, holidays look the same for a lot of people. At this point too, you might have already made some decisions and it's a little bit late because you're committed, which is fine. You can continue with your commitments or also change your commitments. It's totally up to you. So when I'm looking at these events and I'll say when my kids were small, like travel was worse and we also. So when my kids were small, we had my mother one little family faction my father and stepmother another little family faction, and then my in-laws. We had three entities and we'll say on Christmas Day, each of those entities wanted their own time, so we used to hop around to go to places and I just remembered distinctly when I was like absolutely not, and so that created conflict for me to say we're not driving to everybody's house.

Speaker 1:

I want my kids to wake up in their PJs whenever they want to wake up and I want them to open presents at a relaxed pace. I want to have a nice breakfast. And that got some frowny faces, which is not surprising and to be expected, and I will say, especially at the time, I wasn't good with a frowny face. I don't like to do anything where I'm not getting gold stars and tons of approval, so understanding that as I make different choices, that there will likely be some kind of conflict, and if I have said that I want to be peaceful, confident and content, then I'm going to have to weather a little bit of emotional blowback, and that that's okay. So this also depends on how much bandwidth you have.

Speaker 1:

If, come the end of the year, you are hanging by a thread, you are so burnout, you are exhausted, you are struggling, could be depression, anxiety, mental health, physical health, and you're like you know what, I would rather go to these events and lose some energy there than to have to have these conversations and face the wrath of certain people. It's just not going to happen and that is a decision you can absolutely get on board with and say you know what? I'm protecting my peace here and, yeah, I'm going to show up. I'm not going to love it, but I'm not going to face the firing squad this year and maybe it's something that you want to do next year. Again, you've got that flexibility and you have that ability to say to yourself no, I don't want to deal with conflict this year, and that's fine.

Speaker 1:

So when you've got that conflict, you have choices in kind of, you know what explanations you want to give. Do you want to give all the details? Do you not want to give all the details? And when I give these options, I'm never saying that one is better than the other, saying one works better for you than the other. So do you want to do you know of that example, like I don't want the kids to, you know, have to like move around. Like that was my explanation and sometimes you know the key players better than anybody else and it might be like there's a certain excuse that might work better and you're more than welcome to use. That Doesn't necessarily. I like sticking with the truth, because I am a word vomiter of the truth and I'm not a good liar or Excuse maker. Don't have a poker face. It doesn't work very well. It doesn't mean that's the right way to do. It Means that's again what works for me.

Speaker 1:

I enjoy having a canned answer prepared Because many times if you are creating some pushback, if you are doing something that's gonna have a little bit more conflict, you may have to draw that boundary more than once and you may have to have conversations More than once. So having a canned answer is really helpful. I find like for myself, sometimes I'm not very good on the spot and I'm, you know, like a raccoon when I'm cornered. So having the kind of a canned response of you know it's something that we've discussed and we just think that we want to try it for this year, because maybe I'm not saying like this is written in stone, this is just what we're doing this year. But having a response like that, so when it comes up again and you know, maybe you're getting a guilt trip again. You know, this is just what we've decided that we want to try this year and, and you know, then we'll see how it goes and you just kind of repeat the same thing. And Finally, sort of like reminders about my own attitude, adjustments. So of those six things I mentioned earlier.

Speaker 1:

Attitude, it can be so impactful because if I'm doing things, if I've said yes, if this is what I'm going to do, you might as well get on board and you might as well try to be of good cheer. Because if you show up, you said yes, here I am. Here I am with a presence I didn't want to buy, here I am with the booze I don't want. Here I am with the food I don't want. But you said yes, and now you're here, you might as well get on board. Because who is it going to hurt the most if you are grumpy, grinchy, rude, short, feeling resentful? Well, like yourself, because now you've had to hang out with yourself the entire time like that, but also like, well, if you have other people like wow, what a treat, look at, I get to hang out with resentful, angry person, like happy holidays to me.

Speaker 1:

So really understanding, like the way you're approaching it, like it's not helpful to anyone if you're holding on to that resentment and anger and that's always like a great point to sort of challenge some of your beliefs of yes, I said, yes, I still have to go. Well, if you have to go and you're going to be Kurt and rude and surly and grumpy, maybe then that means you shouldn't go, because again, am I doing anybody any favors showing up like that? So that is the piece about creating your priorities. So do I have to like whiteboard it all out and have everything sketched out like that necessarily, but again, many times holiday seasons are similar so that you know the requirements and what you did last year, what you did the year before, so you can kind of like you know Vet, everything of like oh, we usually do have a neighborhood party and you know what? I don't want to go this year. So then you know that's one thing that gets x off, or it could be we have a neighborhood party and we are we'll call us the Baylor's, because again, it's just a, a potluck, and sometimes we are just literally like, yeah, I don't want to go. And sometimes we were like, oh, it'd be nice to see. It's at so-and-so's house and I know they redid their kitchen so we really want to see it. But again, you know, we feel comfortable making those decisions and because we also Neither of us are very good at going and not wanting to be somewhere and then trying to be of good cheer, it's not our strong suit. So, again, when you're looking at all of those you know events, drinks, foods, like having a plan and again I talk about this all the time journaling through it, again you can always find, you know, my journaling guide at Heather says layman comm backslash journal To help you walk through these feelings. Because again, this might be all new territory and you haven't spent a lot of time focusing on your happiness at the holidays. We've been focused on kind of Following the company line and like this is what we always do. So journaling and writing your way through some of that might be extremely helpful.

Speaker 1:

The next piece I want to talk about is mindfulness. So basically, mindfulness gets kind of like a hippie-dippy rap. It's really like it's basically being present in the moment, without judgment. So I'm here, I'm in my body, I'm not saying this is good, this is bad, I'm just actually being mindful. So there are Sort of two aspects during the holidays that I think it's very helpful, because what can happen, especially if we are around family and family can obviously just be a massive trigger fest Like before. We know it.

Speaker 1:

I'm not 52, I'm back to being 12 years old and having these same feelings that I felt, you know, this year when my sister got the big Barbie house and I only got the Barbie car, whatever it is. I found particularly annoying because then I'm not being present. It, you know, can roll into a whole Issue of I know, because then her family gets the good stuff, my family doesn't get the good stuff, whatever it is. That's a fictional example, by the way, but I'm not being present at all. You know I'm back in 1983, rehashing Christmases of yore, or it could be, you know, kind of a recent kerfuffle. You know, somebody in the family just got married and, whoa, boy, this isn't working out very well, like a lot of different options, but being in the present moment and trying to either let go, forgive, forget about things that happened in the past, because, again, if there are things that we want to address, thanksgiving dinner might not be the ideal time. We could set aside time and have conversations and try to clear the air Again. It might not be after you've had three glasses of wine and have been cheesed all day. So, being able to be present right here, right now, and what we're doing right now is we're having a little pumpkin pie, nobody's taking your Barbie car, we are okay right now.

Speaker 1:

I think that mindfulness is so helpful. If we were just breathing, we were taking some deep breaths, but reminding yourself where am I right now? What am I doing right now? And bringing mindfulness to the table. Mindful eating is a very helpful tool, because what happens at the holidays? There's a lot of food that we are like oh yes, I haven't seen you since last year. Here we are again. Let's do this. And many times I think that we're not mindful because you get swept up in the holidays and a lot of people are like I'm going for it, which you absolutely can. There's a lot of. I guess it's sort of kind of superior leanings. If I didn't eat a whole bunch at the holidays, and I don't agree that that makes anybody superior that they didn't eat a bunch at the holidays.

Speaker 1:

There are foods that I really enjoy that are only available at the holidays. For example, for whatever reason, growing up making a volcano of mashed potatoes and then putting corn in the volcano, little gravy on top forget about Loved it, loved it so much, which is really interesting now because my husband cooks and he makes that not all the time. Maybe I'll have it once a month, I don't know, but it's not a holiday treat for me anymore because I have it fairly often. So then on Thanksgiving you usually have some kind of ham, turkey, whatever, and I'll have that, and so I'm not like as like, oh yeah, because also I eat it during the year and I have permission to eat it during the year. So this circles back a bit to restriction. If you really restrict your diet, well then it's so much easier to eat more than what you wanted to at the holidays because you've been restricting yourself. But if you have permission to eat all foods and to eat what sounds good, then it doesn't get as jazzy. So there are certain things I know like my husband will make fresh bread and he makes, like fresh rolls on Thanksgiving and Christmas. I know, ladies, he is mine, but those I end up probably eating more than I wanted of those because it's so delicious and it's not very often.

Speaker 1:

So what I'm trying to say with the mindfulness is we've got to take this kind of moral superiority that like, oh my gosh, I don't ever want to overeat, I don't want to feel like you know, have a tummy ache afterwards, like, well, however you're phrasing it, that it isn't like morally so much better because you didn't do that and you also have the options to look and see like, oh, am I like super excited? Like do I wanna eat green bean casserole? Like for me, no, thank you. Well, I don't like stuffing either. So there are some things that I really get excited about and then some things like aren't so great.

Speaker 1:

But I'm really mindful about, like what I'm going to eat, because for me, like I don't feel great after a tummy ache and it kind of like ruins my day a little bit, because then I'm just sort of, like you know, zoned out on the couch and not really engaging with the people I want to engage with. So, just being aware and being cognizant, stripping away the good and bad. What do I want? How do I wanna feel? What do I want my holiday to look like? And maybe like in your family it's like, oh no, we all go for it and we do lay on the couch and we're watching football and it's the best. Then absolutely do that. If you're like, well, I don't wanna feel bad, I don't wanna be super tired, then you can be mindful as you're making choices to support that outcome as well. But also, you know one is not better than the other. So one of my final pieces is quit getting drunk again. Again. Good, bad, better, worse.

Speaker 1:

What I find in my coaching practice and so I will just say this is, for me, in my coaching practice, many of the issues that people have at the holidays are exacerbated by getting drunk. So many people are not happy with their food choices, but they had already had four glasses of wine and so they were not being mindful, they were completely uninhibited and they were just, you know, doing whatever felt good in that moment. Many people have some tricky family dynamics which may not be improved by having three to four glasses of wine. Many people concern about their finances, which are not improved by Jack and Coke and online gambling. So when we are taking the time to say here's what I value and here's what I want for my January, and then we are doing something that makes us completely forget and not prioritize what we've said is important, then maybe it's a time to take a closer look of maybe that behavior is not helping me reach my goals. If I do just get drunk and say, ugh, think about it, who cares? Don't worry about that in January. We're having this conversation right now, so you are cognizant of what you went in January. I just say this also as I don't drink much, just not for me. Grew up with an alcoholic, takes a little shine off of it. But also I have worked with so many people that it does cause them a bit of problems and if not with other people, just with themselves that they're like not my finest moment. So a little food for thought around the drunkenness at the holidays. It's just something to think about. So hopefully these pieces have been helpful If I go back to the beginning, really understanding and acknowledging your role in the shape of the holidays.

Speaker 1:

These are my choices. I'm gonna stand by my choices. Maybe I'm not changing much. Maybe I plan to make some changes in the future, maybe my goal is just to get on board more with what's happening and be of good cheer, but making those decisions if something should be differently or if it's going to be the same, and then really having conversations with the people that are in your close orbit family, friends, spouses, kids, siblings all of that if you want to make a change, and what are other people's roles going to be in that?

Speaker 1:

Because I will say there was a time, as a single parent, where we did not have much money and I went to my family and said these sibling parent presence, like we just don't have the money. So then as a family, we really quit get something for the kids. Christmas is important to them, it's not important to me. And we changed that because actually it had boiled down to a gift card exchange and it's like I'm giving you a gift card, you're giving me a gift card. Can't we just shake hands to a high five? Because, again, it was not financially prudent for me to be doing that and I did have what I would consider at the time fairly embarrassing conversations, because I don't really want to tell anybody that I was having financial trouble, but it was what it was and I didn't want to hurt myself further during the holidays, so I did bring those people in. That it was pertinent to, and, I think, explaining the plan beforehand. So we're not having necessarily a present conversation.

Speaker 1:

If you celebrate Hanukkah, you don't talk about it like six days before Hanukkah, August, september, things that you want to change well in advance. Most people don't deal with change. Most people are going to have some sort of emotional reaction when you're making changes about the holidays and you want time for things to kind of smooth out before you do that. So also comes down to enforcing your plan of like okay, here's what we said we're doing and will I have to if I'm making some changes. Will I have to have some conversations that I don't love having, probably.

Speaker 1:

But again, when you talked about what you wanted for January, sometimes these conversations are part of it and then the last piece again just enjoying, like that's kind of the whole point. It shouldn't be leaving you feeling like overwhelmed, exhausted, burnt out. And if it does, then that is your opportunity to say I don't want to feel like this and I want to do something different, because here's what makes me joyful and that was the thing of watching my kids wake up on Christmas morning. That makes me happy. Putting them in a car seat and taking them out of the house doesn't make me happy. I want them to be in their PJs until they go to bed that night, like that's where my joy comes from.

Speaker 1:

So hopefully these steps in kind of making decisions is helpful. I certainly will say this could really just be a jumping off point for decisions you make five years from now. There is no right or wrong, there is no good or bad. It's just how you are making decisions to become the decider in your holidays for what works for you and for what makes you happy, which again, I think is understated in our society that these things are supposed to be making us happy. So best of luck to you. You can find a lot more of these details in the show notes if you're trying to follow along a little bit closer. All right, happy holidays to you.