134. Stop Doing Too Much: Create Your Chill Holiday

The Process Is the Way: How to Actually Enjoy Your Holiday Season

In this episode, Amy shares the surprising truth about the exact right moment to pause, relax, and return to yourself: when you feel way too busy to do it.

If you’ve ever sprinted through December—overspending, overcommitting, overperforming, and quietly drowning in guilt, stress, or “holiday hustle”—this conversation is your invitation to stop treating the holidays like a finish line and start experiencing them as a process.

Amy opens up about her own decades-long pattern of holiday bad habits: frantic gift-making, stressful travel, trying to recreate childhood magic single-handedly, and pushing herself far outside her values. Then she shares the shift that changed everything: embracing the process, not just the product.

You’ll explore:

• Why rushing to “get through the holidays” never works
• How mindfulness, ACT, and Zen-inspired practices can bring you back to yourself anywhere—even in traffic
• What art therapy teaches us about staying present and dropping perfection
• The psychological and emotional benefits of valuing the journey rather than the outcome
• How to release traditions you secretly hate and consciously build a season that feels aligned
• Amy’s personal holiday transformations (no more frantic knitting, no more December flights, yes to pajamas + museums!)

This episode will help you create a holiday season rooted in presence, pleasure, values, and genuine connection—not pressure or performance.

If you want December to feel calmer, cozier, more intentional, and actually joyful, this is your guide.

Transcript

134. December 2, 2025

Do you know the exact perfect time for when you need to relax? You might be surprised. The exact right time to relax, take a pause and do your meditation is when you feel way too busy. In those moments when you believe that you are lacking the time to relax and slow down. 

The difference between enjoying the process of a day that feels full and feeling stressed out, like you're rushing from one thing to the next, is that few moments of preparation and relaxation every year, I need to remind myself that the holiday season is for enjoyment and slowing down and really having a good time, and it requires me to emphasize the process of doing the holiday stuff, not just the outcome. It's not a mad dash to each holiday. Rather, it is an entire season of getting together with friends and family, doing shopping and baking and knitting. And the process when I'm able to focus on it is so much more enjoyable. If you have ever struggled with the holiday runaround, this episode is for you. Let's get into it. Let me do a little confession about how I used to run around for the holiday season. And trust me, it was not pretty. I consistently spent more than I planned to every single time. Somehow, I felt like I didn't have enough to give to people. I would get really worried about do I have the right gifts? And that just felt like an expression of anxiety. It wasn't like I was trying to be extra thoughtful. I was just feeling anxious that I wasn't going to do it right. I ended up watching a lot of TV, just staying home, sitting on the couch, watching movies because it felt so tiring. At the end of the day, all this run around. I used to get on an airplane every December and go see family, and you know what it's like when you travel over the holidays. I would just constantly worry if I was doing enough for gifts for my family, spending enough time with them, and I was stressing about every single holiday event. What would I wear? What would I bring? What would I bake? I used to also make cookies as gifts for people, and while I love to bake, this was not the time for me to be baking for people. And this is kind of the worst one I did. I would knit for people. I would decide around October or November some holiday knitting gifts, and I would start these projects and try and finish them before the holidays came. And there were many nights where I was knitting the night before. I was going to see that person trying to frantically finish their gift. They were. The gift was still on the needles. Forget about even washing and blocking the object. It was so hectic. I took on too much. I focused on things that were just so far outside of my values I was really trying to perform. I was trying to recreate holidays that I experienced as a kid, but they were put on by multiple people my grandparents, my mom, my aunts and uncles, and I was trying to recreate that just all by myself. I was doing things that were extremely stressful, trying to please others. And honestly, if you're a knitter, you know that it's best not to knit for other people because knitting is so personal. They might not like it. They might not even wear it after you've put 20 or 30 hours into it. I was making assumptions about what people wanted. I felt disappointed, I felt I was disappointing other people and I was exhausted. I just was not setting limits on my time. I did not have good boundaries around it, and I was just overdoing it. And I would say my predominant emotions were rushing. Is that an emotion like hurried, stressed and guilt? And I, I don't know why I persisted in that behavior for so long. Like, how would you describe the stressful parts of your holiday? Did you do any of these things? I, I know I'm not the only one. There is a better way for sure for us to deal with the holidays. We can make a shift and a change in what it is that we're trying to accomplish by focusing on process, not product. So the usual way that we might describe the process is the definition is a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end. So like goal oriented. And this is really focused on the product the holiday, the finished object being done with everything. The important part is kind of at the end, like, oh, I think I'll have all these cookies to give to people. The end of it process is usually asking, what do we get? What's the end result? Will this solve my problem? Will it guarantee me some kind of sense of safety? Will this make me and my friends and my family happy? Can I have some thing because of this product that I want? However, we're paying a huge cost when we think about process this way. It focuses only on the end result and that's gone. Like leaving that as the most desirable aspect of what we're doing. And it might relate to your values, right? Like I value my family. I want to give them gifts and feed them delicious food. But rushing to the end is not value based. My value is not to exhaust myself in service of what I think my family might want. That's not value based at all. And so many people are telling me, I just want to get through these holidays. I just want to get through this next event and then I can slow down. That's an illusion. The process of running ragged will continue. This is about production frantic ness. This relates to capitalism, where we tie our worth to what we're doing, what we're producing, and then we think satisfaction will come at the end. We delay our pleasure for the outcome at the end. There is a better way. There is such a better way. And it relates to how you think about the process of getting to the product, so we can broaden our thinking and really differentiate process and product. Product is the end piece. That finished scarf that I made, that batch of cookies, that's all packed up. The holiday meal. We sit down to eat it. Those are the products of the holiday process. Now process includes the entire experience and it is not at all hyper focused on the end goal. In fact, it is not exactly related to the goal at all. Process is the time from the original idea when I think, oh, I want to bake some cookies to imagining which cookies I want. Finding a recipe. Going to the store. Making sure I have all the ingredients. Setting aside time to make the cookies. Actually doing it. Baking them. Trying not to over bake them, packaging them, delivering them to friends. And then they will enjoy them and I'll have a memory of it. That is the process of baking cookies. It is not just about the finished cookie. So let me give you some more examples. With knitting, I'm knitting a shawl right now and it started with. Browsing for yarn. I got some beautiful mohair yarn when I was in Paris this past July, and it's so delightful. It inspired me to write a pattern, so I bought the yarn. After feeling lots of different yarns, I bought the yarn and needles, and I sketched out an idea of what I wanted it to look like. I wrote out my pattern. I have put a lot of hours into it already. It will continue a little bit longer. I'll have some more knitting this month. I'll probably finishing it be finishing it by the end of the month. I'll bind it off. I will block it. I'll do all the things that involve touching this beautiful goat wool and I'll wear it. And that's the whole process. If I focus on that entire process, it gives me a happy memory. I was on the retreat that Aurora and I host every July, and I was shopping at Le Bon Marché and wandered into their craft section. It wasn't my plan at all to go look at yarn, but The Bon Marché is a great place to shop and the yarn really spoke to me. That's a beautiful memory. That's part of my process and that will be with me when I wear this. The shop. Here's another example. The process also includes me gaining more experience as a knitter. Every time I write my own pattern, I improve my knitting skills. I improve my use of geometry. I am probably one of the rare people that actually uses high school geometry. It's how I design my shawls. You use a lot of measurements to figure out how many stitches per inch, and right out your pattern, depending on how many stitches you have. And is the pattern a multiple of 4 or 6, that kind of thing. And I will improve this kind of this ongoing lifelong learning around the craft of knitting. The process also includes my attitude. Not just that lovely memory, but my attitude every time I'm knitting. Am I focusing on how much fun it is to knit? I love to knit, but if I'm sitting there knitting and I'm feeling grumpy and I'm thinking negative thoughts, then the process is about that. So I want to sit leisurely and enjoy my knitting. I don't want to focus on like a negative thinking. I want to focus on what I'm doing and be in the moment and enjoy it. If you've ever planned a vacation, you've probably realized that preparing it enhances the fun of going on a trip, and the research shows that we get so much pleasure out of preparing for a trip. And it has even more to do with our pleasure on the trip is if we're enjoying the process of preparing. We're looking at different places we want to go. We're choosing our tickets. We're maybe buying tickets for the museums when we're there. The idea of going, that's the whole process. You're planning it, you're getting your tickets, etc. then you get on an airplane and you go there and then you come back. And so the end, the product is to return home. And we don't skip the vacation just because the end product is to end up right where we started. We go because the process of traveling, we enjoy setting up our itinerary and we enjoy being there. Now there's a lot of people who hate to get on the airplane, or they hate a crowd, or waiting in line or whatever it is. There are parts they don't like about travel, and I think you can change your attitude on that by focusing on the process. The process is going somewhere and the pleasure of going somewhere. Remember, it's all processed when you go on a holiday. So think for just a moment. How do you like your vacations? For me, I want to have fun. I want to learn stuff. I want to be friendly and meet people. And I want to be inspired. The beauty, the activities. Going somewhere new. I love that. You might prefer something that's about relaxing, sitting on a beach, not having to do a whole lot. You can balance your together time with family with some alone time. You'll have stories to share later. There's a lot of reasons that we want to go on our holiday. So now thinking about the month of December and all the busyness and all the holidays, the traffic, the shopping, perhaps you have parties to go to or family to visit. What if all of this can be just part of the process? When I think about process, I think in a couple different directions. One is Zen process, and I'll talk in a moment about zazen and what that means. I'll give you a little bit about the psychology of process, the art therapy version of process, and just thinking about how all of this intertwines with you, just having a little bit better of a time on the holidays. So zazen is the sitting Meditation in Zen, and it's part of acceptance and commitment therapy. It pulls from Zen using acceptance and also the process part of a zazen meditation. So the idea of integrating compassion and wisdom into everyday life is what this is based on the practice of sitting that zazen is pretty specific and it's considered practice because you're not out in the world. But let me describe it for you, and then you can figure out how to use it in the world this holiday season. Zen process involves finding a quiet spot. It doesn't have to be silent, but just finding a quiet spot to sit down. Adopting a very comfortable posture and zazen is usually with your legs criss crossed. You can also sit in a chair where your head, shoulders, back and hips are kind of roughly in alignment. Zazen focuses on the breath. There is not a particular direction. This is not a guided imagery. It's not slowing or intentionally changing your breath. It's simply noticing the breath in and the breath out. It's noticing maybe the air feels a little cooler on your nose as you're breathing in, and a little warmer as you're breathing out. It's all the awareness, and it's not trying to change it at all. And finally, it's about observing your thoughts. The observation is the process. That's the entire experience is observing your thoughts, letting them rise, letting them fall, not trying to attach to them or push them away. There's no imagery for you to think about. There's nothing to control. It's simply observation. And this kind of zazen process works. If you have 20 minutes, works great. It works. If you have one minute, you can just pause for one minute and engage in this as n process. Now I can almost hear some of you saying, I have zero minutes to engage in a zazen process. You can still do a Zen process anywhere doesn't require you to sit. And this is where Act really takes it into the world, where you apply what you might use anywhere, anytime. And you can practice that Zen process when you're eating, when you're hugging, when you're doing your dishes. You can also do it when you are shopping for gifts, when you're stuck in traffic, when you're at a holiday party, you can use it. When you're feeling sad and have sad memories, you can use it when you're at a party. Having fun. Paying attention and being mindful can happen anywhere. I want to remind you of the hugging meditation from Titchener Hahn. It's one of my favorites. You can do it with loved ones. You can do it with your pet. It's fun to do with the dog. It is giving someone a hug and saying they are alive in my arms and I love them. You can hug yourself too and say, oh, I'm alive in my arms and I love me. If you consider process as the way and the way is the process, you can be extremely liberated from kind of that mental tyranny about how your holidays go. So let's talk about the psychology aspect of this. The psychology of process is really emphasizing the journey rather than fixating solely on the outcome of things. That idea you've heard probably many times before that how you do anything is how you do everything. And it comes from a variety of sources. I was unable to find an original source for it, but it means that if you can relax and be non-judgmental in a moment, you can do it later too. So art therapy also focuses on process, and I'm sure you've heard me on Instagram talk a lot about this process versus product in art and the process of making art super fun. You're just moving things around on your paper. The product is when it's done, you can pin it on your wall and have a look at it, but art therapy focuses on the process. What's it feel like to make art? What comes to your mind? What are you aware of in the moments of art making? So both of the fields psychology and art therapy emphasize process over product. We can appreciate that someone maybe ran for a political position. They didn't win, but they took on the experience. They brought new issues to the table that maybe now the other candidate has to address. The process is valuable. Even if they didn't win, they made a contribution. So you can find process in almost anything that you're doing and find value in it. So engaging with the steps of process actively helps us grow. It helps us feel better. It increases our satisfaction and our well-being. So here's some examples. Problem solving any problem you have that you're trying to solve, it's a process of figuring it out. It is happening every time you make art. Every time you celebrate a holiday, play a sport, sing in a choir, plan a vacation, prepare a meal. All of these things relate to process, not just product. There are a myriad of examples where you can learn from people doing different things. So. Education. I want to be a lifelong learner. I want to constantly be learning. There is no product of my learning. I have a degree. However, it doesn't mean I'm done learning. I make art and it doesn't mean that, oh check, I'm done making art. I keep making art. It's an ongoing process. I've already mentioned baking, but relationships. Imagine going deeper and deeper in relationship with your best friend with your significant other. I met year 31 with my husband and it is a process. There's no end goal here. Think about people who play golf. That strikes me as one of those activities you can do till you can't do it anymore. My grandfather played golf until he was 90 and it was a process for him. It was so much fun. He just loved to play golf. He and my grandmother spent lots of time on the golf course, and that is a process where they become better at the sport, really without an end goal. A health journey is a process. A spiritual path is a process. There's no end goal in discovering your health or your spirituality. Living in your home is a process. Decorating it is a process that takes time and parenting is another one. Being in relationship with your kids is a process. It constantly has to change. You have to evolve in all kinds of ways. Anais Nin also said, life is a process of becoming a combination of states that we go through, and she notes that where people fail is they wish to get to a certain state and then remain there. And she says this is a kind of death. When we stop the process and we just think, oh, I'm done growing. This is my job, this is what I do. Nothing changes anymore. It doesn't feel good when you think of process as the way right? It's the way through the holidays. By being in the process, you can start to imagine how you want to be. As you're moving towards your goals. You have specific goals for the holidays, perhaps, but the process is about mindfulness. Making contact with the present moment. The product is only one aspect of it. Most end goals are part of the big picture or the context of your life. They are not the like highlights. It's how you work to accomplish something. That is what you'll remember. Now there's a number of health benefits to focusing on process instead of the product. Process involves mindfulness. And I've already mentioned the psychological research is abundant, that mindfulness will change our brain in a literal way. It will relax our brain, and it gives us greater capacity to think. It helps us avoid black and white thinking. When we focus on process, we kind of have to give up the idea of perfection, right? Lots of people think, if I can't do it perfectly, I'm not going to do it at all. That's black and white. Thinking process allows us to just enjoy whatever's happening, whether or not we've done it perfectly. And PS, there is no such thing as perfection. You can decide, oh, I'm on a health process and you can go to the gym, and one day you don't go to the gym and it doesn't mean that you've failed. It just means, oh, skipping the gym today was part of the process on my health journey. Every day does not have to be perfect. It goes the same for if you're establishing a mindfulness practice or you want to have a particular kind of help, there is no end point. It's all process. One bad day does not failure make value based? Pleasure and enjoyment are allowed to happen on the way. The process can be enjoyable for whatever you are doing, and you do not have to wait to feel good. You're allowed to experience pleasure during the process. In fact, you're more likely to experience pleasure during the process. Remember I told you what my holidays used to be like and how stressful they were, and I kept focusing on doing all this stuff for other people that I was guessing they would want. Well, my holidays have changed over the last few years, and I started to remember that giving a gift is supposed to be fun, not anxiety inducing, and the perfect gift is non-existent. I can get someone something they might enjoy, but I don't have to obsess about it anymore. I can enjoy the hunt. I can enjoy what I'm making, and by focusing on what I'm grateful for, it's really helped me calm down a lot. I want to focus on what I think is important, which is of course, being with my family. It's not about the presents, it really is about being with them in the moment. I also eliminated knitting and baking for people for the holidays. It was taking so much time. It was so stressful and it's just not part of what I want to do. I love homemade cookies. I might make some, but I'm not going to organize like a whole lot of gifts and buy all these cute packages and give people cookies anymore. It's just more than what I want to take on in any given holiday. I love museums, and so my family and I are going to hit up a couple of different museums in San Francisco over the break. There's some things that my kid is going to love, and of course, my whole family will enjoy having coffee at the museum cafes. I have no travel plans. I quit flying on the airplane in December, maybe 3 or 4 years ago, and I thought my parents would be so upset that I didn't make it for the December holidays and they didn't mind at all. I was making huge assumptions, so I'd go see them over Thanksgiving and it works out great. I am no longer facing these travel delays. One year I was stuck in Cleveland for an extra five days and my husband never made it out. His flight was cancelled and he couldn't rebook for the entire trip, so no more travel in December for me. I also get new pajamas every year. Every year for my birthday, which is in December. I go get a bra fitting at Al Prima in San Francisco and I get some new pajamas. It's just so enjoyable. It's the time of year for me to get new jammies. I also set my intentions for the new year on my birthday at the beginning of the month. I choose my word for the next year, and I start to make my plan so I can be preparing to make that change. That will happen in the new year. I have a whole new set of great feelings, and I've gone from rushed and stressed and guilty into feeling excited and inspired and having a lot of fun. I might be busy and I am, yet I'm enjoying myself so much more. The busy is because I chose to say yes, to go out with friends or go to museums. It's a totally different holiday experience. So if you're thinking, how can you do this for yourself, I want to give you some ideas. Think about what you hate about the holidays, what you hate about December, maybe, and then what you love about it. So this list, you know, draw a line down the middle of your page on the left. You put what you dislike or what just what doesn't feel good. And on the right you put the list of things you enjoy. And I'm not saying you have to eliminate all of those things that you dislike. However, you could start somewhere on that list and let go of something that feels like a burden. Now, on the next page, what do you want to feel like throughout the whole month? What will give you the most pleasure? So for me, it's fun and engaged and present. I want to be interested in what's happening. How do you want to feel throughout this process? Not at the end of the month, but in this process. What would you like to experience? When you make your list and you do this writing project, I want you to pause and notice what it was like for you to make this list. So that list making was the product. You made a list and the process was how you were writing it. Were you thinking certain thoughts? Were you judging yourself? Were you feeling guilty? Were you engaged in some distraction activity or did you feel present and engaged? That's the process. So I want you to notice your process as you're working on the product of your list. I have an affirmation that's really been helping me every holiday season. The process is the way and the way is the process. So just reverses. The process is the way and the way is the process. If you have some suggestions and tips for how you would like to enjoy your holidays or the things that you've given up to make your holidays a little bit brighter or more enjoyable, I would love to hear them. You can shoot me a message and I promise I will respond. I'm so curious about what everyone's doing to participate in a way that feels good to them. So now that you know, what will you create? I would love if you would share this episode with a couple of your friends who could use a little inspiration on having more calm holidays. I think we all need to support each other in relaxing and enjoying ourselves, and not stressing ourselves out over the holiday season. If you have a moment, I would love for you to add a review of the podcast. That's another way that Apple will show it to more people when we have more and more reviews. So if you just take a moment to do a star review and if you could add a sentence or two, I would so much appreciate it. And it would help other women hear this information to enjoy your day. And I look forward to speaking with you in the next episode.