Ep #95 - The Best Gift This Christmas? Your Presence (Not the Presents)

Feeling pulled in a thousand directions, lists multiplying, brain whirring? This honest, no-fluff episode is your permission slip to ditch the perfectionism and choose what actually matters. I share three simple, doable practices to help you enjoy Christmas (and your life) a whole lot more: be present, be the best version of you, and be kind to yourself.

In this episode

• Presence over presents: How to redirect a busy brain back to the moment (again and again) so your people feel you with them.
• The best version of you: Why unconditional love sometimes sounds like “no”, and how to set boundaries without the guilt or drama.
• Self-kindness: Talking to yourself like you talk to your best mate, making choices your future self will thank you for, and dropping the optional extra stress when things aren’t “perfect”.

You’ll learn

• Practical scripts to bring your attention back—gently, without judgement.
• What to do when you’ve said yes but don’t really want to (resentment is not festive).
• How to hold space for tougher emotions at Christmas—sadness, anxiety, disappointment—without piling on shame.
• A kinder way to handle “imperfections” (overcooked spuds, missing items, imperfect tables… no one’s dying; it’s fine).

Try this this week

1. Pick one daily moment to practise presence (meal, film, walk). When your mind wanders: “Thanks, brain—back to here.”
2. Decide one loving boundary in advance and stick to it.
3. Choose one kind thought you’ll say to yourself on repeat.

I’m fully switching off over the holidays—no email, no socials—and I’d love you to try the same. The world will keep turning. I’ll see you on the other side in 2026. Have the calmest, kindest, most present Christmas you can practise. 🎄

You can also watch this episode on YouTube with Captions - https://www.youtube.com/@TheWorkingWomensLifeCoach

If you'd like to have a chat about how I can help you further, please don't hesitate to click here & book a time with me, I'd love to meet you.

You can also follow me on IG @NickyBevan_LifeCoach

Transcript

Welcome, welcome, welcome to the last podcast of 2025! I can't actually still quite believe we're here. It's Christmas next week, and I am a little bit shocked at how quickly this year has gone, in the best way. And I was thinking about… well, I wanted to talk to you about today being as it's Christmas next week. And there are 3 things that I would love you to consider adopting over this Christmas. I think there are 3 things that would really make the holiday season and actually your whole life so much more incredible. If you practice these things. And I say practice because it requires a very deliberate choice and very deliberate effort into making yourself this way.

So the three things I would love you to consider, and then I'm going to talk about each of them in a bit more detail. 1. Your presence is so much more valuable to the people that you love. The physical presence under the Christmas tree, or under the tree. The second is your family and you deserve the best version of yourself. And the only way you're going to be able to do those two things is by doing number 3, which is being kind to yourself.

So, let me talk about each of those in a bit more detail, and what I actually mean by them, and how to start implementing it as of right now. So what do I mean by your presence? This is when you are with somebody that you love, your partner or your kids, and your brain isn't actually in that conversation. Your brain is spinning in the, I should be doing this, I should be doing that, that's not done, this has to be perfect. Oh, I haven't phoned that person, oh, there's this thing I need to do. Or the worrying over, are they going to enjoy it? Is everybody going to be happy? Have I got enough food for everybody?

Presence, when you are fully present, means that you have redirected your brain from whatever it wants to go off spinning into. You've redirected it back into what you're doing in that very moment. The best way I know to do this is to plan ahead of time, to plan in when you're actually going to do things. But even if you haven't done that, if you are choosing at that very moment to be having a conversation with your neighbor, or you are choosing to sit down with your kids, or you are choosing to do something with other members of your family, your brain—because it is a processing machine—is going to be thinking about other stuff. The brain, the average human, has 60,000 to 70,000 thoughts over a day, right? So that brain, your beautiful brain, is designed to be thinking. That's not unique to you, it's not unique to me, that is the human brain. It is a thinking machine.

You get to decide, however, what you ask your brain to think about. Research has also proven that it takes about 10 minutes for the brain to focus down in on an activity, which is brilliant when you know that for work. But if something's happening right in front of you, and you want to actually fully engage, and you want to really listen to what that person's telling you, regardless of how boring some of you might be judging it, the skill is just acknowledging that your brain's gone off, and just saying, with kindness, no, no, no, no, no brain, thank you for going off to that, but come back and focus on my children. And it'll go off again, and you'd be like, thank you, brain, come back and focus on this film. Thank you, brain. Come back and focus on the book, or come back and focus on the cleaning, or come back and focus on whatever it is that you're choosing to do in that moment.

People feel that from you when you are really focused on the thing in front of you, on the person in front of you, without judgment. People sense it. They can't necessarily articulate it, they might not get it, but they will be able to sense that you are fully with them. And you will have experienced this yourself. You will have a conversation with someone, and they're not actually really with you, because you can kind of see they're off in their head, spinning around thinking, or they get distracted by their phone, or whatever it is. But you get to manage and direct your brain onto what you're focusing on. It sounds really simple, and it is, but it requires a conscious effort. It requires you to become, first of all, aware of where your brain is without judgment. And just say, right brain, we're coming back to this moment in front of us. Right brain, we're coming back to this moment in front of us.

So that's what I mean by your presence. Your presence in a conversation or in a relationship, or whatever you're doing with somebody, that is so much more valuable to that person, especially if children are involved. That is so much more valuable than any physical present that you could give them. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying then you should, especially if little people are involved, you shouldn't then buy presents, of course they're going to be caught up in the presence, the wrapped presents, but how you engage with them, they will sense on an energetic level. And so your presence is so much more valuable than any physical presence you can put under the tree.

And my second point around your family and you deserve the best version of yourself. These all tap into one another, right? When you're dropping your perfectionism. When you are lowering the standard slightly. When you are willing to be fully present with whatever you're doing, you drop into a calmer space, and you will be the best version of yourself. When you choose to come from unconditional love, as in you are choosing to unconditionally love the people that are around you, you feel good. Love feels amazing in your body. And I'm not talking the sexy, romantic love, I'm talking the just true deep love that we have for other humans. And that is a choice. It's a choice that is available to you should you want to take it.

And love sometimes sounds like no. Love sometimes sounds like right, it's because I love you that I'm not actually going to engage in this conversation today. We can talk about that another time. Or it's because I love you that if you're going to carry on raising your voice, I am actually going to go and leave the room. It's because I love you gorgeous teenagers that I am not going to let you carry on eating a ton of chocolate. Love sometimes sounds like no. And when you're redirecting your brain, and you are choosing to unconditionally love the human in front of you, you will then be the best version of yourself.

When you're setting boundaries, when you're learning to say no to the things you don't want to do. It means, then, that when you are doing something, you know your reason why you're doing it and you like it. Or, if you're saying yes and you don't really want to do it, but you've said yes, find a way to enjoy it. Or just to be neutral about it. Because when you do things out of resentment and obligation, that feels rubbish for everybody. And again, other people can't necessarily articulate it. They can't necessarily… they won't, you know, be able to say, well, this doesn't quite feel right, but you know how it feels when someone does something they don't really want to be doing. It feels rubbish. Resentment and obligation feel rubbish.

So if giving yourself space to have a half an hour, or you iron. If actually going out for that walk enables you to be calmer, give yourself permission to do that. Because when you are the best version of you, that is a beautiful gift for everybody around you.

And then the third thing, and I really believe you can only do the other two things if you're doing this, is being kind to yourself. What I don't mean by being kind is, oh, I'm gonna be kind and eat all the chocolate. I'm gonna be kind and eat all the food. I'm gonna be kind and over-drink all the alcohol. That's not being kind, that's actually being quite mean to yourself, because your future version of you has to deal with that consequence.

What I'm talking about is when you're having that internal dialogue, doing it with kindness, and a lot of my clients go, I don't know how to do that, Nikki. And I'm like, that's bullshit, because you are very kind to everybody around you. Your best mate—you would be very kind to her. And sometimes that might sound like, right, come on, this is enough now. That could be a kind thing to do to yourself, but not when you're doing it from judgment, criticism and shaming.

Especially when Christmas brings up sadness for people. You know, we're sold as a society that Christmas is a time for family. If your family isn't around, whether they're in another part of the world or they've passed, this might be a time of sadness. Kindness might look like giving yourself permission to feel sad for half an hour. Or an hour. And when you practice and you choose to be kind to yourself, everything else is so much easier.

So how this looks in my head is I literally will go, okay, great, thank you, Sue, but we're not talking to ourselves like that anymore. Or it might sound like, right, okay, Nikki, we're going to really enjoy some cake? But we're not going to have 3 or 4 portions. We're going to enjoy one, and then we're going to leave the rest. It might sound like, if I'm feeling sad, or if I'm feeling anxious, it might be showing kindness for that emotion. And for me, that kind of sounds like I'm safe to feel this emotion. I don't shame it, I don't judge it, I don't analyze it, I don't add the extra layer of drama on top. That bit is totally optional.

And so if timings aren't going quite right. If, you know, I've overcooked the spuds. If, um, you know, maybe we don't have enough food for everybody, whatever. I don't engage in the extra drama that my brain could take me to. I just don't do it. My brain wants to go there, so my primal brain wants to go there, and I'm like, no. Because it's optional. The fact is, I've overdone the spuds. The fact is, the table doesn't look perfect. The fact is, maybe my kids didn't get exactly what they wanted. Okay. No one's dead. No one's dying. This is not a problem.

And that being kind to yourself, I feel, is the secret to having an enjoyable life. And the only way you can be present with people is if you're kindly redirecting your brain. The only reason you can be the best version of yourself is if you are kindly dropping some of your expectations. I've done other episodes on perfectionism. You can look those up if you want to.

But, for now, I would really invite you, over this holiday season, to really be aware of how you've been talking to yourself. Don't add a layer of judgment on top of that, just be aware of it with fascination. Actually start choosing to talk to yourself kindly, and you know exactly how to do it, because you do it with other people in your life already. And when you start to be kind to yourself, you will be a better version of you. And you will be able to redirect your brain so that you are actually fully present through the holiday season. Even if sometimes that presence is maybe more negative. That's not a problem. Christmas doesn't have to be joyous, jolly and positive. But when you can be okay not being okay, that releases any expectation. And you can do that with so much kindness.

So I'm going to be completely switching off over the holiday season, this is my last day working. I won't be checking any of my social medias, I won't be looking at my inbox, I would love to invite you to do the same. I promise you the world will not end. Your business will not fall to pieces. And I will really look forward to talking to you again on the other side in 2026. Have the most delicious present, best, kind version of you Christmas that you can possibly practice. And I'll see you on the other side. Merry Christmas! Bye!