Choosing Compassion Over Perfection During The Holidays

We share how a family health scare, illness, and holiday pressure rewired our plans and reminded us to hold our word with compassion. It’s a candid check-in on grief, boundaries, job searching at 53, and choosing rest without quitting on ourselves.

• coping with a parent’s hospital stay
• showing up while sick and tired
• being impeccable with your word
• leaving toxic spaces and misaligned work
• compassion that conflicts with old roles
• redefining progress beyond pay stubs
• managing diabetes and insurance fears
• dating readiness and choosing stability
• holiday expectations, gratitude, and low-cost gifts
• gentle boundaries and avoiding passive aggression
• permission to rest without self-blame

What I want you to do this week is just enjoy the week. Let the holidays happen. Whatever you got done, you got done. If you couldn't put up all the decorations, it's okay. If you didn't get the Christmas cards out, it's okay. It's okay.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, welcome to Get It Got It Girl. This is Tina. I'm your transformational coach, emotional intelligence strategist, and I am here to talk about when you have plans to do something, but something else happens. So that's a good way to start. I am just fighting a cold. I went back to Wisconsin for three, well, I went there for two weeks and then ended up being sick for about a week, week and a half. I got bronchitis. And so planned on going to the vacation and you know spending time with my dad. However, I didn't know it was going to be where he would have to go to the hospital. And he's he's good now. He's making a bounce back, but there was some scary times when we didn't know if he was gonna make it. And that is a very hard emotional thing to see as one of your parents, and you don't know, like, are they okay? Are they gonna be okay? So that was a very difficult time. So I I know I'm choked up. Of course I'm choked up. So sometimes we have plans and sometimes some other things happen. So luckily when I left, my dad was doing better. And I've heard he's doing better, so that's good. And then I was gonna come in here and do I have like three podcasts planned, but I'm not feeling so good, and I can hear it in my voice, but I figured I might as well do it anyway. And so it was just even a struggle to get here today, and I already canceled two days ago because I really couldn't move. So today, little by little, I got up slowly. I took all my medicine, I had my vitamins, I had some water, and I slowly took a shower, and then I got my way to the library, but it did take three hours. And for a minute, I thought, okay, I'll just do, I'll just go back to bed. I'll just do nothing, which I'm sure people would understand because I am feeling sick. But at the same time, I was like, no, I have made a promise to myself to do this podcast and have it running every Monday. And that's what I'm gonna do. I am no longer breaking promises to myself or to others. If I tell you I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it. You know, obviously, if some things come up that you can't control, that's a whole different situation. So I'm gonna be impeccable with my word, which I know is a very important thing that I've learned in the past. And yeah, so I'm kind of like we winging this episode, but uh what I want to do is I do want to make a big X tongue tied episode. You know, where at the end of the year you would watch all the things that happened during the year, and I was thinking, well, here I am. I was beating myself up. I was in a little self-pity mode because I'm not exactly where I wanted to be. And I've started this journey about, you know, five, six years ago, but then in the last year when I, you know, walked away from a very toxic relationship and swore I will never allow myself to be in that position ever again. And then that continued, and I left my soul-sucking job, which it really wasn't the job, it was more some of the people around the job. Oh my gosh, and I know some people are gonna get offended, but not everybody, but there are some tough people to work with. Like, I don't know the word for it. Hmm. Okay, so I guess I'm not even gonna try to come up with the word, but it's just okay, so I want to help people. I like helping people, like there'll be a homeless lady, and this was years ago at a different job, and they want to kick her off property, which I understand it's a liability, it doesn't look good on property, and then after work, I'm the person that goes to find the lady and brings her coffee and gloves and something, a hat and mittens. I don't know what that is. I guess it's compassion, but then I also understand like it's not fair to where I work because I don't think I'm doing the best job I could for them. You know, my job is to or was to basically it's surveillance in a casino. So basically, you're either looking for casino cheaters or employees that steal or just even minor procedure policy infractions. It just depends on which casino you work for. Everybody looks at different things. And yeah, so it just doesn't align with who I am. I mean, I've been working on my own self-development for five, six years, and I didn't realize like that's what I want to become, something with self-development. I'm like, okay, so I want to be a coach. And I'm like, well, you can't be a coach. What do you know? Look where you are. So I'm looking at where I'm at. You know, I live with my mom. I currently don't have a job, but I do, you know, sell on the side, which, you know, that's a job, but it's not a job job. And like I was beating myself up, and then I'm like, no, I looked at my pictures, and you could see in the beginning of the year when I had first left the process, the videos, and I can share that later in the future. I want to make like a little compilation video so you can see kind of like the ups and downs that it's not all just one straight pattern, like it one straight line. Like, no way has it been that for the last year. And then in the upcoming episode, I would like to share some of the cool things that just happened to me this week. And it was like I realized that I'm ready to date. And the whole different thing this time is I didn't push myself to get there. I'm not like, oh, you have to date. Something had to happen, and I realized, okay, I am ready to date. And then I thought, okay, not quite yet. But that's my own protection because I still have some things I want to accomplish. Now I'm not saying you can't accomplish those in a relationship, but I would just feel better about myself if I was established and stable first. And so that comes on to like stability. I am very grateful and thankful that my family has helped me during this hard time. You know, last year I had cancer surgery, and then this year I had a couple hand surgeries. I am sick with the diabetes type 2. That's been a struggle to kind of get a hold of my weight and a hold of my numbers, which I'm happy to say my numbers are good, but it's because I'm not working, so I was able to get insurance that covered the medicine. And so now I know there's a fear there, like, oh my gosh, if I find something, I'll lose my insurance. And I'm it's a risk I'm gonna have to take. So I haven't quite figured that out. I guess I'm gonna do the best I can, and I do have some medicine like on the side where maybe I can make it a week or

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SPEAKER_00 7:37

two. But generally, it will be very interesting. I think that's what keeps me caught, plus, you know, being afraid, and I don't even know what I'm afraid of. It's just okay, so I don't want this episode to be like fear-based, and oh poor me. I am looking forward to everything else that's going to happen and everything new in my life. Like I know I'm working on something big, and I just have to tell myself that. I mean, I understand I hear family, I hear friends, and they're well, you gotta find a job. Well, I know that I have applied at a hundred to two hundred jobs at least. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Like even Walmart and certain jobs like that, like even fast food. I'm 53. I don't know what the heck is going on. I've never had a problem getting employment. I've been unemployed for seven months. And I don't know, maybe part of that is because I'm not going to do my normal career. But also, even with that, I didn't see many openings. So I don't know. I guess the job market is shifting. And that's another thing. Like, if I can help people instead and make a real difference, and I know people say, don't say that, help people, everybody says that, but it's true. I want to help you. I want to help you with whatever experience that you've been through, that I've been through, so that I can show you what I've done, kind of giving you ideas and at least give you some hope and that it can be different. I'm sitting here a year, different, you know. I'm not the same person. I did accomplish a lot. I have to, you know, pat myself on the back. I did the podcast, scared to death of the podcast. I'm still learning, as we all know. And I appreciate all my listeners. And I appreciate you for hanging on, even when I'm like going off on a tangent and I gotta pull myself back because I have ADHD. And but I'm going to use that as a gift. I'm not going to try to, you know, and you know, of course, get a doctor, and it's all up to what your doctor says. Do not, you do not have to follow the way I'm doing. I'm just letting you know what I'm doing. But I prefer to cope with my ADHD and use it to help me. And so back to like base where this episode is about sometimes you don't know things are going to change. Like, I didn't know my dad was going to get sick. I didn't know that I was going to be sick and couldn't do the podcast, which I had counted on, and now I'm here and I'm winging it. Be quite because I had like wrote things down, but at the same time, I don't know. My brain is like, I'm tired. I'm exhausted. And I feel like it's okay to be exhausted. It's okay if you're tired. You can you can take a rest. And I know it's hard sometimes, especially when you have things that you know you've got to get done. But then I'm saying to myself, well, if I don't take a rest and don't take care of myself, I'm not going to be able to do those things. I won't be able to get up in the morning. I won't have, you know, like my blood sugars on point or my blood pressure. So that's where I'm at right now.

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SPEAKER_00 11:09

Pardon me. I had to pause because my nose was burning. See, I'm one of those people, TMI, they say you overshare. And so, yeah, this episode isn't about anything particular. It was just about kind of explaining the week I had, the two weeks where I wasn't planning on seeing my dad deteriorate like that. That was really hard. And then came home. And it's hard to be here when I don't know if he's okay, and I can just see him waving goodbye to me. And so I'm still choked up. I'm still I'm in that right now. And I realized, like, okay, I was trying to Christmas is a big deal, holidays are a big deal. I know if you listen to some of my past episodes, you would know that I kind of struggled during the Thanksgiving holiday, and now it's Christmas, and so I went to my sister's, and Christmas is everywhere. It's beautiful. Christmas at my sister's, my dad's, my niece's house, my cousin's house. It's just everybody likes to decorate. And you know, I live with my mom and we ain't decorating. We're not decorating. And I had to realize, okay, this year is not going to be the Christmas that I have all my decorations out. But it doesn't matter because now I didn't even have much money to buy things for gifts, and I'm making it happen. Are they the best gifts? No, are they the best gifts I can give at this moment? Yes. And all my children are gonna be together with me during Christmas, and that's what it's about. That's it. Like seeing my family, that's what it's about. Having my kids with me, that's what it's about. I had all these expectations of having like my own place, and it was just gonna be decorated, and I was gonna have like the perfect gifts for them. And I have to stop. Okay, I'm grateful. I'm grateful my children are gonna be with me. I heard my son wants to make a ham, so that's pretty cool. And so I'm looking forward to spending Christmas with my three children. And yeah, so that's where I'm at with that. What else is going on? That's about it for this episode. I just wanted to let you know that if you had some expectations and they didn't happen or they're not turning out the way they that you planned or wanted to, especially around the holidays. We all plan that we'll see certain people or do certain things, and then sometimes people's schedules don't mix, and sometimes people don't mix, like some family members don't get along, so it's a very hectic time, but it's also a beautiful time. And when I watch the children, even though my kids are older, it's about the it's about family and being with your children and people that you love. And so that's what I've got for this episode. I know it's a quick, short one, but I just wanted to get this out here. And if you're having a rough week, I do want to clap for you and help you and encourage you that it's gonna be okay. It is going to be okay. You are gonna be fine. That's so funny because I went to clap for you and my clapper wouldn't work. See? Expectations. We don't always get what we expect. Do your best, enjoy the holiday, enjoy your family, even though it can be hectic. Enjoy the hectic times. Remember, if somebody says something, you don't have to respond. You don't have to be passive aggressive. Oh my goodness. Speaking of that, I need to work on that. I have been passive aggressive like three times in the last week, and I I called myself on it. So just be aware and be careful and be gentle. Words hurt. We don't want to hurt anybody. All right, and we definitely enjoy the holidays and enjoy your family. And I know it's tough for some people because we're missing people that we love. And for those of you that are going through that, I don't know what your beliefs are, but they're always in your heart. Okay, and that'll be it for Get It Got It Girl. And we will talk to you in a little bit here next week. I'd like to do the going out music, but apparently I'm having a little technical difficulty. So, what I want you to do this week is just enjoy the week. Let the holidays happen. Whatever you got done, you got done. If you couldn't put up all the decorations, it's okay. If you didn't get the Christmas cards out, it's okay. It's okay. All right, this is get it got it, girl. You guys have a great week.