Episode 113: Celebrate Them While You Can

Your dad’s birthday. An ordinary Tuesday dinner. The friend on the other end of the phone. We almost never miss the big days, and somehow the regular ones, the ones that make up most of our life with the people we love, slip right past us while we are looking the other way.

This week’s episode is a celebration: an invitation to savor the people still at your table this summer, before the season scatters everyone again.

Inside this episode:

• Why the people closest to you are the easiest ones to stop fully seeing, and what shifts the moment you notice it

• How something you say out loud can stretch a good moment and make it last for both of you

• Why this particular summer is the right time to slow down and pay attention

Scripture: Psalm 92:14

Research note: Drawing on savoring research (Bryant and Veroff) and studies on sharing positive moments with the people we love (Gable and colleagues).

Ready for your next step?

FREE 5-Minute Daily Reset (instant download):
YourNextBestStep.com 

Weekly encouragement + practical tips:
YouTube @CoachJanetJ
Instagram: @janetjjaecks

If this episode resonated with you, please follow/subscribe and share with a friend who needs their next step. 

 One small step. One day at a time.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to your next best step. I'm Coach Janet J, and I am so glad you're here. It's summer. The evenings are long, and there's a good chance someone you love is closer than usual right now. At the cookout, on the porch, on the other end of the phone call you keep meaning to make. Today is a celebration episode. Let's savor the people who are still right here at the table with us. My dad has a birthday this week and I am already looking forward to celebrating him. Here's the funny thing about birthdays. We don't tend to forget them. It's the ordinary days with the people we love that slip past while we're looking the other way. It turns out there's a specific reason the people right in front of us are the easiest ones to stop seeing. And a specific reason that this season of all seasons is the best time to fix that. So let me tell you about my dad. He is the kind of man who answers on the first ring and asks how you are doing before you can ask anything about him. He has spent a lifetime making the people around him feel noticed. So when his birthday comes, the card goes in the mail and I make the call. Because a man like that is worth celebrating. And because I never want to take for granted that he is still here to be celebrated. And it got me thinking about everyone else I love and how easy it is to sometimes be with people without fully being with them. We love our people. We make time for them. We show up and still we can sit across from someone we adore and realize that our minds are three errands ahead, sorting out tomorrow while today is happening right in front of us. It's that gap that I want to talk about today. The question underneath is whether we are awake to the moment we are in while we are still in it. There is a line in Psalm 92 that I love for exactly this stretch of life. It is describing people who stay rooted in God, and it says they will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green. That's Psalm 92, verse 14 in the NIV. I think about my dad when I read that. Fresh and green, still bearing fruit, still here, still himself. The people we love are flourishing right in front of us. And the book of James reminds us that every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights. The people at your table are some of those gifts. Psychologists have a word for what I'm describing. They call it savoring. Two researchers, Fred Bryant and Joseph Veroff, built an entire model around it. Savoring is the skill of noticing a good moment while it is still happening and letting it stretch out a little bit more instead of letting it slide by on the way to the next thing. It's the difference between being in the room with someone and being in the room while your errand is well on its way somewhere else. And there is a lovely, simple finding about how savoring gets even stronger. A researcher named Shelly Gable studied what happens when we share a good moment out loud with the people we love. She called it capitalizing on the moment. When you say, This is so nice, I am really glad we're doing this. The other person lights up with you. The joy of that moment grows. For both of you, the good feeling outlasts the moment itself, and the bond gets a little deeper in the process. There's one more piece, and it's the reason summer is the right time for this. A researcher named Jamie Kurtz found that when people sensed an experience was coming to an end, their time with it was limited, they savored it more, and they felt better for it. Summer has that built in. The long evenings will not last. The people who gathered close this month may scatter again when fall comes. A gentle awareness that the season is passing does something useful. It helps us look up and pay attention while it is still here. So think about who is going to be near you this summer. The people at the cookout, the voice on the other end of the phone, the face across the table tonight. What the research is really saying is freeing. The occasion you keep waiting for is already here. It is happening every time these people are in the room with you. The savoring is just a matter of being there for it on purpose. This touches all four pillars of the places we care about on this show. Mentally, savoring is an attention skill. You are training your mind to land instead of race. Emotionally, sharing a good moment out loud deepens the bond and lifts the mood for both of you. Physically, presence lives in the body. The hug that lasts a second longer, the meal you actually taste, the laugh you let yourself fully have. And spiritually, paying attention to the people God has set at your table is its own kind of worship. It is noticing the gift while the giver is still handing it to you. Here is your next best step. Pick one person and do one thing that says, I see you and I am glad you're here. Make the call you keep meaning to make. Drive over instead of texting. Or if they are already in your house, set the phone in another room for 10 minutes and give them your actual face. And while you are with them, say the part we usually leave unspoken. I am really glad we're doing this. That one sentence is the whole practice. It turns a moment that you would have rushed past into one that you both get to keep. The people you love are still bearing fruit, still fresh and green, still right at the table with you. Savoring is simply noticing them while they are here and letting them hear you say it. The research is clear that this lifts both of you, and that little awareness of how fast the season moves is the very thing that helps you pay attention. One person, one moment this week. On Friday, we're staying in this summary Good for the Soul lane with an episode about the joy you keep postponing. The way we promise ourselves we will relax and enjoy things once the work is finally finished. When the work is never actually finished, I think you're going to love it. If this episode encouraged you, follow or subscribe wherever you are listening or watching. So the next one finds you without you having to go look for it. And if you would like a simple way to slow down enough to actually notice your people, my free five minute daily reset is a gentle place to start.com. I will see you Friday. Take your next best step.