Taking care of yourself this holiday season

Music (00:00:01) – She is dreaming, she is drifting. Never been so wide awake. Captured in the moment by the beauty all around her. There’s nowhere else that she would rather be.

Koren (00:00:19) – Hello and welcome. This is Koren Motekaitis. And you’re listening to How She Really Does It, the place where inspiration and possibility meet. As the show drops, we’re in the midst of the holiday season. And regardless, if you listen to the show midyear in 2024 or many, many years later, the message here is vital and relevant. In fact, I’ve already done two shows about taking care of yourself through the years. One was with Jen Louden and the other was with Karen Waldron, and she’ll be coming back soon. We’ll link those shows in the show notes so that you can also go and listen to those. Today, I’m going to share with you concrete ideas of how my clients are taking care of themselves this holiday season. Taking care of yourself looks different for each person. And one thing I want to be really clear, because I do talk about my favorite fairy tale, Cinderella, is that this is not the Cinderella version of taking care of yourself, meaning you can take care of yourself after everything is done.

Koren (00:01:41) – Much like Cinderella getting to go to the ball once all her stepmother’s chores are done, we are often creating ourselves to be the evil stepmother and Cinderella all in one package. It’s like, well, I can do this. I can take care of myself once I’ve gotten all the presents, once I’ve done with the hosting, once this, once that, and then we go into the new year depleted and we continue on and we continue on. And then maybe it’s June of 2024 and you’re listening to this going, holy moly, this is me. I didn’t take care of myself. I kept waiting until it was my turn. And so one is that we’re not supposed to be the Cinderella version. We get to take care of ourselves now so that we are resourced to be present in nurturing during the holiday season, and that we can go into the new year replenished, not depleted and mad and resentful. So one example of taking care of yourself this holiday season is keeping the holiday simple, versus trying to do what is culturally programmed to do.

Koren (00:02:50) – Okay, so the granular what does that look like in real life? I have a client who hosted Thanksgiving and chose not to serve pumpkin pie. Let everybody know that wasn’t a problem. Nobody likes pumpkin pie except for one person. And he also really, really, really loves her apple pie that she specially makes. And so that was a switch out. And they had pumpkin bread instead of pumpkin pie, which so many people loved. She was clear ahead of time and let people know that this was her menu and her plan. I had another client who, for Thanksgiving, created a chart system of what to cook and what time. And so it’s all laid out and prepared. And she’d also done the grocery shopping the weekend before, so that all the ingredients were there so that they could do some of the prep on Wednesday and then Thursday they can cook and entertain and not have to be thinking, because all those decisions, all that plan was laid out, the checklist was there, and they can invite people and spend time connecting while enjoying cooking.

Koren (00:03:53) – Now, I would have to say enjoying cooking is not a part of my go to taking care of me. But for this client, it was right. We all have our differences of what taking care of ourselves looks like.

Koren (00:04:02) – Another example is holiday cards. Some people it’s about having it all done for you. Like everything done. Your list is loaded. You pick out the picture, it gets sent. Some of it may be like my family. We used to when our kids were little. We had this kind of like factory line of putting the Christmas cards together, and that was taking care of me. I really enjoyed cards, and this year it may be taking care of me as not doing them at all. It’s something I’m rumbling with right now as I think about it, because I’m recording the show obviously before the middle of December, but it’s something I’m rumbling with and I love, love, love holiday cards. They’re my favorite thing. I get so much joy out of doing them, and I love getting them every single day in the mail.

Koren (00:04:51) – It’s so delightful. I love to see the pictures. I love to see people growing up. I love to read the, you know, the Christmas letters for the holiday letters that those who write them. I love it all. And this year taking care of me, maybe not doing them. And I’m rumbling with that right now and that’s okay. Another client of mine made all their plans from Thanksgiving through New Year’s, and these plans allowed for the space to make other decisions as they’ve come up, as well as the constraints of what to do and not to do because decisions had already been made. It’s a beautiful thing, right? And it helps reduce the holiday overwhelm that so many people feel. So those are examples of keeping the holiday simple versus doing what is culturally programmed. Other examples about taking care of ourselves. One of the things that I continued the lesson I keep learning over and over again is the most important thing I can do. First thing in the morning is to take care of me.

Koren (00:05:59) – And I’m really good about getting a good practice and a routine about making sure I have nourishing food, and I have my coffee and all of that. And sometimes I still go into that illusion of, oh, I will do my workout later. That never happens in the stress throughout the day or doesn’t not never happen, but it’s much harder to do. It takes a lot more energy and attention to get that done than when I do it. First thing in the morning. I feel so accomplished, I feel good, I move my body, I filled myself up. So for me, the practice of taking care of me first thing in the morning, right? Moving, exercising is so, so important. You know, my melt exercise is one of my favorite things of taking care of me and doing the neuro strength and doing, you know, just nourishing my body and taking care of it in different ways has been huge. So I’ve learned that I must pour into me. So I have the resources to pour into others.

Koren (00:06:59) – And I do this by working out and doing my melt neuro strength, and nourishing my body with food that can sustain me and keep my brain clear, and my coffee that I love the ritual of that’s my day to day. The way that I take care of myself over a week is by reading. I love, you know, reading and having that input in having that time to myself other ways is making sure on a daily basis that I connect with myself and as well as connecting with family and friends. And let’s not forget one way I connect with myself as I lay on the carpet and I look at trees. This is my latest version of taking care of me. That the fall of 2023, I kept noticing that I was drawn to just lay on the carpet and look at the trees. It didn’t make any sense, but over time, as I evaluated it, I noticed that I felt replenished versus drained. One of my clients has turned off the noise of what everyone else is doing and not doing, because she’s found that to be really self destructive to her mindset.

Koren (00:08:04) – So allowing other people to do what they do, but allowing herself to turn off that noise and focus inward. Another really, really important concept about taking care of ourselves is having boundaries. This is really, really huge, and I love what Prentiss Hemphill has to say about boundaries. They say boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously. I’m going to say that again. This is from Prentiss Hemphill, and they say boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously. This is an example of the Venn diagram, right? What are the boundaries I need to have in place so that I can love you? What are the boundaries in place so that I can love me? And where do we meet in that Venn diagram? So often people think that taking care of ourselves is an either or instead of an and and boundaries are so important because what do you need so that you can. Love somebody else as well as love yourself. It’s not about being too difficult.

Koren (00:09:17) – Boundaries are actually supportive of us all. Something else that’s really, really important in this holiday season and just in life in general, is sleep, right? Some of us may have judgments about you’re a bad person because you need sleep or you’re lazy, right? Or that you’re not being productive. Sleep actually will help you be more productive versus going through life in a fog, which I’ve done right for some of my clients. Taking care of yourself looks like letting people know ahead of time that you’re going to be off, right? Getting clear about what the schedule is, what your availability is, which are companies availability is setting autoresponders so that people have it. If they send an email or a message, they’re really clear. And it’s so interesting. Even Apple Podcasts has a message out about delays and upload times over the holidays, like that’s the first time in 17 years of podcasting I’ve seen that, right? So even in this world of automation, we’re needing some downtime, people. So being clear and being ahead of it, being proactive, that’s a way of taking care of yourself.

Koren (00:10:27) – Another way of taking care of yourself is time off for nothing but to putter around. Just to putter around. It’s not wasted time. It’s space for actual replenishment and growth. There’s a difference between puttering around and scrolling on Instagram, or going through TikTok and sitting there and losing that time. And how do you know this? Because you check in with how do you feel afterwards? Do you feel replenished after being on social media? That’s something for you to identify with versus puttering around. Taking care of yourself is playing. This is something like sleep that I’ve been learning how to do.

Koren (00:11:12) – I used to have a story of I’m not a person who plays. I’m a busy person. I. I’ve got shit to do, right. Learning how to play is something that I’ve been really cultivating on, and I sometimes I do it well, sometimes not so well. I’m playing and maybe it’s sometimes playing is doing things that you don’t normally do. Maybe it’s going to a play with a friend, maybe it’s going to a sporting event with a friend or even by yourself.

Koren (00:11:39) – I recently went to a sporting event by myself. It’s the way it kind of worked out, and it was a gorgeous day and I got to watch a bunch of high performers, and it was so much fun, and all I had to do was be responsible for myself. I enjoyed it, I had a good time, I didn’t have to think about anybody else, and I got to entertain and I got to have some time with myself in the car, so I got to spend time with myself. It was a really fantastic day. Plus it was a glorious November day in California to be outdoors. I really, really enjoyed it playing. Another thing that’s really important when we take care of ourselves, is being mindful of what you say internally about yourself, as well as the stories you may tell others about yourself. So, for example, if you’re like, oh, I’m so confrontational, is it being confrontational? Or are you being clear and you’re not having pumpkin pie and you’re having apple pie at the Thanksgiving you’re hosting? I had this old limiting belief that I’ve shared with you, but I had this belief of I’m a loser from Loser Street, and I used to say that to myself.

Koren (00:12:41) – I was like, oh, of course that happens because I’m a loser from Loser Street. That, my friend, is not taking care of yourself, right? Because that’s a whole shame spiral that I would go down versus my saying, oh, this really sucks. This is what happened. What am I feeling? What do I need? What can I learn from this? All right. Which is a whole different way. So taking care of yourself is how do you talk to yourself internally as well as what are the stories you tell others about yourself? One really insidious thought that I’ve done a lot of coaching on recently is I should know the right thing to do, like, there’s one right thing way to do something. There’s not even one way to do Thanksgiving. So there’s not one way to do something or the right thing to do. And I should have is just judging yourself. So check in with these stories and how you take care of yourself. Are you talking to yourself the way you would talk to your best friend? Are you talking to yourself the way you would talk to somebody dearly love? Are you talking to yourself the way you would talk to your grocery store clerk? Think about that.

Koren (00:13:50) – Take care of yourself. Talk to yourself like you would talk to one of those people. Taking care of yourself can also mean it doesn’t make sense right now. And after a while, you may process it and see. Did it fill you up or deplete you? Earlier in the fall, when I would find myself laying on the carpet and staring out the window at the trees, it was spacious and it didn’t make any sense and I just was drawn to it. And I kept wondering like, why am I doing this? This is ridiculous. And I had to give myself permission that it was okay. Like, maybe what if this is a way of me taking care of myself? And I would check in and over time it was like, oh, I felt so much better versus me going on social media. And afterwards I’m feeling depleted, resentful, right? Numb. There’s a big difference. So that can only be figured out by you checking in with your own body, with your own sense of self.

Koren (00:15:02) – Okay, so what I’ve learned for me is what’s not taking care of myself as social media, mindless TV, which is very different than watching deliberate TV. I’m not saying don’t watch TV, I’m not saying don’t do social media. But one of the things that I noticed is that I really check in. Do I want to watch TV or what is it that I want right now? And it also depends on, you know, what other factors are going on. My family is around, my husband. Right. What is it that I want from this experience? What is it that we want from this experience and having that Venn diagram? So one of the ways to figure out what you need to take care of yourself is by asking yourself, what do you want from this experience? And you can replace that with what do you want from this holiday, this time of year, this event, right? Start to brainstorm those ideas. What do you want from that? And then what do you need to be able to support that experience, that holiday, that time of year? That event.

Koren (00:16:05) – Right. My client that didn’t have the pumpkin pie, right. She wanted to have delicious food connection with each other. Nobody likes pumpkin pie. So why create a pumpkin pie that maybe only one person won’t eat, or others will eat out of obligation? But getting clear about what she wanted from that experience, from that holiday, allowed her to figure out how to support that. I’ve had people tell me that one way they are taking care of themselves is by limiting or reducing social interactions, making their world smaller deliberately. And some of it just has to do with their own healing process of where they are at their own capacity. Right. And it really is about taking care of themselves. They’re not hiding away. They’re not they’re not running away, but they’re taking care of themselves. So there’s a lot of discernment there. Taking care of you looks like stopping your workday. I’m not saying cheating your workday and limiting it right. Fulfilling your obligations of what your scope of work is supposed to be and calling an end.

Koren (00:17:09) – So often our world of work bleeds into other parts of our life, because we’ve been taught that being a high performer, high achiever means we overdo, because that would be better. But we’re actually beyond what we’re supposed to be doing. Or maybe we’ve bled so much of the numbing stuff like social media, other things that we weren’t really focused, and so it bled into other parts of our lives. So stop being our workday. Having a clear end to your workday can be talking with a friend, and for some of you who have a blue brain, it could be sitting in the shower, right? There were examples of taking care of yourself. Another example of taking care of you is removing things from your schedule, not doing it because of a society justified reason. Right? And again, this takes discernment to figure out what you can remove from your to do list. And I want to be clear, I’m not saying like, oh, I’m going to remove pain. My taxes currently say that like, no, there’s context on this, right? You may not like the consequences of not paying your taxes.

Koren (00:18:11) – So it’s about following through on your work responsibilities or your home life or your responsibilities that you have personally or professionally. But really looking at what’s on your to do list that really needs to get done and what can be. Dropped. All right. I’m really discerning about errands. I don’t like to just run about doing errands on a daily basis or even weekly basis. I’m really, really discerning about when I go do errands and what that will look like. So as I wrap up today’s show, one of the concepts that I use with my clients is the metaphor of the mason jar. And I work with high achievers, high performers, right. And they have pretty big capacities. So we’ll just say that they have a 24 ounce mason jar, right? Where some people may have like an eight ounce mason jar. Not better or worse. It’s just how much it can hold. So my clients are like, I have a huge capacity. And they come to me.

Koren (00:19:05) – Because they’re like, why can’t I do more?

Koren (00:19:07) – And they’re beating themselves up and they’re upset. And this, this time of the year, everybody’s pretty depleted. And I’m like, well, how many ounces do you have in that mason jar? There’s like a few drops. We’re not even talking about an ounce. There’s a few drops. So this is why it’s important that they take care of themselves. They need to fill that mason jar up so they can pour it into others instead of thinking, why aren’t these drops coming out? There’s nothing in the mason jar. As a leader in work, family, and life, it takes energy to lead others. We’re all leaders. Maybe you’re a leader at home. Maybe you’re a leader at work. Maybe you’re a leader in your community. Being a leader of your own life, right? One must be nourished. And that happens from taking care of ourselves. So as I close out today’s show. I have a question for you listening to the show. What are three ways for you to take care of yourself? And my hope for you today is that this podcast helped you remember your ways of taking care of yourself, and reminded you to give yourself permission to take care of yourself first.

Koren (00:20:15) – Don’t be Cinderella and the evil stepmother all in one. Or maybe even giving you some idea babies to test out as you learn what taking care of yourself looks like in this season of life. All right, my friend. I’m smiling big for you. Hey there. Before we go, I have a question for you. Have you subscribed to the show yet? This is an awesome opportunity for you to preserve your brain juice. I love the fact that I can subscribe to podcasts and television shows, and they go straight to my iPhone, or they go straight to my DVR, and then I don’t have to worry of oh no, especially with television shows. Did I hit record? Is it going to be there or not? Do I have to watch it on demand and go through all the commercials? So go and hit the subscribe button. There’s a link in the show notes, and that will ensure you that you never miss a show. And you can also save your brain juice for other things in your life. There’s way more important things, but you and I will still be connected because the show will be waiting for you on your phone.

Music (00:21:29) – She is dreaming, she is drifting. Never been so wide awake. Captured in the moment by the beauty all around her. There’s nowhere else that she would rather be.