EP.7: Setting Your Intention For The Holiday Season

Do you embark on the holidays with excitement and anticipation only to end the season depleted? You’re not alone. So many of us rush into the holidays already feeling behind. Wouldn’t it be nice to feel like you’re more in control of walking through the season with ease, rather than the season walking all over you? In this episode we’re talking about setting an intention before the holiday season is fully upon us, with the hope of experiencing the holidays with more purpose this year.

Hi, friends, how are you?

I would love for you to just take a minute and actually think about that question.

How are you?

It’s a question I get asked often and the question I ask others, often. It’s so interesting to me that so often, we miss the answer. Not just when we ask it of other people, but when other people ask it of us.

How are you?

We’re so hurried and busy and over-scheduled sometimes that it feels like we don’t even know how to answer that question. It’s a really, really good question to ask, when you think about it.

It can be centering, it can help you slow down and check in. So I want to start with that.

Give yourself a minute. How are you really doing today?

Yesterday for me was, it just felt like the day where everything I tried to do just didn’t work, or it took an hour longer than it should have. Everything felt upside down and overwhelming and too busy and too over-scheduled.

It was one of those days where I was catching up from the day before, plus the dog had peed on the rug and I had to shampoo it and it wasn’t dry yet, but I was having people over and the house was a mess. The kids were home and laundry wasn’t done. It felt like I was spinning my wheels in the mud. By the end of the day, I was ready to collapse. Just then, my youngest yelled down from upstairs, “Did you wash my jersey that I wanted to wear to school tomorrow?” Of course I didn’t.

Just when I thought I was finally going to have a minute to breathe, I didn’t. But now I do. So I’m sitting here in the quiet. My fireplace is on. It’s cold outside.

We’re having a cold snap here in Tennessee. It’s actually such a welcome reprieve. It feels like the holidays are coming. It doesn’t always feel like that this time of year when it’s 75 and sunny outside. I don’t know where you are in the country or in the world, but right here it was about 20 degrees when I woke up this morning.

It’s the perfect weather for a fire and a sweater and some cozy socks. So I’m just taking a minute to sit and breathe … and ask myself the question, “How are you?”

At the time of this recording, I am a week away from Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving. I always have. It reminds me of my grandmother. There’s something about the warmth and the smells and the food and just, the cozy nature of gratitude and spending time with loved ones. Now that I have kiddos, we have our own traditions – we wake up and watch the parade and we watch the dog show and we cook and we hang out in our PJs until we have to get dressed for dinner.

It just brings me such warm memories. It’s something I look forward to every year. At the same time, I know that it can create stress. There’s a lot to do. There’s a lot to cook, there’s a lot of forethought that has to go into what all needs to be done in order to host a big holiday like that.

And after the day I had yesterday I thought to myself, “I don’t know if I can do this. The Holidays haven’t even started and I’m already feeling behind.”

But I remembered when I woke up this morning, “Oh yeah, that’s right, I get to choose how I want the holiday season to look.

You might look forward to Thanksgiving just the same as I do or you might be dreading it. You might have to travel, you might have to deal with family members you’re not ready to deal with, you might have to sit through long debates about politics and things that you don’t want to talk about on that day.

I’m here just to remind you that the holidays can look anyway you want them to look. Because you always get to choose how you show up and who you show up as. That starts by doing the check in, “How are you?”

One of the reasons why I love journaling so much is because it gets all of the thoughts that are swimming around in my head out onto the paper. At that point, I can do what I want with the words that have hit the page. I can close the book and set it aside, I can lift it up and give it to God and tell him I don’t want to deal with it. I can ask better questions once I see what I’ve written down because then I actually know what’s on my heart.

It’s funny, I don’t think we know how to help ourselves a lot of times, but it’s because we’re not asking the right questions. Or it’s because we’re not tuning in to how we actually are in any given moment.

So I would encourage you, even if it’s just for five minutes, lock yourself in a closet if you have to. And just take a few breaths. Recenter yourself and ask, “How am I?” “What am I feeling right in this moment?” “What has this week felt like?” “Do I feel ready to walk into the holidays?” “Do I feel behind before I’ve even started?” “What do I need?”

I think that’s a great secondary question, “What do I need?” It’s such a great follow-up question to how are you.

Yesterday, if you had asked me that question, I would have told you I was overwhelmed and there was anxiety bubbling just beneath the surface. I even sat my kids down and I was like, “Look, if I’m on edge, here’s why. I’m not mad at you. I’m feeling all the feels about how my day is going.”

Then if you asked me this morning, I would tell you, I feel renewed. I can’t tell you why I feel renewed either. I didn’t get a ton of sleep, I probably need a nap. But it’s a new day and I feel ready and refreshed.

And that’s the gift of asking.

I’m so grateful I have learned this practice of just allowing myself to be still. As I’ve mentioned in previous episodes, it took me a little while to get to the point where it was automatic, because taking time for myself in the beginning felt just absurd. I didn’t have time for that. Who has time for that?

But now it’s a must. I know I can’t function unless I give myself the gift of this time – to sit. To think and reflect. To ask myself questions. To check in with how I’m really doing and to ask myself what I need.

The end of the year is coming. It always seems to sneak up, at least on me. Because the holidays are so full of activity and tasks and celebrations and community and connection. And then one day you wake up and it’s January 1st and you wonder, where did the time go? And how did I get here?

It’s around that time that a lot of us start thinking about the new year. I’m not a big New Year’s resolution person, but I know many people are. I like to think of the new year as just a new opportunity to shift and change and do things just a little bit differently than I did last year.

Quite honestly though, I start thinking about that now.

I want to encourage you not to simply take time to yourself but to give yourself little pockets of moments where you have the ability to check in. Start there. Ask the question, “How am I? What do I need?” Your answers might surprise you. They might wind up being simpler than you think.

Over the course of the coming weeks as we walk through the holiday season, I’d really like to be here to hold space for you to ask some of the questions that you might not be thinking about because you have so many other things on your plate right now. They’re the same questions that I’m going to be asking myself. I like to feel, when I wake up on January 1, that I’m excited about the new year rather than depleted.

That’s my hope for you too, come January 1st. That you’ll be able to walk into the New Year feeling excited and looking ahead, as opposed to feeling like you’ve just been run over by a truck, which is what it can feel like when you’re chasing your tail through the holidays, can’t it? Parties and gifts and family and gatherings and dinners and work events and travel and FaceTime calls.

All the things that come as part of the holidays can all still happen, but you get to choose how you walk through the season. You get to look forward to the first of the year, perhaps in a different way than you have in the past.

I would love that for you.

That’s my intention for me this season.

I moved into a new house in the middle of August, and I still don’t feel settled. I’m still searching for things. I’ve got two thirds of a Christmas tree and I’ve got to find the last part of it in a box somewhere.
But that isn’t going to change how I want to show up for this holiday season.

I don’t love feeling stressed or behind or like I’m not in control of what’s happening around me. I want to walk into this holiday season feeling at least a little bit like I’m doing so intentionally.

In the coming weeks, just have the conversation – regularly check in with yourself to find out what is it that you need today, next week. And sprinkle in some other questions that might be helpful.

“What are you grateful for?”

“What can you eliminate?”

“What’s a must do? What’s a nice to do? And what’s a don’t have to do?”

I find that when I do this for myself, I am actually able to say “yes” to the things I really want to say yes to and say “no” to the things that actually don’t fill my cup.

I hope you’ll join me in just allowing yourself even the tiniest bit of mental breathing room to choose. There’s still time. Thanksgiving hasn’t even hit yet. We’ve got five to six weeks before the end of the year. Let’s do it differently and on purpose.

As always, you can send me your questions and comments to hello@bestillwithbobbi.com. I love hearing from you.

Thanks for listening.