Ep 119: Slow Down! How to Embrace Getting Still and Patiently Waiting

The holiday season is notoriously a crazy time of year. Why do we do this to ourselves? Sure, there is lots to do, but wouldn't it be nice to slow down and enjoy the season a little more?

Listen to this episode for my tips on how to slow down, get quiet and patiently wait this time of year.


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Transcript

0:51

Hello, my friends. And welcome back to real, brave and unstoppable for episode number 119. I hope that your holiday season is going well so far. It's going really fast as usual. Speaking of holiday season this year, I was able to travel back to Minnesota, which is where I'm from, for Thanksgiving. And for the first time, and I don't even know how long I was able to spend an actual holiday with my family. Like on the day. I didn't have my kids with me. They were with their dad and they were actually also in Minnesota just with his family instead of mine. That it was really nice to be able to spend time with my family. And I had so much gratitude for that. Even got to experience an outdoor football game. I went to the Minnesota-Wisconsin game. To see my nephew in the marching band. Well we went for the football to. I went to school there. So go gophers. The high that day, it was a little below freezing. So I had to really dig deep to channel that good old Minnesota cold weather toughness. And it even snowed during the game, which was like so magical. I loved it. So I'm really grateful I was able to take that trip. This combined with a book I read recently called 29 gifts. You should definitely check it out. It's really good. But it caused me to really think about slowing down to really appreciate the things that are good in my life. Because, you know, it's easy to kind of go through our day to day and forget to really pause with what's good. So I was also this year, with, I mean, I love Christmas, the holiday season. I'm at a place in my life where I'm finally able to enjoy it again. My ex and I split up nine years ago during the holidays. So for a long time, it was really hard for me to enjoy that. But I'm finally at a place where I really. I totally do. I love it again. But this year, I was pulled to kind of reconnect with my Christian faith a little bit. For those of you who are not Christian, or do not have interest in you know, religion or whatever, don't worry. It's this is not a religious episode. It's just, you can apply what I'm talking about to really whatever you know, you relate to. But in the past several years, I've really struggled a bit with how I like how I relate to this. And I've been kind of trying to find my own way. But I found this was a perfect time to do this with it being the season of advent. Now again, whether you're Christian or not, this episode has lessons. I may refer to some elements of Christianity, but you can most certainly relate what I have to say to your own situation, whether you're religious or not. But anyway, getting back on track. Advent is really a time for rejoicing and also in being still and waiting. It's a time of waiting for the birth of Jesus in Christianity. And it's a time of, you know, for hope and for peace. So, if you think about the typical American during December. Any guesses... Yeah, not so much. Not many of us practice stillness in December Do we? It's almost like people are all lined up at the starting line, you know, like horses in a horse race. And as soon as black Friday hits, the gates are open and the race starts. Shopping planning, hosting parties. Going to parties, finding the perfect gifts, making the crafts. Decorating. All the things, right. It seems like things just keep piling up on the to-do list and it sometimes feels impossible to take anything off of it. I remember when I was married, we used to have this big holiday party every year. It was so much fun. But I think about all the time that went into that party. It was a lot. We carefully curated everything like the appetizer menu and we made all the food ourselves. At first. Eventually, when we kind of chilled out a little bit about it, we had people bringing stuff, but initially, like we wanted it to be so perfect. We'd even try some of the appetizers ahead of time to make sure, you know, they're up to par. And we'd have the house like perfectly decorated. We even planned a holiday trivia contest and we had this fun white elephant gift game. We always had a signature cocktail for the party. Specially curated the wines. And as a finishing touch, we haven't had those little white paper bag luminaries to line our very long driveway. Oh yeah. And let's not forget the printed custom designed invitations that I designed every year. Usually depicting my chocolate lab in some sort of like holiday get up. They were amazing invitations I have to say, but I'm like, I'm picturing them right now. There are some funny ones. But, on top of that, and this is related to, you know, my chocolate lab appearing on the, the the invitations. I also operated a photography studio. And this time of the year was always the busiest. And of course adding onto the shopping. And when kids are a little at space that you got to get all the cool toys before they sell out. Otherwise you end up paying like, ah, so much in shipping. And yeah, let's not forget travel. We would travel back to Minnesota every year back then to see my family and my ex's family. And we'd have to get all of our gifts back there somehow. So that meant planning ahead to ship things before the days of Amazon prime being so easy. Or packing things in a suitcase. Again, back in the day when airlines didn't nickel and dime you for extra luggage. And then travel in and of itself was just a special treat. Delays and busy. The, when you're we got stranded in Chicago overnight because there was a snow storm or there was another year I got stuck after Christmas and wasn't going to be able to get back for several days. Like there weren't any flights available. So I actually ended up, this is one of the craziest things I've ever done. I ended up talking to some people in the line where we were trying to figure this out and somebody suggested renting a car. And so I rented a car with these people. I didn't even know them. There were, there was this one guy and then this other couple. So I think there's a total of four of us, maybe five. I don't remember. I think five of us total. And, yeah, we rented an SUV and we drove from Minneapolis to Baltimore. DC, whatever And there's this huge snowstorm driving through like Minnesota and Wisconsin. It was one of the crazier things I've ever done. So that was fun. But over the years, I've taken a lot of these, my plate and my kids are older. So there isn't as much emphasis on getting like the latest, hot toy before it sells out. And stuff like that. Since my divorce, I haven't hosted Christmas parties and I rarely traveled during the holidays. But I still have noticed that Christmas always seems to come and go so fast. It feels like I'm just like buzzing through life and not really stopping to pay attention. And savor, the little moments. So this year I've really made it a point to make time for mindfulness or. I don't even say make time, but I've really been trying to be more present. I'm focusing on getting more, still more quiet. And notice. I don't say I'm trying to get still because like anyone, this is a work in progress and it's like, you know, we still will be busy and we still there's no, all or nothing in this, it's just where can I bring a little more stillness into my life? So today I'm going to talk about some of the ways to get still and quiet, you know, and also to enjoy the little things that are so beautiful about the holiday season. Now I do have to confess, I've been trying to record this episode for probably two weeks and. I think in my quest for getting still and quiet, I've been taking things off my to-do lists that are absolutely necessary. So, while I would like to say this is absolutely necessary. I mean, honestly, it really isn't and I knew I'd get around to it at some point. And here I am getting it out to you right before Christmas. So, you know, some of this... You can apply to the week after Christmas, you can apply to your weekend. Just how do you really spend some time getting still and enjoying what's left of the end of 2023. So let's talk first about why we get so busy in the first place. Basically having too much to do is, it's like a result of taking on too much. Putting too much on your plate. After all we're each ultimately responsible for how much is on our plate. Now you might be saying. Yeah, but kortney, I can't just say no, for example, to increased workload at work. I can't NOT do my Christmas shopping. I have to go to this gathering or this event, that party and so on. I can't say no. Well, I mean, there's some truth to that. There's some truth to that. Like with work, for example. However, let me tell you about the number of people I've coached in the last couple of months, well, at all ever, but who assume they can't say no to work that's given to them? They just assume that so they don't bother to ask, if a deadline is hard or soft or is there any room for someone helping or like, they don't really have the bandwidth for this. So can they problem solve? But they're afraid to say that they're, plate's already full for fear that they'll be perceived as like incompetent. Nearly every client I coach on stress has some version of this around work. And shopping, like I get it, but is it true, like really true that you really can't not do your shopping. So there might be consequences for not doing shopping, but it's not true that you have to. And also like, if you're going crazy, like with shopping, chances are you're buying too much, you're stressing about getting the perfect thing, or, you know, you could be ordering it on Amazon and you're running out to all the stores instead, and you've got too many other things to do. So the message I'm trying to convey here is that many people overstress when it comes to getting like the perfect gift or spending the right amount of money. Which brings up a whole other set of fears. But like you're in control of deciding what you can and can't do. And when you start noticing have-tos and should-dos... these are potential thought errors and thinking traps, and you actually CAN decide on something that works for you. And isn't so stressful. It's pretty common with stuff like this, to think in very binary terms. Last episode was about the beauty of gray. You know, not, not thinking in all or nothing. Like how can you find a little more gray area in this, you know, binary thinking or all or nothing thinking is I either have to do all of this... or I'm not getting anything done. I'm not doing anything at all. In other words, like I'm failing at this. So there's a lot more gray area in there than we usually find. So the shopping thing, like overstressing about it, or over-planning.. That can stem from fear. What if they don't like my gift? What if I didn't do enough? What if the money is uneven? Susie really wanted this toy and if I don't find it, she's going to be disappointed for the whole rest of her life. Like fear based thoughts, right? Parties. I mentioned the one we used to host. It was a lot of fun. Yes. But it consumed my time from Thanksgiving, and even before, remember I mentioned the custom designed printed invitation sent out around Thanksgiving. Yes. Well, I had to create those before Thanksgiving. At one point, I realized that I was having to cram in all of the traditions I wanted to participate in with my kids into roughly a week or two. So this really comes down to values. Like what's important. Sometimes something that's fun and kind of important gets trumped by the stuff that is REALLY important. So prioritizing your values, knowing what your values are really helps here. Going to parties, even though you don't have the bandwidth for all the parties is another thing. That's also fear-based. Bob will be upset if I go to Gladys his party and not his, I love making up these names. I can't not show up for the work party. I'll look like I'm not a team player. Okay, so maybe Bob will be upset. But I can almost certainly promise you he'll get over it. And it is possible to have a conversation with Bob about how sorry you are, that you can't attend and hope that you can next year, this one's about boundaries, and also going back to what's really important to you. Sometimes we take on too much to avoid conflict or making people feel bad too. And sometimes we stay busy or get too busy because it's just what we identify with this time of year. It's just what we do, right. We don't really take the time to look at the things we're putting on our plate to see if they're really important. If they're really things that have to get done, or if we can back off. Some people also experience grief or sadness at this time of the year. And staying busy helps keep them distracted. So there are a couple of themes here. First, a lot of our busy-ness stems from avoidance of something else, like emotions that are uncomfortable. You know, saying no to aunt Sally's invitation could upset someone and then you have to deal with the fallout of that. When in reality, we all need boundaries. And part of being emotionally grown up is being able to communicate with aunt Sally. And being able to sit with the discomfort of where that ends up. Not an easy thing. Boundaries are not easy, but they'll change your life. I promise. The second part of this, or the second kind of theme here is, and these two things work together, but a lot of times we forget what's truly important to us. So in some of these examples I shared earlier, like let's take decorating. For example, if I'm stressing about getting my house impeccably decorated, There are two possibilities. Well, there are more than two, but two of them are, a) I'm worried that, uh, someone comes to my house and anything looks less than perfect. I'm worried about what they'll think or the guests at my party will like scoff at my decor. Or it won't look good enough. It won't be fancy enough, whatever. Option two is that I just really enjoy decorating and how it looks that makes me happy to see my house decorated. But, if this is coming at the expense of peace and calm, and it's creating stress around too many things to do at a certain point, you really have to look at our values and prioritize, like what really is important? What, what do we need to prioritize? What needs to come first? So the holiday season is really a combination of these things. Prioritization of what's most important and non- avoidance of discomfort. So we have to be able to get really intentional about this. And in order to get intentional, we need to practice awareness. And in order to practice awareness, we have to slow down. We have to get still and quiet. And it's only here where we can start to notice what we're thinking or feeling and what we're doing. This is hard any time of year when we're not practiced in it. And yes, it takes a lot of practice. It it takes making a commitment to slowing down and to getting quiet. There's so much beauty this time of the year friends. If you live in a snowy climate, the beauty of the falling snow flakes against a starry sky. Or the glow of the morning sun through snow coated trees. The chill of crisp December air, the sparkle of winter sky. The scent of pine cones, simmering cider the twinkle of the Christmas tree. Sounds of Christmas carols. The closeness of family watching holiday movies together. Glowing candles, the excitement in the air as you shop for your gifts. And when we don't slow down, we don't even notice it. So if you celebrate Christmas, it comes and goes so fast when we don't slow down. The family gatherings, opening of presents flies by, and then the we're just left in this mass of wrapping paper and kind of like, whoa, what happened here? And then we feel totally bloated and crappy cause we ate too much. Okay, so I'm going to get a little Christmas story-y here. So if you're not familiar with this like the Christmas story, that's okay, but I'm going to tell you a little bit about it. Cause I think it's really it's, it's just, it's such a great lesson or such a great parallel. Um, you know, when when the angel came and told Mary basically that she was gonna to bear God's son Jesus, I mean, can you imagine that, she wasn't even married yet. That was no-no that was no, no back then. So first of all, she's like, how am I? She didn't know what I mean. That was probably pretty scary. But she totally like, she let go. She surrendered. She trusted. And Mary and Joseph didn't really have anything. They didn't have money. They weren't, you know, they really had to turn everything over to trusting. They had to slow down. They had to really listen for signs of how to handle this, what to do. They were really focused on what was important. And I think there's so much that we can learn from the season of advent where it's about waiting. It's about really tuning into what's bare bones important and slowing down and waiting for this, you know, big celebration of If you, if you're Christian the birth of Jesus, if you're not Christian, let's just say like family celebrations or whatever, like slowing down and really waiting to partake in these beautiful traditions this time of the year. And this can apply it to any time of the year as well. It's just like that saying stop and smell the roses. If we don't slow down and stop, like, we don't even notice they're there. And there's so much that we get from noticing from being still and really noticing what is present for us. You know, what's, what's happening around us. What's happening with the people we care about. Another thing that slowing down does is... Have you ever thought to yourself, I feel stuck. I feel stuck? I feel like I'm going through the motions. Slow down. And connect with what's important. That's how we find meaning in life. And if we're just going crazy and just checking boxes off the to-do list all day, and we're not really taking a moment to really check in with ourselves. We're not going to be able to connect to what's truly important to us. I've talked about values a little bit on the podcast. I probably should do another, like a little more in depth episode about it, but values are so important in just helping us make choices in just moment to moment choices about how we show up. as Well as like bigger, you know, setting goals and finding direction in life. But. It's really worth. I'm a huge advocate for doing the values, exercise, where you Google list of values. You'll get a list of a lot of words. There are some out there that are shorter lists, but I like the ones that are a little longer. And you go through that list. And anything that's really like jumps out at you about like, you know, what qualities are important to you in how you show up, like what guides you in creating the life you want to live? What if somebody was giving a speech about you? Like, what would you be really proud that they noticed about you? It's the kind of, the kind of things that you would strive for or qualities you'd want to possess, even if no one was watching you. And slowing down helps you notice, like where am I out of alignment with that stuff? What, where am I out of alignment with what's important. And how can I line up with some of those things? How can I connect with some of those things a little more? And that's just where we find so much meaning in life. Without doing that, yeah, we just go through the motions. And it doesn't feel fulfilling because we're doing things that aren't important. So think about that. You gotta slow down. You gotta get quiet. You gotta get still to be able to notice that stuff. You know, I mentioned before awareness. Slowing down... Is where we find awareness. And what do I always say? Awareness is half the battle. Of, you know, just growing and learning and in this life. One more thing I wanted to just touch on is the waiting aspect of things. So I'm somebody who gets excited if someone tells me they've got me a gift, for example. I'm like, I got excited. Like I want to know what it is. Like I don't want to wait. I don't want to, I want to know what it is. I don't really want to know what it is, but there's this part of me that just so antsy to know, and then I'm like, oh, I can't wait till that day so I can find out what it is. So I noticed this though.. My partner, he does this every year... He he's tries to suck me into this. He knows that I bite and this year I didn't... it was amazing. But he knows. I get really frustrated if he pokes at me with like, oh, I bet you can't guess what your president is. And. and it does, it gets me, it hooks me every time and I get so frustrated. Not,, not because I don't know what it is, but more at the poking. And then the curiosity just gets me. But, This year I kind of, I said to him, I don't want to know. So don't even, I don't even care if you do that. I don't want to know. So why would you do that? So. But I did notice myself saying. Oh, I can't wait until... to myself, not to him, but I can't wait until it's only a few more days and I'll be able to find out what it is. And it's this huge box. Like he wrapped it and put it by the tree. It's huge. It's a huge box. So of course my curiosity is there. Right? But instead of like, I'm noticing, oh, it's only a few more days. I can't wait. Just let these days go by. And then I caught myself and went, ah, that's not really waiting. Is it? That's not really waiting. So the way I want to pull all this together. Is, and this, you can apply this to anything that you're sort of, you know, waiting for in life. Is, you know, that day's gonna come. But how can you find meaning and joy in the now? In this day, in this day? Part of the fun is the waiting. And if we can just slow down and get quiet. And appreciate what's here in the now. The other stuff will come. So that's what I have to offer you today, friends. I wish I would have gotten this out sooner for you, but you can, you can hold this message and practice it next year. Or what I would really love you to do is in the couple of days before Christmas, and in the, in the week, before new years, How can you just really slow down from day to day and notice what's present in you and what's present around you. Now. While you wait for this new year to, to begin. I'd love to hear how it goes. Send me an email. Let me know. Um, a couple of things before I go: first of all, if you don't follow me on social media, please go do that. I'm kortneyrivardlifecoach on both, both Facebook and Instagram. I love showing up mostly on Instagram. I'm mostly over there, but things do cop. You know, do share over to Facebook as well, but I love hanging out on Instagram and I would love to have some more interaction with people and just, you know, have fun over there. I think it's a neat place to to hang out and sort of build community. So come visit me over there and say, hi. And then the other thing is... if you're enjoying the show, do me a favor and please go leave a rating and a review for me. It's really the best way to let other people find, there's help other people find the show. And I know some people have said it's really has been enjoyable for them to listen to, so, you know, who knows how you might be helping someone. If you share it. And one more thing I have to just share is that the podcast host that I use sends out every year, like the stats for the year. And I was pretty proud because I am in the top 50% of all the podcasts in terms of downloads and listeners of all the podcasts, this company hosts. Top 50%. I thought that was pretty for small little old me... I thought that was pretty cool. And I'm really proud of that. So thank you for being one of those listeners. So much appreciate you. If you ever have any episode ideas or something you want to hear more about, please reach out. I love when people do that. So, with that friends, have a very Merry Christmas and I will see you next time.