Welcome back, dear listeners, to another heartwarming episode of “A Season of Me Stories”. I’m your host, Heidi Kleine, and today we are diving into the sixth episode of Season 4, titled “What’s Messing with Your Turkey”. As we approach Thanksgiving week, this episode is dedicated to helping you navigate the holiday season on your own terms. We all know that this time of year can be overwhelming, filled with family dynamics, expectations, and a never-ending list of to-dos. But fear not, my friends, for we have the power to create the holiday season we truly desire. Join me as I share some insightful thoughts and practical tips on how to prioritize our own needs while still meeting the expectations of others. Whether you celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or any other festive occasion, this episode is for you. Grab your journal, take a moment of reflection, and let’s uncover how to find joy, manage stress, embrace traditions, honor grief, and most importantly, stay present during this special season. So sit back, relax, and prepare to embark on a journey of creating a season on your terms in this episode of “A Season of Me Stories”. Let’s dive in!
Episode Transcript:
Heidi Kleine:
Greetings, my friends, and welcome to episode 6 of season 4 of A Season of Me Stories. And this episode is going to be dropping on the Friday before Thanksgiving week, and I’m calling it, What’s messing with your turkey? I will share with you some thoughts about The holidays and how we can get ready to have the holidays that we are seeking to have on our terms. So Thanksgiving is a holiday that focuses on gratitude and family, And yet this season can be a lot. It brings up a lot of family history. It brings up A lot of busyness, for those of us who are people pleasers and overthinkers, it just adds a lot of, time and attention that gets devoted to other people’s agenda, other people’s expectations. And so this week, when, One of my friends said that something she was doing was messing with her turkey. I immediately thought that is The perfect title for a podcast on how do you want to create this holiday season on your terms. And we talk about this all of the time in a season of me that The choice to have a season of you is not about not doing for others or not meeting expectations.
Heidi Kleine:
It’s about choosing how you want the season to go. It’s creating an environment that functions on terms that you feel good about, that you are comfortable with. And so this conversation today is about how can you do that specifically related to the holiday season. And this applies to Whatever holiday you celebrate, I actually loved when we started saying happy holidays. I live in an area where, Diwali is celebrated a lot, and it has been really fun to learn and see new traditions from another culture. So whatever holidays you are currently celebrating, whether it’s Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, whatever is coming up for you in this sort of celebratory season, I wanna encourage you to take a little pause before going into the season to identify how you want it to look, how you need it to look for you to have, this holiday season that you want to have at the same time as meeting the needs and expectations of the people around you. So the first thing I want you to do is just take a little time, maybe grab a journal, and reflect on all of the things that are meaningful to you during the holidays. It might be time with friends.
Heidi Kleine:
It might be a particular dish. It might be a particular Event or kind of party that you have, go through all of the sort of Holiday expected traditions that align with your family’s history, with your, beliefs and practices, and kinda just list out all the things that you do during the holidays. Do you send holiday cards? Do you write a holiday letter? Do you cook certain foods, decorate in a certain way. Right? Get kind of all of that out on a piece of paper or, in front of you so that you can kind of see the scope of things. And then Ask yourself a few questions about each of the things on your list. And the first question is, Does this bring me joy? Is this something that makes my heart sing? I love getting Christmas letters, and I will continue to write a Christmas letter because I enjoy getting them. Other people have abandoned Christmas letters because we are much more connected on social media now. We don’t update things The way that we have, routinely, you know, we have different methods.
Heidi Kleine:
What am I trying to say here? Different methods of staying aware of what’s going on in each other’s lives. So maybe a holiday letter is something that doesn’t bring you joy, Joy or a holiday card is something that doesn’t bring you joy. I remember last year listening to somebody talk about how, In this particular season, they didn’t feel like they wanted to decorate their Christmas tree, so they decided that they were going to simply Hang the photo cards that came from family and friends on their tree instead of decorations. It’s such a beautiful idea, And it’s okay. It’s okay for you to tweak traditions for a season, And it’s okay for you to treat traditions going forward. Right? Everything can change. So as you go through that list and you kind of look at what brings you joy, what really maybe doesn’t, also spend a little time say looking for sort of the trigger things, the things that you really don’t like doing, that You feel resentful when you have to do them or have to undo them. With the holidays, we have to be aware both of the putting up and the taking down.
Heidi Kleine:
Right? So kinda go through there and say, what are the things that you don’t particularly enjoy? And then after you have those things kind of mapped out, have some conversations, make some hard choices, make Some lists about what you are going to prioritize in this season and maybe what you’re going to change, What you might be delegating to somebody else, you get to decide how you want to deal with all of these things. So the second thing I want you to do once you kinda have gone through all of that is make a plan. Right? How are you going to do the things that you want to do. When are they gonna happen? Who’s gonna be responsible for them? But as you make this plan, I also want you to make a plan to address the stress that you know is going to come up. The reality is in our current society, we all live, with very little margin in our lives. So when the holidays come, that margin gets gobbled up, to to use a turkey term, pretty quickly. Right? So decide ahead of time When the holidays start to feel overwhelming, what are you gonna do? And make a little list of things. Maybe it’s you’re gonna take some time for reflection.
Heidi Kleine:
Going to do sort of a devotional practice. This, I love the season of Advent and the waiting and the, honestly, I I tend to overdo the Advent devotionals because, I like this season of taking time to pray and ponder. Maybe you’re gonna spend some time meditating. Maybe you’re going to, just practice general mindfulness. One of the things I like to do during the holidays is just commit to spending a little quiet time with the holiday decor, Whether that’s turning the lights on on the Christmas tree or lighting a candle next to my fall wreath, spending some time Just sort of basking in the, specialness of the things that we create during the season. Maybe you need to plan to to get outside, to take a walk. I love to sort of combine, Things that give us dopamine, right, that are a a healthy hit. So taking a short walk, Maybe taking a walk in the evening to see the decorations and lights that are up in the neighborhood.
Heidi Kleine:
So we’re getting sort of that double punch of a bit of meditation, a bit of outdoors, a bit of exercise. I guess you could call it a triple, punch, addressing all of those things. And the other thing I kinda wanna add here is Be sure to keep your healthy habits up. So if you are in therapy, Don’t stop going to therapy during the holidays because you’re looking for a little time. If you are a regular Exerciser. You go to the gym on a regular basis. During the holidays, make sure you get there, maybe even go a little more. Sometimes those extra stress relieving sort of healthy habits, can actually, counteract.
Heidi Kleine:
They seem to take time, but the energy that you get from doing them makes a difference. Make sure you’re getting rest and not changing your schedule as much as you possibly can. Right? So just be aware of sort of those healthy habit things that you wanna keep in place even as these other things get added. And another thing I Wanna encourage you to do is be honest with yourself about grief and loss. The holidays Always bring up memories of things that we’ve lost, of people that we’ve lost, of traditions that have changed. Maybe you are grieving a loss this holiday season, and maybe your grief the loss isn’t a recent loss. But Always be aware that the griefs of your life, whether recent or in the distance past, tend to pop up when we are doing things like celebrating. And if you are a little bit prepared, sometimes, That can be a little less off putting.
Heidi Kleine:
So just being aware of the fact And some maybe even making a little time to intentionally bring them up for yourself so you aren’t blindsided by those moments of grief and loss as intensely because you’ve already spent some time thinking about those people, those traditions, those times that have evolved in your life, and and aren’t the same as they used to be. And finally, I just wanna encourage you throughout this season to not lose sight of what really counts. This is a time to celebrate family, to celebrate friends, to Pause a little bit. You know, when I talk about seasons and I think about the winter season and the seasons of celebration, We just have this tendency to get so caught up in hustle, and I just wanna encourage you to really lean into the pause. Embrace being aware of the gifts that this season brings, of the opportunity to connect with friends, to connect with family, to try new things. Give yourself permission to enjoy the holidays even if something doesn’t get done, Even if it’s a holiday with some grief to it, Spend time enjoying the opportunity that this season presents. I am so excited to have been able to walk with you, through this podcast, and I hope that these Conversations continue to lift you up and give you some ideas and some tips and tools that that help you really live into a season on your terms.