The Lazy Genius Podcast - #79 The Lazy Genius Creates a Holiday Sabbath

Episode Date: October 15, 2018

It’s mid-October, and I’ve already seen Christmas lights in stores. The holidays are coming, y’all! While they’re full of mostly happy things like baking cookies and seeing family and friends, the holiday season can wear you out if you don’t build in time to rest. Here’s how you can create a practice of Holiday Sabbath this season. Stuff Mentioned: The Lazy Genius Conquers Holiday Overwhelm The Lazy Genius Holiday Game Plan My thoughts and opinions on rest (and how to do it like a Lazy Genius) Lauren Washer’s instagram post piled high in laundry Easy brainless crowdpleasers Change Your Life Chicken and Make Your Own Hamburger Helper to help you put dinner on the table during your holiday Sabbaths Download a transcript of this episode This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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But Laura shopped on Amazon and saved on cleaning spray, countertop wipes, and fly traps. Hey, fruit flies. Your baby boom ends here. Save the everyday with Amazon. Hello, friends. You're listening to the lazy genius podcast. I'm Kendra, and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. I'm so excited about today's episode, you guys. Okay, so we're in the dead middle of October. And I'm feeling it. I'm feeling it. Are you feeling it? When I look at my calendar, we have full weekends from now until December.

Seriously. We have something, like big somethings, trips and new babies, not mine, and all the things, every weekend until November 30th. And then December shows no mercy when it comes to our calendars either. I am feeling the need for some space. And I'm guessing you are too. That's why today is episode 79, the lazy genius creates a holiday Sabbath. Last year around this time, I talked about creating opening and closing ceremonies

for the holidays to help keep our mindset on what's in front of us without getting too distracted and exhausted by the holidays before they even begin. If you haven't listened to that episode, I will link to it in the show notes. It's called The Lazy Genius Conquers Holiday Overwhelm. And it's one of my absolute favorite episodes because it's such a simple way of making big change. I also did an episode last year about setting up our holiday calendars called the lazy genius holiday game plan. Basically, it's a guide that helps you choose what does and doesn't matter in these next couple of months. So you're only spending time doing what you love. Which brings us here today. Our personal family calendar is filled with all good things. Amazing things actually.

This weekend, I'm spending the weekend at Ness Fest and the podcast live show in Charlotte. But next weekend, the women in my church are going to the beach. Praise. We also have family birthdays. Eight of them. Eight. One being my sister's new baby coming at the end of November. And that's only about half of what's going on.

Just last weekend, we did our fall opening ceremony that I mentioned in that earlier episode where we went to the farm with the hayride and the corn maze and the pumpkin carving. The Adachis are officially in fall and it is full. It's full of amazing things that can. cannot be moved or eliminated because you cannot eliminate birthdays and rest full beach weekends, but it's still full. So what do you do when you've lazy geniused your calendar and only chosen the best things?

When you've intentionally welcomed each part of the season so you're enjoying what's right in front of you, but you still feel like you're never going to stop moving because of all that's going on. You create a holiday Sabbath. You don't have to love Jesus or believe the Bible to embrace the concept of Sabbath. All it is is a day of rest. Rest that's repeated and on purpose. And no matter your feelings about Jesus or the Bible, I personally love that part of his plan for our lives is rest. I talked about that a couple of weeks ago in an episode specifically about rest.

It's the lazy genius rest. You can listen to that too. It's such a gift that he gives us that. And also a major signpost for us to give space and rest the priority it's designed to have. But y'all, our weekends, which is usually when we try to rest, our weekends during the holidays are anything but restful. They're more busy than ever. And if you work 9 to 5 or 9 to anything, you feel like you don't ever get a break.

That's why we're going to create a holiday Sabbath. I'm encouraging all of us to look at our calendars from now until the end of the year and mark a holiday Sabbath each week. One day or half day or even an evening a week needs to be designated for rest. Otherwise, we'll become fatigued by trying to find it in all the busyness. We can't find rest. We have to create it, even if it's busyness from good things. earlier this month I saw an Instagram post by Lauren Washer, who is a writer and a mom of six, six adorable kids and whose husband is often out of town for long stretches because of his work. She's under it, y'all.

I'm just going to read what she said in her post, which was attached to a photo of laundry high on the sofa. We all relate to that. Here's what she said. I spent a lot of my early years as a mom frustrated with Saturdays that felt like every other day. Craving alone time or the freedom from responsibilities, I would neglect my typical housework and sometimes even my children. By the time Monday rolled around, I was overwhelmed by the amount of work to do and felt like a failure as a mom. Finally, it dawned on me. Listen to this guys. I was trying to create two days of rest out of the one day God ordained. The shift in my thinking transformed my weekends. Now Saturday is a work day.

Laundry, yard work, extra baking, cleaning bathrooms. We do it as a family. so there are also built in moments of fun, unplanned conversations, and yes, the normal training and discipline of every other day. Saturday night dinners are the kids' favorite. We often like candles, sometimes use China, and always have dessert. It's a celebration of all the work from the week. We go to bed tired and full, knowing that tomorrow we rest. When I read this, I was so encouraged. I love mental shifts that have exponential changes, and this is one of them. When I talked about rest a couple of weeks ago, I shared how having grand desires for rest makes us discontent with the tiny pockets of rest we find every day.

In the same kind of way, we also need a Sabbath, a regular kind of entire day, if we can find it, of refilling and refueling and giving our brains and schedule space to breathe, even if it's a day of rest with our families, which if you have little kids, it might sound like an oxymoron, but being home and just being without any responsibility is different even if kids are around. And like Lauren showed us in that post, if we try and stretch out Sabbath rest across an entire weekend, we really lose the benefit of it completely. Kids are no kids. And if you have kids, you're probably extra frustrated because there are more people not getting on board with what you need.

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You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. As we get going on this holiday season, finding a Sabbath, especially on the weekends, might be harder to come by, and that's why we have to create it on purpose. Forcing it into the boxes of busy weekends, especially like over a couple of days and we don't get it anywhere, it's going to be harder to come by. So my simple, I was going to say simple, it's simple in concept, maybe not as much an execution. But the simple idea is look at your calendar now and go ahead and block off a day or as much

of a day as you can each week to take a Sabbath. Rest completely from tasks and going and socializing and any of those things that might be fun, but also drain you of energy. It might be Sundays. Go to church if you go to church, but intentionally go home after with no agenda. Watch football. Go for a walk. Take a nap. Eat leftovers. Or the most brainless crowd pleasing, brainless crowd pleasers. Think now about the kind of day that would feel like a Sabbath and decisions to bring it into a reality. Now, some weekends don't offer a Sabbath on the Saturday or Sunday, and that's okay. If you don't have a typical job during the day, like you don't go to work nine to five, have a day of rest for yourself on a random Thursday if the weekend doesn't have space.

And offer a Sabbath to your family, if you have one. Taking time to rest on purpose is a skill, one that schedules and culture don't really teach us very well. So, offer that to your families as well. So one week, your Sabbath might be on a Sunday. The next week, it's a Wednesday night where you have no plans, where you skip the PTA meeting that's not as essential this week as rest is, where you have dinner and a bedtime routine with your kids that focuses on intentional rest. You're not trying to get anything done. Even if your family doesn't know what's happening, if you know it, they'll feel it. You can have a calendar full of good things. You can have a calendar full of good things and be more busy than usual these next few weeks, but you'll avoid

feeling like you have to catch your breath all the time by scheduling in a holiday Sabbath. And when I say schedule, I mean schedule. Write it down. Don't just leave white space because white space gets filled up. Write in big, bold letters on your planner, the word Sabbath or space or rest or don't plan anything. Or if you use a Google calendar, can't you like change days? and make them different colors. Like color that day with your rest color. Like, pick a color. That's your rest day.

Your Sabbath color. And here's the thing. I know that we think we can withstand more busyness than we actually can. Sure, you can bust it and make the cookies and throw the parties and have the opening ceremonies until your cheeks hurt from smiling. But you'll also have a harder time winding down if you don't stop going. Choosing a weekly holiday Sabbath is worth it. I have no doubt. Even though you can make it through without weekly rest, that doesn't mean you have to. You don't have to push it. You don't have to

produce and make memories at such an aggressive clip that you need adrenal therapy come January. Purposeful rest or a Sabbath makes the other six days even better. You're making each day operate on optimal energy because you're not constantly working from a deficit. And if one week is particularly busy, you know that a break is coming. You've scheduled in a Sabbath and you're never more than six days away from it. It's such a worthy practice, my friends. So I'm going to sign off so you can go get your calendar and schedule your Sabbaths one day a week, bust it all you want the other six days, practice what it means to really rest in those tiny pockets of daily rest that we talked about a couple of weeks ago. And then when your weekly Sabbath comes, you won't have to spend the

entire day winding down and try to remember what it feels like to stop. Schedule a Sabbath. Go do it. Thank you for being here with me today. This space is one of my greatest honors. I realize the privilege that you've given me in speaking into your lives and I honor and cherish that privilege. I hope that you always leave our time together encouraged and with less of a head jumble. I'm all about eliminating head jumble. In fact, before we go, I want to tell you about something. I would love for you to head over to the website when you get a chance. I have pulled out a ton of content from since the lazy genius collective began that is related to the holidays, blog posts and podcast episodes that are meant to encourage a sane, intentional way of approaching October through

December. So head to the lazy genius collective.com and the homepage it will be there. It will take you on a little holiday tour of tending your soul and throwing parties and baking cookies and all the things you long to do, but with intention and purpose and being a lazy genius about it. It'll be set up until the year. So enjoy it from now till then. And remember, you can join me on Instagram at the lazy genius. I am there almost every day and especially on stories and will be there live this Thursday. and every Thursday, around 1215 Eastern, to talk about what's going on in your heads when it comes to the podcast and what we're talking about. All right, that's it for today. Take care of my friends. Go find your holiday Sabbath. And until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy

about the things that don't. I'll see you next week. Have you ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life? It's so dangerous to live that more dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts.