We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - 154. HAPPYISH HOLIDAYS: Our Top 3 Hacks for Hard Holidays

Episode Date: November 24, 2022

1. How to eliminate walking on eggshells around family, and avoid feeling badly about ourselves or our people.  2. Amanda shares the first time she broke her family’s biggest holiday tradition—and how it’s now one of her most precious memories. 3. Abby remembers watching her mom stress out by “perfecting” every holiday detail—and the change she made to minimize her own holiday stress.  4. How carrying around a cup of hot tea serves as Glennon’s super shield.

Well, on this Thanksgiving, the We Can Do Hard Things team, me, sister, Abby, Allison, Dina, Lauren, we are grateful for you. We're grateful for this pod squad that we get to do this life together. We just can't believe this situation we found ourselves in with this podcast. We love it so damn much. And if you're doing a turkey trot, no. Good job. Who does a turkey trot? Good job.

Like keep going. You'll only have a few more miles. So this Thanksgiving, we are presenting to you an episode we loved from last year. And it's about how to have a happyish holiday. Okay. It's just some happiest holiday hacks. We've got a few important ones. The first one is it's your effing holiday.

The second one is eat, drink, and breathe. And the third one is be unsurprised. These are very important things for you to remember today. So do not continue on this wonderful. but often very difficult day without listening to this episode to get you centered. Don't forget, life isn't about being happy. It's not about feeling happy. It's about feeling everything.

And there's nothing like the holidays to make us feel everything. Everything. We love you. We are grateful for you. Happyish Thanksgiving. Enjoy. The holidays are officially upon us. B, ba, ba, ba.

So right after Halloween, I said Chase's meme. We speak, he's Jen, what is he, Gen Z? Gen Z. Yeah, so we, and I'm a mom, so we speak in memes to each other. You speak in Gen Z and millennial? Right, memes. And so I sent him one that said, now that Halloween's over, we can go into this really scary holidays where we have to go see our families.

In the truly scary holidays, yes. Yes. Yes. So every year, we as a human species, we just, we just, we have, we're like the Ted Lasser thing. We have memories of a goldfish. Every holiday we go into it thinking this will be the Folgers commercial holiday. This will be the one where I get, my family gets their shit together. Everyone is grateful and kind and warm and cozy. And then every year. We are shocked and stunned when actually we remember that holidays aren't from making us feel happy. They're just making, they just make us feel everything deeper. Yeah. So if like things are good in our family, then we feel good. But if we've had loss or we have breakage or we have whatever, then we just feel all of those things more.

So we are here, sister, Abby. and I are here to help you through hard holidays. I actually just think that this is our little like get together before our own holiday experiences. What they don't know is the POD squad is here to help us. That's exactly right. Right. Right.

Exactly right. Right. I mean, it's a true. I think it's a great thing to talk about because it, I feel like part of the. pressure of the holidays is not talking about it being hard. You know, so that it's like the phenomenon is if our family can't be happy on this day of all days, then when can't be ever be happy? And it's actually like the flip of that feels more true. It's like it's actually harder to be happy when everything is in such a high pressure moment.

Yes. I like that. I feel totally the same way. I mean, I think I look back at the times in my life that are the best as a child. And I watched my mom stress so much, preparing and perfecting every little bit to make sure everybody's experience was as she wanted it to be. As she wanted it to be. That's what we do. All the food and every little bit and every tradition was remembered and acted upon. And so just a couple of years ago, I remember feeling like, oh, this is what I'm, I'm supposed to look like my mom.

I'm supposed to be stressed, right? And I mean, a couple of years ago, I was just like, you know what? Like, I don't want to be that way. Like, I want to actually enjoy this. And I think it made me kind of delegate a little responsibility over the holidays of like, you know, sister, when you come and visit, like, maybe you guys can make a meal one night. And, you know, we're going to try new things this year. but at the end of the day, it's like this expectation of the holiday. Yeah, it makes expectation is what screws.

It's that thing we say over and over again. The thing that screws us up is the picture in our head of how it's supposed to be. We were visiting our oldest at college recently, and one of the professors said, stop saying to your kids, these are going to be the best four years of your life. Oh, God, yes. Because first of all, they're actually really tough years. They're exciting, but also really tough. So when you say that to them and they have a hard time,

they feel like they're failing. And also, who the hell wants to hear that the best four years of your life are going to be done by the time you're 24? Like that's, just stop saying that shit. And you know what? That's the pressure we have on the holiday. It's the most wonderful time of the year. You know, so it should just be like, it's the most time of the year. Yeah, exactly.

Because that's so good. It's the most of everything. We take, it's the most sounds. It's the most people. Colors. It's the most obligation. It's the most. Lights.

Expectations. It's just most. And since it's the most advertised to us, this vibe we're supposed to have, we are chasing this vibe that we feel responsible, mostly parents, mostly moms, I'll say, to create. So, I mean, our kids, do you remember last year, Tish is sitting in the freaking living room? Everything's decorated, all the things, the fake fires on the TV, The fake candles. I'm not actually going to bake cookies, but I have the cookie candles.

Smells like things are baking. Everything's going and she's like, I just don't feel like it's Christmas. I just feel like it's that feeling of I'm in, what is it? I'm in Kyoto, missing coyote. It's like it's that feeling where you're in the moment and you're still yearning for this thing because the thing you're yearning for is not real. It's created by the TV. That's right. Right? So really what the holidays are. It's just like a day or whatever where it's the most, where it brings up the most feeling. So what we know is that we can do hard things, like get through the holidays. I mean, I don't know. I'll let you know.

Actually, that's a good point. I will let you know. Okay. So how about this? We can do hard things like talk about the holidays for the next hour. We can talk about the hard holidays. Okay. All right.

We'll take that. Let's start with the next. So just before we start, I just want to, I just want to say this. Just got to clear my conscience. I told Chase, go have the time of your life. That was the last thing I said to him before he left her at college. And so now I just needed to tell you that that I messed up. Okay.

So when he comes home, you just say what I meant was go have a time. Go have a time. Yeah, but the time of your life. Go have a time of your life. You can always be having the time of your life. Okay. If you're in that time of your life, it's saying specifically, These finite four years are the best you got.

So don't fuck it up. Okay. So I didn't have a bad parenting moment? No, you just. Mediocre. I could have been better. Well, I just, you know, and then it's like all the kids who don't go to college. And actually for me, college was one of the worst times of my life.

And it's just, you know, I think you did great. Okay. We can move on. I've cleared my conscience and we're good out now. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Sister, start us off because the next right thing, as we know, is always.

looking at the dragon in the snow globe, always telling the truth first. So let's start there. Yes. Okay. Since we're talking today about the hard truth of our lives and families and holidays, it makes sense to start with the truth about this holiday specifically. So this holiday purports to mark friendship among indigenous people and pilgrims. But the truth is that the first settlers and the U.S. governments, forced removals, theft of land, biological warfare with smallpox and massacres actually was genocide. So the population of indigenous people went from 15 million before Columbus's arrival to fewer than 238,000 over the course of 400 years. It's just good to say that right out loud. And so we're not perpetuating a myth.

And also I feel like over the holidays, it has so much to do with home and ritual. So it's important to tell the truth about the places we call home. And including acknowledging that we live on the ancestral stolen land of indigenous people. I live on the land of the Piscataway. And you live on the land of the Tongva. So if, can I have like two minutes to tell you about this land since you're not? I love that. You're new to this, to that area. So you're living on indigenous land that was known for thousands of years as the Tovanar. And that means the world. So it's the land of the Tongba. Tongva means people of the earth because of their belief that humans were not the peak of creation, but just part of a web that stemmed from Mother Earth. And they lived in constant. relation and reciprocity with that land that you're on for thousands of, thousands of years in like

100 different villages right around where you are until Spanish settlers arrived and they stole their land and enslaved them in the missions that they set up there. They were forced to abandon their rituals and decimated by European diseases. And then the U.S. took control over California. at that point, they were denied their basic rights and their children were taken from them and forced into Indian boarding schools. And they were not formally acknowledged by the California government until 1994. And they've never been recognized by the federal government or been granted land. So they have no place to live or gather or bury their ancestors.

But there are still 2,500 Tongva people in the region. And they are resilient and they do a lot around you to preserve their artifacts and heritage and resurrect their language. So to everybody listening, we can do hard things like talk to our kids about the land that they're living on. You can do this. You can learn about the land where you live at native dash land.ca. Go there with your kiddos and talk about the truth about, um, this country. This time of year, I am always looking for my sweaters. Luckily, Quince has all of the staple sweaters covered from soft Mongolian cashmere

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Besides telling the truth, we have more. And on this list of holiday hacks, you will not find things such as how to get your cooking done or your shopping done. Okay. Those are not the hacks of which I understand. So go to a different podcast or source to learn how to do adulting things. Here we talk less about adulting and more about humaning. So our hacks are about how to get through the humaning part of the holidays. Right. And are by definition not hacks because aren't hacks like super easy things to do? Yeah. I actually don't think there's any hacks here. Yeah. I think that the words people might have gotten this wrong. We read hacks on a meme and we were like, good, let's get some of them. That sounds fun. That sounds good. I love the show called hacks. Oh, God's children get hacks. Yeah. So here's your unhack. Okay. Here's your first unhack.

And what we're calling the first hack is, number one, it's your effing holiday. That's our hack. I am I'm subtitling it. Normalize not doing shit you hate over the holidays. Okay. That is exactly right. Okay. So it might seem like an obvious one, but I'm telling you, every single one of my friends, like all three of them.

You know what? You kind of keep making fun of yourself, but guess who's getting friends? I know I am. I'm working on it. I'm so excited. So all five of my friends. Yeah. It's not three.

It's five. So when they talk about the holidays, they talk about why they hate it. And then they list the reason they hate it is because they tell me all the things they have to do that they hate. Okay. But so I keep thinking, what if, like, would we hate the holidays less if we stop doing the things we hate on the holidays? That's right. How would we untame our holidays in that way? Do you have any ideas or stories for us?

I have ideas. Abby Bear. Go for it. No, Sister Go. Mine have everything to do with cooking. So Sister Go, I want to hear yours. Mine have nothing to do with cooking. Well, I just, it's completely true. Forty-five percent of Americans say that they would prefer just to skip the winter holidays. Oh, bless them. That is almost half of all the people are just like just prefer just bump January. I mean, that's so sad. And I don't think it's because we, I think people love parts of the holidays. I just think that we love parts that don't make up a large part of the pie chart that we spend our holiday time on. Yes. I was in the post office a couple weeks ago. And I met a new friend. I don't know her name. But she, we were talking about the holidays coming up. Okay. This. This is what I surmised in the 10-minute conversation with her. She grew up with a very complicated holiday situation. So she desperately wants to be by herself on the holidays, doing something different. She wants to take a trip or something.

I love her already. I love her too. But her sister can't bear the thought of her being by herself on the holidays because her sister can't imagine being alone on the holidays. I love her too. Yes. So my post office friend is going to lie to her sister and say she's spending the holidays with her best friend so that her sister won't save her from the holiday she wants and force her to have the holiday her sister wants for her. So this is crazy and I don't tell my post office friend this because I'm very proud of her for just trying to get what she is. Yes, that's a good lie.

But I think just why can't folks decide what feels like a holiday? to them since it actually is their holiday. I know. I know. And it's hard, I think, because people just feel like this is the way it's always been done or everyone holds so tightly to like this vision of what they think it should be. But I was thinking back and I remember the first time I kind of broke with our family traditions. And this is odd because our in our family growing up, the biggest holiday of the year was New Year's Eve because that was, we have a billion teen cousins in Ohio and it was the one time of the year where the whole family got together. So we would drive all the way up. Everybody would meet there, all the cousins and the

aunts and uncles and all the people. And we had all kinds of traditions and rituals and ridiculousness. And I never missed one, like all through college, all through law school. And then right after I got divorced, I just didn't feel like it. Because it's not that I didn't feel like it. It's like I felt like doing something different. Like I wanted to do something that just actually felt like a relief. I think it's the idea of we act like we don't need a holiday. But I needed to go do something that filled me up.

Yes. And I think we just think holiday, insert all of these obligations, as opposed to holiday, is actually for the filling of me. Yeah. That's good. And of my people. And so I, it was awkward because it was kind of like record, you know, I'm not coming this year. And I instead I went to Costa Rica with a friend and also packed like six pairs of high. He has. heels because I did not read the itinerary, but we were in the rainforest. And legit did. And it was, yes. And, but missing that holiday tradition, I think about it a lot because it's now one of my most precious memories. And I think it's because I was so close to not doing it. And I just remember watching the sky above me on the Osa Peninsula when the New Year rang in and like all of the paper lanterns going up. And I remember feeling so full of wonder and newness and feeling like, oh, I can feel wonder and newness. And that was a new feeling to me again. And also Carlos with K because that memory has only about 95% to do. I remember.

remember Carlos with a K. And his dog named Danger. Yes. Oh, yes. Carlos with a K and a dog named Danger. I know where this is going. Red flags. Green.

Green flag. Happy New Year. Sisters, painting those red flags green all the time. Go ahead. But the point is, is that I feel like just if we viewed all of the things that we do every year as options and experiments. Like you, you should be experimenting to see if what you're choosing to do with your time and your family's time is working for you and your family to fill yourself up. Yes.

You know, is it actually feel correct? Can I make an aside about that? I feel like it's very, it just reminded me of that year after the divorce. if anyone is listening to this and is going through a transition of life, like any kind of breakup or divorce or you lost a job or anything that your family culture will deem big, just please, please for the love of God. Like, use this fleeting moment of freedom because it is like the, it's like you're playing Mario Brothers and you just like hit the superstar.

You have this rare moment of temporary. invincibility where no one can say shit to you. That like, use it. Use it. Choose something you want for the holidays. And it would, and you'll get away with it. And you should, and you'll be very happy. Yeah.

Go ahead and surprise yourself. Yeah. I think that's that magic you felt. It's also you chose yourself. Yeah. And that is a magic. That's a revolution. You're feeling revolution when you were looking at that because breaking free from tradition.

Tradition is what keeps us. It's an important thing, right? There's no, this is an and both situation. Totally. But tradition really keeps us caged. In certain ways. You know? Absolutely.

It's like what they call tradition peer pressure from dead people. It's like seriously. Like we can think it through. What if our tradition is there's, it's like choosing the letter of the law over the, over the spirit of the law. Like what if the tradition each holiday is what does, what do I and my family need this year to feel free and held and fueled and loved and relaxed and whatever. What if that's the tradition? Yes.

And then you move parts because families or people are not static. Like what created something beautiful 20 years ago might very well not be what this particular person and this particular family need in this moment this year. Yes. So when we use that, it's using an old blueprint for what our family needs right now. I totally agree. And I think, you know, for you listener out there who might be also experiencing some sort of transition or divorce, my choice during my divorce went very differently than sisters. And I just want to put that out there that some people might not have the ability to go to Costa Rica or have a life-changing experience like you did. I just sat in a hotel room by myself during the holiday of things. giving one year. And honestly, it was like the saddest experience. So like looking back, maybe I could have done something a little bit more productive. And I think what sister you're saying is

like, there is a choice you have. And like, you get to choose yourself. And this moment might last. Because guess what? I met you and our family six months later. And here I am having like totally different family holidays. I think you probably knew what you needed in that moment though. Because sometimes I think when we go through something that brutal, it's like we're, you know how crabs, like, they, they, they, they molt and they have to, they lose their hard shell and they're soft shell crabs for a while because the, and so when they are, when they're molting, when they're transforming because they've grown, it's a growth pattern, they have to hide because they're so vulnerable because they don't have a hard shell. Oh, that was totally me. Right. So they instinctively know that they're more vulnerable. And sometimes when we step back into family patterns, we know. Like, think about, you probably knew in your soul that this person was going to say this and that person was going to ask that question. And that like you were not at your strongest and you were in a moment where you were a soft shell crab. And so you needed to like do the equivalent of burrowing under a coral reef or whatever crabs do. This makes me feel really sad for soft shell crab. that get eaten all of a sudden. I feel proud of them because they know what they need. No, I know, but the ones that get eaten. Yeah, those are the ones who went back to their families for the holidays.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. They didn't listen to their instinct, which said hide high. They bowed to the tradition of crab-offing families forever. Their mother called and said, what the hell do you mean little crab? You're not coming back for the holidays. And instead of standing strong, those crabs went. And now look what happened. They're dead. Crab cakes. Crab cakes. Crab cakes. Don't be a crab cake this holiday. And it's such a good point because it's not just, it's what works for you year to year. I mean, people who are going through grief, something that may have, you know, filled you up for the past 10 years in this moment. Yes. Might not.

And you have to be able to, you know, honor your traditions and honor your needs. And if honoring your needs makes you not be able to honor your traditions, you need to just go with that. Amen. Choose that. And just practice. And sometimes it's just an extra minute. It's like, wait, before this all starts, you know, it's all starting. Sit down and take a minute and be like, wait, what do I want from these holidays?

What do you want? What do you want? It's not just like, what does my family want for me? What does everyone want for me? I'm just going to go and do it. But like an intentional moment of like, what do I need? need from these holidays. I mean, I remember trying to weed through some of the traditions that we've had and sit down

with your kids too if you have them. I mean, Tish won't let us get rid of anyone of that tradition. She's a tradition. She's a tradition hoarder. She is. I mean, and anything every year. If it's new that we've done it, it is now officially a tradition in our family and we will continue doing this year over year.

That's why we have to be so careful starting things with her. I know. It's really. But I also want to suggest that there are small things. Like, yes, not, you know, because. Because so many people are going to, I can't not go to see my family. I get that. You know, there's that. But there are small things you can do for us. I remember having this, my parents are with us every Christmas and they are gift people. So they spend like all year creating these

beautiful gifts. And so what would happen is that on Christmas morning, there would be this time where they were presenting their gifts. And it was so important to them that, it would end up stressing everyone out because it needed to be this like very big presentation. But we kept doing it every year. Every year we kept doing it until we figured out, okay, we're not going to, that's a beautiful tradition. We're not going to throw it away. But what if we give mom and dad Christmas Eve? What if Christmas Eve is when they do their presence? Because that's a calmer time. Like the kids don't have other gifts around so they're not distracted. And then Christmas morning is the free for all, right? So I just feel like if there's moments in the holidays that are creating

misery or stress, sometimes it's creativity and not just throwing the thing out. Right. And there's so many little, just because it's working for everyone else doesn't mean that it's working for you. And all those little microchangers, like I have a friend, her parents were divorced. And basically, she was like time clocked on, you know, you go, Christmas morning for here. And if you, that's got to be for two hours and 15 minutes and then you got to make sure you get in the car at this time and go here for two hours and 15 minutes and not make so her thing is my immediate family gets the first like three hours no one is allowed in our house with your extra agendas and then after that there is no agenda because her kind of core you know trauma around Christmas was oh it has to do with equitable

splitting up of all the minutes and and so it's just knowing your stuff. enough to know what actually is going to feel like I can breathe well. Yes. Also, not for nothing. Just deciding on quantity. Like 70% of people, their primary feeling during the holidays is stress over not having enough time and stress over not having enough money. But we get to choose how we allocate our time and we get to choose how we allocate our

dollars. So. Right. It's not like a, it's a trap to go in without intentions. But if you're just like practicing, that's not going to work for us this year. Here's the four things we love to do over the holidays. And that's what we're doing. And also here's how much money we're going to spend and we're not going to spend more than that.

Yes. Yes. It's like the energy difference of like the energetic difference of like, I just, I don't have enough time to make everyone happy. And like, I don't have enough time to make everyone happy. So like, I'm not going to try. Like, not a problem just a fact. You literally don't have time to make people happen. This show is brought to you by Alma.

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The guide is free to you at net suite.com slash hard things. NetSuite.com slash hard things. Our kids are not allowed. They have their little Christmas lists and they're locked. by Thanksgiving. Nobody's allowed to add another thing to their Christmas list after Thanksgiving. It's coming up. So they're like obviously, you know, frantically finishing.

They're strugs right now. They're like, oh. And they, and because then they're not spending, we're not spending a moment of our freaking rest of our weeks. What do you want? What do you? It's so, it's so ugly and weird. Oh, and my kids always two days before decide that, in fact, the one big gift that

they'd been asking for for six months is in fact not the thing they want, which I've already wrapped. And it will be. Because the advertising is so. The YouTube told them. Yes. And it's never been more intense than in December. So if they mentally know there's nothing else, like that's it, then it's sort of like a

resistance to all of that. Mm-hmm. You know? And for us then we're not worrying about it. It's like, I don't know. That's just a little thing. That's a smart idea. That I think that's a hashtag hack.

Is that a hashtag? Hack, did I do a hack? Hack. Lists do by Thanksgiving. Yeah. But now I'm trying to hack it out and I don't know how hacks work, but I'm really excited that that might be a hack. I think it is. Great, great, great.

Okay, so it's your effing holiday. It was number one. Number two, and I don't have a lot of, a whole lot to say about this because I haven't nailed this one at all. but I just want to talk about it, which it's the fact that the holidays, for people who have food and body issues, what I can say is for me, the holidays are a shit show of like all of the food stuff coming up. And I think it's a combination of a lot of things. It's like that there is so much food wrapped around in the holiday stuff. But it's also because when we go back into tradition or to family or to anything that, like, drives us toward the old, that brings up all of the patterns that kind of led us to eating disorders anyway. So I just think there's like an awareness that we have where we are people with eating stuff are kind of soft shell crabs during the holidays.

So we don't have our hard shell and we're maybe out of our structure, whatever. So knowing that, I try to eat big meals. I try to eat a big breakfast, eat a big lunch, and eat a big dinner. Like that makes me, I think what we do sometimes is when we're worried about food, we're like, okay, I'm going to, it's Thanksgiving or whatever. And I'm going to have a huge dinner, so I have to starve myself. I have to not eat. And then I'll be okay to eat dinner. Yeah. That whole, it's not right. That ritual that everybody on the planet does is so fucked up.

Yeah, it doesn't help us because it brings back the scarcity feelings and the, it's just like, what I'll say is for me, it's important to like feed myself, feed myself, feed myself. Feed myself again. I deserve to eat every day of the holidays, even if I had a big meal the night before. even if it's just a time to let yourself be juicy and human. Juicy. Nice. Your appetite and just. And then I constantly, I actually do this every day of my life. So it's maybe not a holiday hack.

It's just like a human hack is that I constantly carry around a cup of tea or coffee all the time. It's like my hands around a mug remind me of the fact that I am. I don't know, cozy, loved. It's like the warmth of it just makes me feel good. It's the oral fixation of having something right there. It makes me feel strong and loved and okay. It's a shield of some sort. And I wasn't going to say that because I don't know how to explain it.

It's a shield. I feel serious about myself. Yeah, exactly. I'm like, I could throw this tea on you if I need to. Yeah, come at me. Yeah, it's hot. It reminds me of like if I'm going into a social situation, I will sometimes, especially if it's a wedding, I will chew gum. Huh. I don't know why that feels like a shield to me. Yeah, because you're like, look at me, my jawline, I am serious. Well, and it's like I can't talk because I'm chewing gum.

You know what? Also, don't call us. Don't call us. We know you're not supposed to chew gum at weddings. We know we're not. I don't care. That's a tradition. If I have to chew gum at a wedding, I can't drink. Are you kidding me? So you can have six vodkas, but I can't have doublement. Yeah. That's right. I was just going to say the tea thing is a great call and a for sober people.

Because I feel like that's a whole other huge aspect to the holidays. Yes. You know why y'all can handle this? You know why you can get through this? It's because you are wasted. Yes. That's a hack. Sober people get to do whatever the hell they will.

want. I mean, Abby and I will never be anywhere past nine o'clock. Yeah. Because when people start drinking, bless you, we love you. We love you. We do not judge you except a little bit after nine o'clock because everybody thinks they're hilarious. Everybody's saying things that maybe they wouldn't say. It just gets a little bit louder, a little bit more obnoxious. And like, nothing ever after nine or ten o'clock, like nothing good ever. Nothing good happens after nine clock. Right. Well, you're having different experiences.

I do the same thing. Like, I really just everyone who is sober listening over the holidays, like you get to, you get to be odd too, okay? Yes. Because it's not just you being odd. Everyone's being odd. The person over there, she's on her 12th string. She's saying some crazy shit.

If you want to go sit on a couch in another room, that's just as odd as what everyone else is. That's right. So just do, I have given myself blanket authorization to do whatever I want. Because even being a sober person over the holidays is a thing you're actively doing all the time. And everybody else has their strategy of just drinking to survive. You get to use your strategy. And you should. And you should, which is leaving, which is removing yourself, which is whatever you need to do. I love that. There's this one weird thing that I want to say that I do that is strange because I'm not an outside person. But there's something about holiday days that makes me need to go stand outside in the cold, cold, cold, maybe every couple of hours.

I don't know what it is. But whatever home I'm in, it's beautiful and there's so many people there and all the things are happening. But I have to step out. It's take a deep breath and just give my, it's like not enough to be in a different room. I have to be outside. Little breaks outside for a few moments and deep breaths out there. If you just, just try it. It's like almost like, you know how they say taking cold showers?

Yeah. Like wakes you up, you know, like sometimes it can get really daunting being with a lot of family during the holidays that like getting outside if it's cold where you live like it's like a good splash yeah like it's like getting yourself like woken back up to like oh what what are my boundaries why am i here like am i good are you okay it's checking in with yourself that's what it is it's a little meeting with yourself where you're reminding yourself of who you are yeah of um all the good things yeah because it's very easy to get wound up and to get wrapped up in all of your familial rememberings and all of those ways like oh oh here here's my brother and sister they're teasing me

again because this is the way of my family or here we go down this weird road again and i don't love this road yes it's like the touch tree that's what it is the leaving is the like returning to my touch tree when i get a little bit lost right yeah so so work in those those touch tree moments where you get to check in with yourself. One thing that, just to circle back to the food bit, one thing that I've done, so the first Thanksgiving we spent together, I made from scratch because that was like my value add to our family is cooking. I made from scratch all of the food. Oh, yeah. And I spent three days, not only cooking it, but prepping it. It was like a whole week, like buying all the food, then prepping it, then making the plan for when and how we were,

were going to do this with like one little oven. And so long story short, what we ended up doing was, okay, it's still important to me to cook the turkey. So I get a pre-cooked turkey and then I, you know, jizz it up in the way that I like to put some butter and cook it. But then what we've decided, and yes, this is a privileged position, but like we just go get like already pre-made holiday sides. And that has freed up an entire. week of my life. So if you have the means to be able to do that, to be able to buy some of your time back, do it. Well, it ended up being cheaper. It actually did. Then buying all the rest. And it's not just a privileged thing. Like the we do it for Thanksgiving with our, we basically do like a

potluck situation. And I think it's like it takes a hit on your, because you're like, I am not presenting the thing. But same thing. I was like, no. thank you, ma'am. Like, I am delighted to have everyone over and that's what I love to do. And also, everyone bring a thing. Yes, that's right. And guess what? It doesn't taste that much worse or better. No, it tastes better because people are making the one thing they know how to make. Yeah, exactly. Well, remember the year before you came, you were kind of appalled by this, but you said, what did you do last year? I said, we got our dinner from the grocery store. And Abby was like, oh, did you, like, you did that package where you ordered it? And I was like, no, I went to the buffet.

The day of Thanksgiving. I went to the buffet and I scooped a bunch, the hot bar, and I scooped a bunch of shit into plastic containers. And the turkey was like slaps, like little cuts of, you know, that you'd be in the sandwich. How efficient. It was already sliced. It was already sliced. There was stuffing in there. There was potatoes.

I mean, brilliant. And I just, and I put them on the table and I just, and it was fine. Yeah, totally. It was fine. Totally. Okay. That's right. It's a new year and instead of trying to reinvent myself, I've been asking a simpler question.

What would actually support me right now? And honestly, a big part of that answer is my home. I want my space to feel calmer, more functional and a little more like a place that can reflect my goals and energy for this year. Which is why I've been turning to Wayfair. It's truly a one-stop shop for everything your home needs this season. What surprised me most was how easy it was to find exactly what I wanted in my style and within my budget, whether you're organizing kids' rooms, upgrading your work from home setup, tackling clutter, or just trying to make weeknight dinners easy. Wayfair really does have everything. Your home doesn't have to be perfect.

It just has to support the life you're living right now. Get organized, refreshed, and back on track this new year for way less. head to wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R-com. Wayfair. Every style, every home. So number two was, the number two hack was eat, drink, breathe. Okay? Eat, drink, breathe. Good luck. It's a good idea. Now, I feel strongly that this is the most important one. Yes, it is. This is Sister Bear. This is the most important holiday and perhaps life hack.

We can offer you precious ones. Okay. And we are calling number three, be unsurprised. Sister, can you just start us off with this one? This is my favorite ever. I can. So 100% we know what our family is. Right?

Like the key maybe to. life and but to the holidays is not allowing ourselves to be surprised about what is zero percent surprising. Correct. So in order to have peace and integrity and not walk away from holiday events and the holidays in general feeling like shit about ourselves and maniacal about our families is just picking our 10 percent. Okay. So our 10 percent. Okay. So our 10 percent. is what will inevitably go down with our families over the holidays, that we will for sure act to ourselves as if it's shocking. Okay.

Okay. And then they are the kind of things, if you're trying to think of these, the kind of things that we will leave feeling ick about ourselves. They will be the kind of things that we carry with us, the kind of things that we have to get in the car and immediately talk to the person in the car about and debrief on. So they're, so like the comments about why we're not married yet, how many Weight Watchers points those potatoes might be only because she's super curious. And also, like, anything that's a dog whistle of homophobia, racism, it's like we have to.

Pick those 10% of our family stuff that insults our soul. Okay. So these are the mountains we're willing to die on. Yeah. And the good news is we do not have to die. You're right. You're right. You know, that's like they're just the things that by thinking of them and preparing for them in advance,

we don't spend the whole time walking on eggshells holding our breath because they're, they wouldn't dare do it because, yes, they would dare. They would dare. They would dare. They double dare you every time. They're going to do that thing. And so we just, then we don't have to be scared about it happening. And then we don't have to leave berating ourselves for not saying what we wish we would

have said and just thinking about in the shower for the next six weeks. Exactly. So basically what you're saying is you're going to spend the time preparing the retort anyway. usually what we do is we do it when it's too late. It's after the fact. We spend the whole year preparing the retort we should have said before afterwards. So what we're going to do instead is we're going to take even just it's going to be less time. Yeah.

We're just going to do it ahead of time instead. Prepare for it. We're going to prepare our retort to dog whistles to racism, to homophobia, to the thing that our aunt is going to say about not being married to whatever we know is going to happen. and we are going to be ready. So instead of eggshells dreading, we're almost going to be hoping that shit comes. Yeah. So we can say our thing.

And we're not mad about it. I'm not mad that 2 plus 2 equals 4. Like, we're not mad. We're just like, Dorothy. Dorothy. Here's my response to you, Dorothy. And, you know. And that's brave.

That takes some courage. Right. But we think in advance of it and we're not, we're not trying to be courageous. We're trying to have ourselves remain intact. Integrity. We're trying to be in, we're trying to make the outside self and the inside self, one, be integrated. So we're not abandoning ourselves by letting things go that we should not.

That's right to me. And it feels like that's the part that makes us feel ick when we leave our families is because we let that 10% chip off of us. And then we're wondering, am I really 100% me? Because in that moment, I wasn't. And so I think also that's a service to ourselves, but it's also a service to our families. Because the 10% that we choose to make our existence in that space align with our beliefs and our boundaries and the way we view the world, making ourselves show up. in those 10% of the spaces is what moves families down the field. Yes.

And it makes it makes dread it. You will dread family interactions less. Yes. And you will break terrible old familial patterns that need to be broken. Because racism and homophobia and all of that shit, those are traditions. Yeah. I mean, listen, my mom and mom, I love you so much. If you're listening, just turn up the volume a little bit.

Down. Turn down. No, turn it up. Oh. I want you to listen to this. Because I'm going to have a moment. Almost every single time that I'm on the face time with my mom, I haven't done my hair, right? I have basically what's called a Mohawk.

I shave the sides of my head. And this is not a look my mother loves because it's evidently more gay to her or something. I'm not sure exactly because I've never had this conversation with her. But at the end of the day, she always says, whenever I'm not, I have not done my hair so that you can see the shaves on the sides, it's fallen over the shave. It looks like kind of like a normal short haircut, right? Like a bob.

A bob-ish. I don't know. Yeah. The short bob. And she's always like, oh my gosh. I love your hair like that. So much. She doesn't understand that I know that that's like her dog whistle to me.

That's like, please don't wear your hair in the really. gay way. You know what I mean? And I don't think that she thinks of it like that. I don't think that she's conscious of it. I think that she's just trying to like compliment me. And it's this backhanded thing. So it's like maybe one of these days I'm going to get the courage and be like, mom, this is who I am. Whether my hair is this way or that way. Like I am gay and proud of it. And also like, stop this charade. of like you thinking that you're going to somehow control my way of being. And that's just like at the end of the day.

It's like we just got to keep accepting people for who they are. So this is a long story. It's so exactly right. Yeah. At the end of the day, it's like I need to get brave enough to be like, mom, I really love you. And I know you mean well here. But please stop commenting on my hair because it's too loaded. Yes.

It's too loaded. That's a good. There's too much loaded in it for me that I always leave those interactions feeling bad about myself. Yes. You know? And that's, I think, like, what we're kind of saying with some of this family, like, that little zinger, like, and mothers with like, oh, I love, have you lost weight? Yeah. Or this.

You look so great. Implied you look like shit for the decade before this. Yes. There's so much loaded in what we say to each other. And I'm not perfect either. Like, but I just think that there's a little bit of consciousness that we can bring into some of this. Yeah. And there's your 10% right.

I mean, what you just said, it's loaded for me. That's your 10% of preparation. Because actually, babe, when you got off the phone the other day, I talked to you, right? You were like, you said to me, she said it again. She always, always says it. And so it's like, wait a minute. If we know she always says it, why aren't we more prepared? Because then we have to spend so much time afterwards thinking of what we would have said, but then we don't say it again.

And listen, my mom means, be unsurprised. Be unsurprised. And be prepared. So like when your uncle says the racist thing, when your mom asks you why you're not married, when your aunt asks you if you're still gay, when your brother asks you if you're starting your diet soon, when your mother-in-law asks if maybe you've ever considered brushing your children's hair, like, just be prepared. And that and both ends. So be unsurprised and be prepared for the 10%.

Like, that is yours to do, right? And the other thing that is yours to do is then let your family do what they do. That's right. You're going to just, you're focused on that 10% and then the rest of your focus is on letting our families be exactly what they are. That's right. Exactly as regrettably and delightfully as they are. because we are being unsurprised and we are letting them be. Right.

We're not changing them. We're not changing them on Thanksgiving. No, we're not. But we are also not changing ourselves. I love it. All right. So, in short, you have three next straight things this holiday season. Number one, remember that it's your effing holiday.

Okay? Number two, eat, drink what you're supposed to drink, whatever that is. Breathe. Okay? And number three, shit, what was number three? Be unsurprised. Be unsurprised. When the holidays get hard.

Don't forget, we can do hard things. I give you Tishmilton and Brandy Carlisle. I came out the other side. I chased desire. I made sure I got what's mine. I can tell. continue to believe that because I'm because we're adventurers and heart breaks on map a final destination they'll have they stopped as action is they've never been

and to be like to be known we'll find we can do a heart a brand new star Sometimes things fall hard I continue to believe The best people are free Took some time Finally find Because we're adventurers and heartbreak Some destination

We lack They stopped asking To places Been and Too Hard. It's a play for Ben and too. And Too Hard. Yeah. We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios.

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