Quiet in the Chaos: Expectations & Simplifying

Show Notes:

 December has arrived and we are into that time of year that many people experience as a love/hate relationship. The holiday season can come with a lot for us. There can be a lot of joy and excitement and connection, but there can also be a lot of overwhelm, stress, and grieving. For many who work in First Response and Front Line Work, there are added factors, like being on call or working over the holidays while the rest of the world seems to be allowed to hibernate and enjoy their families by the fireside. The season can come with closeness as well as resentment. It can come with a sense of quiet or a sense of chaos. 

Acknowledging that the holidays are a time that can be very mixed, I want us to take a little time each week during this month to focus in on how we can create some quiet in the chaos and choose the kind of season we want to have rather than it feeling forced upon us.

I’ll be honest, I love so much about the holidays. I love the magic – the surprises – and the traditions. I love that my kids are still ages where they love santa. That they are old enough to remember our rituals and to get excited about doing the things that matter to our family each year. I will also admit that I hate the commercialism, I hate the shopping mall, I hate the many demands on my time and energy, I hate the pressure for perfect. And because of all of this, I have, year to year, worked to focus on ways to simplify our holidays to be able to really enjoy them rather than feeling like I am consumed by them. 

I’ll be real, it hasn’t come easily or gone perfectly. I am prone to perfectionism, and if I am not careful to hold myself in alignment with my hearts longing to be in the moment with my people, I can easily get caught up in the busy-ness and noise – trying to find that perfect gift or twisting myself into a pretzel trying to throw the perfect holiday party. 

Really what I am attempting…and I think what many of us feel a craving for…is counter-cultural. And stepping outside of the norm, going against the grain, is difficult. You’ll be challenged at every turn, called back to the uncomfortable familiarity of the cultural standards. …And yet, I know that I don’t love how I feel within the cultural standards. I don’t love the pressure and the fatigue. And I don’t want my kids to carry that feeling with them into their internalized values as they grow and eventually wind up in my position trying to pull this off with their own families one day. 

If I think of what I want to gift my kids, I want them to have the gift of knowing how to rest. I want them to have the gift of knowing how to slow down. I want to gift them the ability to release expectations placed on them, and the courage to choose their own path. I want for my kids to have the capacity to hold space for their own families, to have closeness and connection and deep meaning in the precious moments shared with those we choose to spend our lives with. I want my kids to remember the magic, not the stuff. I want for them to pass along a legacy of magic and hope and joy. 

When I reflect on these longings in me, I feel called back year after year to simplifying and I find that this brings me to the reflective place around my expectations as well as the expectations I feel placed upon me. If I leave them unchecked, these expectations can become a burden, an albatross around my neck that I am forced to carry. And then it’s no wonder that the season feels like pressure and exhausting – I am carrying something unwittingly and it costs something. 

But when I enter the season willing to tangle with the expectations, notice and name them, I get to take some power back and decide which ones I am going to carry with me and which ones I will leave behind. I get to invite the opportunity to be a conscious chooser of what I will focus on during the season, and a conscious chooser of what I have no interest in carrying with me. We are back to this word we hit so often on this show – the word is intentional. Entering the holiday season thinking about the expectations we bring in with us and whether or not these are what we actually want and choose to live by allows us to be intentional. It allows us to set our intentions and align to them. It gives us the chance to lean in to who we choose to be during this season.

My encouragement to you is to not run into this season full force without pause. Don’t let the seasons chaos dictate how you engage it and how, at the end of it all, you’ll feel about it.  Take some time and sit with these questions:

1.      What was your early learning about the holidays? What was modeled for you?

2.      What, from that early learning do you want to keep? What did you love that you would like to continue?

3.      What, from your early learning do you want to leave behind? What does not serve you that you would like to discontinue?

4.      What, based on your life now, energy and interests, feels most in alignment with who you want to be and the values you hold in the holiday season?

5.      What, based on your life now, energy and interests, feels not in alignment with who you want to be and the values you want to hold in the holiday season?

6.      What can you do to simplify out the things that are not in alignment? And what can you do to maximize focus on the pieces that feel highly aligned?

Episode Challenge:

Sit with the questions outlined in the show (see above)

Additional Resources:

Self-assess indicators for burnout and related concerns by using our free Beating the Breaking Point Indicators Checklist & Triage Guide. 

Check out some of our related episodes…
·        S3E5-8 Reclaiming Self Series (being in alignment with values and being the people we want to be)

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