This week, I’m walking you through my favorite tools to prepare your mind for the upcoming family holiday gatherings. We often get so busy rushing to do all the physical preparations for the holidays that we neglect the mental prep. But if you want to cultivate a calmer and more centered experience around your family this year, you must prioritize your mindset. Of course we’re all busy, but fortunately this doesn’t have to take any extra time. All it takes is a few minutes thinking about these topics while you’re sitting in traffic or wrapping gifts.
Topics covered include:
Tune in for these and other valuable insights to help you set the stage for a more mindful and peaceful holiday celebration.
_________
Need help applying this to your life? Ready for more strategies like this, but personalized to YOU? Set up your free consult and let’s talk about your unique situation and how coaching can help:
https://getcoached.jennyhobbsmd.com/consult
_________
Everything on this podcast and website is for informational purposes only and should not be used as medical advice. Views are our own, and do not necessarily represent those of our past or present employers or colleagues.
This week, I’m walking you through my favorite tools to prepare your mind for the upcoming family holiday gatherings. We often get so busy rushing to do all the physical preparations for the holidays that we neglect the mental prep. But if you want to cultivate a calmer and more centered experience around your family this year, you must prioritize your mindset. Of course we’re all busy, but fortunately this doesn’t have to take any extra time. All it takes is a few minutes thinking about these topics while you’re sitting in traffic or wrapping gifts.
Topics covered include:
Tune in for these and other valuable insights to help you set the stage for a more mindful and peaceful holiday celebration.
_________
Need help applying this to your life? Ready for more strategies like this, but personalized to YOU? Set up your free consult and let’s talk about your unique situation and how coaching can help:
https://getcoached.jennyhobbsmd.com/consult
_________
Everything on this podcast and website is for informational purposes only and should not be used as medical advice. Views are our own, and do not necessarily represent those of our past or present employers or colleagues.
Welcome to Rethink your Rules with Jenny Hobbs MD. A fresh perspective on relationships, success and happiness for high achieving moms.
Jenny:Hey, there it's Jenny. Welcome back to another episode of Rethink your Rules. I want to talk with you today about preparing your mind for the holidays with family. Now, at this time of year those of us that celebrate Christmas and are going to visit family I think a lot of our time and energy is centered around preparing our physical life for that, whether it's preparing our home to host people or packing up to go visit, whether it's shopping and wrapping and baking and all those things. Getting the Christmas cards out and all of those preparations can sometimes take center stage. But I do want to encourage you to take just a little bit of time to prepare your mind for this time and I promise you will pay off so much. And, by the way, I'm just going to tell you for this recording you're going to have to bear with some background noise, potentially Podcast editor Kevin will do his best, but I'm actually recording this from my sister's house upstairs and I wanted to be sure to get an episode out for you guys, but we got a house full of people and animals, so you know how that goes. Keep it to real here today. But anyway, I really want you to take a little bit of mental space to prepare yourself before you head home to see family and this actually specifically said space. There are not time, because this doesn't necessarily have to add additional time. This is something that you can just be thinking about as you are doing all your other holiday things, whether it's commuting or being stuck in traffic or wrapping gifts or listening to Christmas music or whatever the case may be. It's just an opportunity to use some of that cognitive energy that's maybe spinning or spacing out, to actually be a little bit intentional about how you head home. So as I go through this, you don't necessarily have to take notes, but if you hear one of the mindset shifts or concepts that I mentioned and it sounds like it's very aligned for you maybe you already believe it, but you just haven't really thought about it before, or you're pretty close to believing it you might want to cultivate that belief. As we know, we can believe new things and train our brains to focus on different beliefs. If anything jumps out at you that seems really useful, maybe jot a note to yourself so you can start practicing and cultivating that belief before you go, or just remember and file that away as something you want to consider and think about in the future.
Jenny:So, to put this into context of some of the concepts I've discussed before, we've talked about this calm method and I'm going to run through where these things fall within that calm method in just a second, and then, as part of that too, I'm going to mention the five unspoken rules that I've talked a lot about before and I'm going to show you how those fit in here as well. So you don't have to worry about all that. My brain just loves a system and an algorithm and organizing it. But you can also just take away little bits and pieces of this that fit best with you where you're at right now. So when we think about the calm method that I've been sharing about, to really go from being overwhelmed and stressed and feeling stuck and anxious to bring yourself to being in a calmer place, a more centered place with a little bit of inner peace, right, we can use it in the moment. That's mostly what I've been talking about, right? So you're feeling overwhelmed or stressed or anxious and you connect with yourself in the moment, but you can also use it ahead of time, and that's what we're going to do today.
Jenny:So the calm method, just to review, is connect with compassion. Then you're going to assess and ask questions to understand what's really going on with your mind, then you're going to loosen your grip and then you're going to make a decision about what you want to do. And then I don't remember if I've talked about this on the podcast, but something I've been working with my clients on is then actually turning it into calm, or so. Then the E is to evaluate how it went and then repeat and go back through, and I'll talk about each of those in more detail, but just to remind you. So C-A-L-M-E-R connect, assess, loosen your grip, make a decision, evaluate, repeat. And so, with the connection step, some of the questions you want to be asking yourself in the moment.
Jenny:We've talked about asking yourself what's the matter, what's going on as you're heading into the holidays. This is just a brief connecting with how am I feeling? Am I feeling excited? Am I feeling anxious? Am I feeling dread? Am I feeling overwhelmed? Am I feeling apathetic? Or the case maybe and you don't have to spend a lot of time on this step if you already kind of know but even just noticing where your eye is really powerful, right, and the compassion part is saying it's totally normal to feel overwhelmed. It's totally normal to feel apprehensive about family holidays. It's totally normal to be worried about how my kids are going to show up. Right, giving yourself that love ahead of time.
Jenny:And then the next step is to assess what's really going on with your mind and to ask questions. So this is really what you're doing here, is you're trying to notice those unwritten rules, unspoken expectations, these automatic thoughts that go through your brain that we all have, that drive us, but we don't always notice that they're there. And I want to tell you that the holidays are a really, really, really good time to pick up on those beliefs, because everyone has a lot of unwritten rules in their mind about it, whether you've got them from culture and hustle and society, whether you've got them from your parents or your grandparents or your family, right. Whether you've given them to yourself, your kids, right. But we all have all these like expectations and beliefs, and so what's interesting is that it doesn't take very long around the holidays to notice how optional those beliefs are. Right, because I mean, this happens to me all the time. I'm chatting with a friend and they're like oh, and then we've got to do on Christmas. We have to split the day between these three families and da-da-da and it's so funny because I'll think to myself, that's so interesting Like there's no expectation within my family that we spend Christmas Day with our extended family like none.
Jenny:We always, we all expect we're going to do it beforehand and we all expect that we get to have Christmas Day at home with our immediate family, right and so, right there you can see two different inherent belief systems in different families. Right, and that's just a simple example, but I'm sure there's so many more, right? What kind of food you're going to have, or when you're going to do the presents, or who you're going to buy the presents for, or how much time you spend with each other, whether you go home when you're tired or you stick it out. You know, like one of my friends said, you know, her family is like it's like a death pact, like, as long as you're up and staying up, I'm staying up and we're all staying up and playing games together. And other families, you know, people are like I'm going to bed early, good bye, right.
Jenny:So these are all totally fine, mind you, but we often don't articulate to ourselves the fact that these thoughts are just being offered to us by ourselves or our families or our brains or whatever, and that they are truly technically optional. And the holidays, a lot of it feels very much not optional, it feels like tradition. And so the assessing step is just where you notice those thoughts and articulate them to yourselves. I think they say we have 60,000 thoughts a day, the majority of which are negative, and we don't notice. You know, we only notice a small percentage of them. So it's becoming aware of those thoughts, those unspoken rules and that's the other piece of this is that if you're feeling an emotion that's sort of anxious and overwhelmed and you're one of my typical working moms, maybe with some ADHD and neurodiversity in your family and you're in the holidays and you're feeling stressed and overwhelmed, most likely what you're going to find in this assessing step is a thought that falls into one of my five unspoken rules that I've talked about before, and so you're going to notice, as you come through those thoughts, that what's going to come up is a thought about what you need to feel okay, and for most of us it falls into one of these five categories.
Jenny:In order to be okay, I need other people to change, or this situation to change. That's our we like to argue with reality. We're trying to control. We have control enthusiasm about everything. Maybe we want that person to act differently. We want our mom to act differently. We want our kids to act differently. We want this situation to be this picture perfect holiday family. That's one of our big rules. That's number one. Another one is in order to feel okay, I need to be perfect or I need to get it right. I think I don't need to say any more about that. We all know that. Another one is people pleasing right. In order to feel okay, I need to have all these people approve of me, have everyone be happy with me, have people like me make everyone around me happy Again, an easy one to fall into in the holidays.
Jenny:The next one is this hustling for worthiness, this idea that in order to feel good and to feel worthy, I need to get more done. I need to check all the things off my list. We want that sort of dopamine hit of achievement. It's like a stand-in for feeling good enough, just as who we are. We get that from capitalism and the holidays. It's like oh, if I send out the cards on time and I get all the presents wrapped on time and I make all the meals and I do all the things. That is very much a belief system where it's like I can't relax and enjoy things until all this stuff is done. That becomes a rule that we're following. That's like a habit and a hustle. We don't even realize how much pressure we're putting on ourselves to do that and not able to slow down and relax and enjoy the moment and be okay with not getting everything done and knowing that we are worthy without that.
Jenny:And then the next one, the last one, the fifth rule is hyper-rationality, where we really just, in order for we think, in order for me to feel okay, I need people to be logical and rational. And if you think about the holidays, right, you've got extended family. Everyone's got lots of beliefs and backgrounds. If you're in medicine, like I am, you know you got a lot of people that are going to have different thoughts about medicine, different thoughts about vaccines, different thoughts about COVID right, that's come up a lot in recent years and so we can feel very frustrated that other people aren't being logical and they can feel frustrated that they think we're not being logical. Right, and we all want things to be so rational and we think our way of looking at it, is the only rational thing. And again, as I've said before about this, this is not a bad thing to be rational. It's just that in human interactions, like with extended family, it's an unspoken rule that gets us into trouble, because people are not always rational. People are very much driven by their emotions and I won't make this podcast too long by going into all those details.
Jenny:But what I want you to see is that, as you get to this assessing step and finding all your unspoken thoughts and rules right, what you're going to notice is that probably a lot of them are going to fall into those five categories, right, and there's great examples of all those five categories that come up at the holidays. Okay, so when you're interacting with other people, those five give you trouble. And what I want you to do, as you're noticing those first of all and this is one of my first sort of quick hits is just to notice hey, my brain offers that you know a point for my uncle makes no sense. Or my brain offers that you know, if I don't do this, my mom's gonna be upset. Or my brain offers that you know my kids should behave so that other people don't think that's whatever right. Or you can even say my family offers, my family offers that if I don't stay and do this on Christmas, that I be letting everyone down and I'm not a good daughter or whatever right. So, but just notice the separation of saying my brain offers or my family offers, or this person offers right. It gives you a little bit of objectivity and separation from it, so that really helps, right?
Jenny:And you also ask yourself, like what am I making this mean right? So if you're kind of like I don't really know which of those rules you just mentioned, jenny, you know, fits into this thing, I'm thinking about like ask yourself, okay, but what am I making this mean really? Like your superficial, surface level thing might be like, oh, I'm just dreading going home because, like you know, this person's gonna be annoying, or then I'm gonna be tired or whatever. But like, get a little deeper. Why is it a problem if you're tired? Why is it a problem if your mom says that? Why is it a problem if whatever? And you'll find that you know, oh well, I don't wanna do this, but my people pleasing rule is coming up and I know if I don't do this then other people won't be happy, right, or like I know that, like this person and this person always wanna do different things, right. And so now I'm stressed Well, because you're expecting everyone's gonna be happy, and so, as you find those kind of this third step that we talk about with loosening your grip is where you recognize okay, I've noticed what my brain is offering me.
Jenny:I've noticed those rules that are there right, without judgment, with compassion, okay, like there it is. And often those rules are there for a good reason. But now what you wanna ask yourself is like okay, is that really true? Like, do I wanna keep this belief that I just found, but I assessed it myself. Do I actually even think it's true, right? Do I really think that I have to be perfect and get it right? Do I really think I have to do all these things? Do I really think it means I'm a bad daughter if I don't spend all day Christmas with my family? Right, and it's okay if that feels like impossible to let go of. But just decide kind of like, loosen your grip on a little bit. We call this cognitive flexibility, right, so you're gonna say, okay, geez.
Jenny:Actually a good example is kind of what I said before Okay, like in my family, we all offer that this is what we do to be together. And I know my friend, her family's totally opposite, right? Well, so now you can ask yourself, okay, what else is true? Well, what else is true is that some families don't believe this, right? Or how does this other family do it? Well, look at this, it's possible that this belief that's been ingrained in me since I was a kid, that we all are just accepting in my family. When you just look slightly out of this bubble that we have together, I can see there are other ways to look at it. It's not a 100%, objectively true belief.
Jenny:Now, again, don't get scared. This doesn't mean you're gonna reject all your beliefs, but you just wanna loosen your grip on them, right? So you wanna say what else is true, what else could be true, what are my other options that are out there as ways to look at this or ways to solve this? Right? Because often, when we're just not noticing and assessing these thoughts, we aren't even thinking about all the creative options that are available to us. So you just wanna use this step to, kind of like, think of other perspectives, and what I wanna do here is share with you just a few kind of alternate perspectives that people have found really helpful as antidotes to these beliefs. So if you notice in the assessing step that your thought is like they should be different, they should be doing this right.
Jenny:So you have sort of this idea that this other person, if they would just be different, then you could be calmer and happier at Christmas, well, the antidote to that, the loosening grip, is like well, maybe they're doing the best that they can, maybe they're doing the best that they know how. Maybe it's possible that I can get some space, set a boundary, manage my mind right and feel okay, even if they never change. It's possible. Maybe it's hard, whatever right. Or in that step too, if your thought is like this should be the perfect holiday experience and I want everyone to be happy and I want my kids to do what everyone likes and this is a really common one we all fall into we don't even articulate to ourselves.
Jenny:Often going into the holidays, we just blindly expect that it's gonna be this beautiful, wonderful thing. And the fact of the matter is an alternate thought I want you to have. It's like it's possible that the holidays are going to not be beautiful and perfect and wonderful. It's possible that family holidays are or often they're not a little bit messy, a little bit chaotic, a little bit of hurt feelings, right, we know that.
Jenny:The reality is that life is 50-50, 50 positive, 50 negative. And even if you don't believe that exact percentage, I think we can all agree when you're in an unusual environment where kids are out of their routines and everyone's excited about Christmas and everyone has high expectations. The fact is, it's pretty likely there's gonna be some negative moments. So why not just go in and say, hey, like I'm going to have no expectations, that this is gonna be perfect. In fact, I'm gonna expect that there's gonna be some challenges and that's okay, right? Really letting go of this need for it to be a perfect, beautiful experience. It's like when you go to Disneyland and you're like is the happiest place on earth, and then it's almost like that thought of it being the happiest place on earth makes everyone more miserable when they get there because in fact, there's still just a 50-50, but the expectations being dashed and that beautiful picture you had built up in your mind almost makes you more frustrated with it, right? It's the same idea with holidays.
Jenny:So just start by lowering your expectations right, and if your thought is like I should do this right. Sometimes we have this control enthusiasm about I should be able to control everything and make everyone happy. Maybe you just wanna decide. I wish I could make everyone happy. I wish this person was different. I wish this was a perfect, beautiful holiday. I wish I had this relationship with my sister or my parents or whatever right.
Jenny:Or you can change yourself from like I should too. I could do all that. I can do anything, but I can't do everything. Right, I could do that. I don't want to. I'm choosing not to. Okay, I'm just throwing out a lot of these for you here. Another thing if you're coming across as like people should be different, you know this is really easy with families, right, cause we all have things. We want to be different it's to just look around that family and just notice. It's a posture that I've heard some coaches call like loving bemusement, like, oh, there they are, and what I want you to do is think of someone in your family that you love unconditionally. Or, if you can't think of a beloved pet or your spouse, but for me it's like sometimes easy with my kids, right, it's like there's my kid doing that thing I knew they're gonna do. That doesn't make a lot of sense.
Jenny:And I love them Just the messy human. They are trying to figure it out. Right? And what if you just tried to kind of tap that emotion of like loving bemusement and apply it to all of your family? Look around the messy, look around this person arguing with that person and that person controlling everyone and that person, you know, whatever. Like just loving bemusement, because, remember, this is a temporary thing, you're not around them all the time Like, can you just channel a little bit of like? There they are, being the messy human who drives me crazy. They're never gonna change. And like can I tap into? Like they're doing the best they can, you know, but that's where it's at and you can say I wish they were different, I wish they would do this differently. But there they are. This is all they can do.
Jenny:Another thing that you can do is if the perfectionism is coming in for you and this comes up a lot like we notice a little bit of criticism or critique, or we even sometimes assume that things are more critical of us than they actually are coming from others in our family. Speaking from experience, just remind yourself like it's okay for me to get wrong. Everyone has something to work on right. Give yourself that grace. I am wonderful, even if I'm not perfect, right? And then if it's a lot of people pleasing, again coming back to the idea of like, listen, like. It's not realistic to keep every person happy in this entire family all day long. It's just not right. Grandpa's not going to be happy at the same time that the grandkids are happy, the same time that you're happy. It's really not realistic. So just let it go. I can't please everyone. I can't guarantee everyone's happiness. It's totally normal. My brain's offering that everyone should be happy and we should have this beautiful Christmas, and it's totally normal that that's not going to be always possible, right, getting yourself some distance and with the people pleasing too, it's okay for them to be wrong about me. And for holidays, I like people to think, like you know, let's say, you have kids that are challenging and your family may judge you or have opinions or whatever. Like it's okay for them to be wrong about our family. It's okay for them to not understand. It's okay for them to not approve of us sometimes, right, I don't have to always explain. I don't have to necessarily explain my family or my parenting to anyone, right? And the reason I'm saying all this now is because you want to get these beliefs firmly and grade them yourself before you go.
Jenny:And then, if your thoughts are coming around with the hustle, you know like I need to get all this done. I can't relax till this is done. You're jumping up, you're the one at the family event. That's like making the meals and making sure everyone has what they need, and you can't just sit down and enjoy the Christmas movie or play the game or whatever. I really want you to think about, first of all, if you like doing that stuff, great.
Jenny:But if you're doing it and you're feeling obligated, and then you're feeling really exhausted at the end or like resentful because people aren't appreciating it, what if you just sat, with a discomfort of sitting there and being like I am not. I am a human being. I'm not a human doing. Or what if I just sit here and wait and maybe someone else can do it right? Or what's the worst will happen if I don't do this right now? What's the worst will happen if I am not the one that always jumps up to take care of everything? Right, really, letting yourself sit for a minute?
Jenny:One of my professors in med school used to say don't just do something stand there. What if you just did something, stopped for a minute and let it happen? I cannot tell you how many of my clients try this a bit, just like not jumping in as the first one to over function, and they're amazed at how many times problems solve themselves or someone else solves them and they're like, oh my gosh, I got so much of my time and energy back by just waiting a second right. So, thinking ahead about where you're going to feel that need to hustle and maybe deciding okay, I'm just going to feel awkward at first when I try just not doing anything because I don't have to fix everything right. Or maybe the best thing I can do is to be supportive and kind and snug with my kids and not solve all the problems that are physically in front of us, right, and then for hyper rationality, that fifth rule, if that comes up, this is one of my favorites for family and I think I gave some examples earlier. But just remember, listen, people are not logical. So one of the things that's helped me so much with my coaching is like this drives me crazy. So I give myself compassion and grace. It gets to drive me crazy. This drives me crazy. I wish this was different, but or and people aren't logical, people aren't rational.
Jenny:Okay, so those are just a few of the ways you can combat those thoughts, and I also want to just point out in this place as well that, like, even if you can't come to any of those different beliefs, those feel totally not achievable for you, which is okay. I mean, it's not like we're all just Zen masters here and these things all are easy to come by and there's, I believe these things I just told you, but also they're not always the first thought that comes to me, right, I have to work on them sometimes, and sometimes I don't have the energy to work on all these things about all the people at Christmas, right, so then we go to. Well, so I should say before I say that, so, as you're loosening your grip, what you're really doing is you're just getting that cognitive flexibility of other ways to look at it. How do other people do things? How do other people think about things? What if it's possible that I can believe these other? Nice, it's possible that I could look at these people with loving bemusement, just like I do my kid, right, you just notice those possibilities that are out there, right, and then, depending where you're at you, go on to making a decision. Now, if, when I was going through that list of possible alternate thoughts, something stood out to you was like that totally makes sense, it's perfect. Maybe your decision is hey, I'm going to practice that thought, I'm going to write it down, I'm going to really get ingrained, I'm going to center myself on that thought, I'm going to remind myself of it when I get stressed in the moment. But, let's say, none of those thoughts really stood out to you.
Jenny:Now, in the setting of making a decision, here's what you want to remind yourself hey, I don't have to do anything. I don't have to go to a family Christmas. I talked about this. If you want to go back to the episode I did on November 2nd, you don't have to do anything. I talked about this in great detail. But since you don't have to do anything, you want to go through this list? Okay, well, do I still want to go to see my family for the holidays? Most likely at this point.
Jenny:If you already decided you're doing it, there's probably a reason you want to go, even if they drive you crazy and you're going to be pissed off or whatever. Instead, then, it being like I have to go and being there feeling like a victim and being annoyed with all this stuff. At least remind yourself okay, I want to go because this family time is important. Dah, dah, dah. And I'm just going to remind myself. I can handle any emotion. I love that I can handle an emotion. It's not going to kill me to be annoyed with my family, right. It doesn't last forever. Emotions don't last forever. They last a few seconds. I'm going to allow it. I'm going to remind myself I want to be here, even though these things drive me crazy, right.
Jenny:And then part of making that decision is like you're going to plan around it. How can I plan to mitigate this? Do I need to create breaks for myself? Do I need to set expectations with my family? Do I need to know, whatever the case may be, go out and go for a run every morning, right. So you don't have to change all the thoughts that make you stressed out, but you can then at least, now that you've done this process ahead of time and you've been thinking about it, you're like, okay, probably I'm going to be annoyed by this and this, like I usually am, right, and again, this doesn't have to take a long time. Maybe you're wrapping present. Okay, this is going to annoy me, this is going to annoy me. What am I going to do when that happens? Right, and just kind of make a tentative plan in your brain.
Jenny:Now, if you, honestly, are like gosh, I really don't want to go to family Christmas. I wish I never had to go again, and maybe this year it's a little too late because you're you know, you're like, well, I've already said I'm going to go and I committed to it and my kids are going, right. So then you go to. Okay, I don't really want to go, but there is a bad outcome I'm going to avoid by going, which is disappointing my kids and letting down my family and breaking my own personal you know belief about canceling at the last minute, right. So now when you go, you're going to be like, okay, I don't really want to do this, but I'm choosing to do it for these reasons, right. And again you go to the planning phase and remind yourself, like, really, go all the way down. What's the worst will happen if I don't go? My kids will be pissed, my mom will be pissed. She won't speak to me, whatever you want to call your brain's bluff on that. So you know what it is that you're avoiding by choosing to go and that helps you to feel less like a victim.
Jenny:And the example I always give for people. This is like you know, when you're a doctor, becoming a doctor, and you're in residency and you're awake for 30 straight hours in the hospital at night, it is not like in the middle of the night. You're like, oh, I'm so glad that I'm getting all these phone calls and I'm sleep deprived and this person is yelling me on the phone because I called the consultant at the wrong time, whatever. None of that is fun. That feels crappy, right, brings up negative emotions. But you know you've chosen to do it because you thought through your reasons. You want to be a doctor, all this stuff. You knew that was part of the deal and so I want you to use that same mindset when you're home with Christmas with your family. I knew the deal. I chose to be here. I knew there were gonna be negative emotions that came up. I'm doing it for a reason and outcome that I've chosen. I'm choosing to be here. I can handle any emotion. It won't last forever, okay. So you get through all this. You've made your decision, okay.
Jenny:The other piece of making a decision is planning with your family, okay. And so if you're deciding to go and you've noticed some of these things that are going on, and maybe some of them are like I'm worried about what people are gonna think of my kids so you remind yourself it's okay for them to be wrong about me and my family, it's okay for us to have things to work on, et cetera. But there's also this planning phase where you say, okay, what's the minimum baseline that I personally expect from my kids? If I set aside my concerns about people pleasing other people, just what do I think they need to do? I have a value that, hey, I want my kids to nicely open their presence. I want them to spend most of the time of the day with the family, and I'm okay if they have this much screen time or whatever right Like. So now you can sit down with your spouse and your kids beforehand or on the drive there and just say, hey, I know you guys are probably gonna wanna do this and this. You know we're gonna make sure you have your screen time for one hour a day. I don't know when it will be. I promise you that we'll do it, but in return, we're going here with family for the holidays. So there's some things that we always do. We are polite when people give us a gift. We don't ask about iPad all day. We play some family, whatever it is for you, and keep those expectations to a minimum of what you value and what you want and the reasons is so important. I know this podcast is getting long, but this is so important to me. I don't want you to go without preparing yourself and then have people making comments and looking at your kids and then you're taking it out on your kids, right, like fresher to them for talking about iPad and video games and your parents are making faces, right. I don't want you to go there and like because your people pleasing is coming up and your perfectionism and all these worries, and make rules for your kids in that moment because you're trying to placate your parents or because you're trying to, like, settle this unsettled part of you that feels bad, right. What I want you to do is clean all that up with this calm method, loosen your grip on all the mess that's there in your own brain and then make a decision about, from that clean to a place.
Jenny:What do I care about most? And I will tell you, this happens with me. I care about my kid not throwing a fit and running away when he gets a present he doesn't like, right. I care about my kid not being on a screen all day. I care about there's certain things that are valued to me. I want my kids to learn that even though they're intro you know, one of them is an introvert and they wanna be alone and they don't wanna have to talk to people that sometimes we do. That that's important to me might not be for you. On the other hand, there are some things my family might think is important that I don't choose to enforce for my kids, right, and so I get clear on that before I go and I set the baseline very low, to a minimum, to what I and my husband really agree on, and then I communicate that to my kids and this is a whole another podcast. But how you communicate that to them is important too, because you wanna really get their buy-in and their feedback and hear their perspective and also enforce your boundaries.
Jenny:Okay, but you make the decision ahead of time and again, if you think about this, while you're preparing and wrapping gifts or whatever. When you're in the car you can say hey guys, I just wanna talk about you know what might be coming up. I know this might be hard for all of us, because this and this, here's what we expect, here's our plan, here's we're gonna make it easier for everyone, et cetera. And then the last thing I just wanna remind you is part of why I added the evaluate step in here as an actual thing is because, after you've made your decision, you've planned, you've gone, whatever, you're going to evaluate how it goes and you're gonna choose to have your own back, no matter what, while you're evaluating it. And what that means is that you're gonna notice what works, you're gonna notice what doesn't. You're going to be calm about it If you because let me tell you what this is, trial and error you might decide all this and you go there and things go completely differently.
Jenny:Or you try setting a boundary, and it doesn't work very well. Or you try making expectations with your kids, and it doesn't work. Or maybe it works for you, but other people are still displeased. News flash that's probably gonna happen. Just prepare yourself. There's gonna be discomfort. Even if I do this, all this prep, there's gonna be uncomfortable things because change is not comfortable and these are habits that have been ingrained for a reason and there's discomfort either way. There's the discomfort of living by these unspoken rules and letting everyone else dictate and being overwhelmed and stressed and not having inner peace. Or there's the discomfort of choosing your inner peace, choosing your own decisions, having your own back and watching other people not be super happy about it and not getting that little dope mean hit of pleasing them. And I will tell you, it gets easier over time.
Jenny:But if you plan ahead that, hey, I'm gonna evaluate this and there's gonna be parts that go well and parts that don't. There's gonna be the negative parts of life, just like always, but I'm gonna have my own back. I can handle any emotion. I can handle the emotion of feeling like I've let someone down and that is always better than letting myself down and that's always better than letting my family down. I know for me, as I go into the holidays, I think, okay, I'm not gonna please everyone, I'm not gonna do this perfectly, but at the end of the day, when I go to bed, I want to know that I've shown up in a way that is honest and vulnerable and my best self for me and my kids. And be true to that Number one. The rest I can keep working on, because everyone has something to work on. So I hope you found this helpful.
Jenny:I went on longer than I anticipated, but I really wanted to just put all these great thoughts in here and I want you to truly pick one or two of them. I've done this with a lot of my clients this week. Pick some of these ideas and thoughts Not all of them, don't overwhelm yourself. Pick one or two that really is aligned for you, center yourself on that, have it at the ready and if you really remind yourself over and over and get centered on one of these beliefs, like even for the next, like three or four days, I promise you it will be at the ready in your mind when you're there, okay, and if you want more on any of this stuff, I did talk about the five unspoken rules in my August 18th podcast and I talked about the.
Jenny:You don't have to do anything in the algorithm of questions you can ask yourself to figure out how you want to think about that in my November 2nd podcast. Of course, all this stuff is, you know, all over the place in the podcast, but those are great places to get more. But honestly, this has been a half hour and I think that's enough listening and passively taking an info and what I want you to do now is put it into action, give it a try. Let it be messy, let it be imperfect. Really think about this stuff. I promise you, even if you only went halfway through the steps and you just noticed what you were feeling and thinking in these moments and you changed nothing else, I guarantee you you will feel better because you will have just that little bit of perspective as you go into the holidays.
Jenny:And if you want to unpack any of this and evaluate it, with me helping you find these things, giving you personalized solutions that really fit with where your brain is at, I would love to work with you.
Jenny:You can set up a free consult call and we'll go over everything. We'll see how it applies to your life, how I can help you. And remember my discount codes are expiring at the end of the year, so you can still get a really nice $500 discount on working with me before the end of the year if you sign up before then. If you have any trouble looking at my schedule to sign up for the consult. Just let me know I will fit it in. I will make it work because I want you to take this opportunity if you've been on the fence to save a little money and get started. So you'll be able to find the link to set up the consult call in the show notes. Here you can head to my website and with that I hope you have a wonderful holiday season and I will be back with more next week. Bye.
Kevin:Thanks for listening to Rethink your Rules with Jenny Hobbs MD. Would you like to learn more about how to apply this to your own life through personalized coaching with Jenny? Visit us on the web at jennyhobbsmdcom to schedule a free consultation. If you found value in what you heard today, please consider subscribing to the podcast and giving us a five star rating so we can reach even more women like you.