Why Taking Care of Yourself IS Taking Care of Others During the Holidays

This time of year, the media feeds us the message that we should be relaxed, feel connected to others, and experience joy, but our relationships are complex. Trying to “do it all,” that can leave us feeling exhausted, angry, and resentful. When we take on the roles of planning, shopping, hosting, and managing everyone’s emotions, it’s so easy to put yourself last. I’ve experienced this many times, and it’s not always pretty. 

In this episode, I’ll share a recent “aha” moment that reminded me why taking care of yourself isn’t selfish; it’s essential. 

You’ll learn:

• A simple mindset shift that can change how you show up for yourself and others.
• The sneaky ways stress may manifest in your body (and how to recognize it before it overwhelms you).
• A 4-step process to manage those overwhelming emotions so you can acknowledge them—without letting them take control.

If you’ve been feeling the pressure of holiday overwhelm, this short episode invites you to slow down, even if it’s just for five minutes to turn inward and process what you might be experiencing in order to manage the holidays and find a little joy in them. 

I’m keeping it real, and simple, and sharing practical somatic tools you can use right now. Trust me Freebirds-taking care of yourself is the best gift you can give to the people you love.

Love,

Laurie

These guides will help you take the next step in life. 

Click here to sign up for my “Tune Into Your 2025 Vision” on January 18th.

Click here to learn about my December’s “Somatic Healing” class - RECOVER

Click here for my FREE “Somatic Healing for Beginners Guide”

Click here for my FREE Core Values Exercise

Click here to give podcast feedback

Click here to purchase my book: Sandwiched: A Memoir of Holding On and Letting Go

Sign up for my newsletter here to stay current on my upcoming offerings and podcast interviews!

Website

***************************************************************************************
DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL, MEDICAL OR PROFESSIONAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED THERAPIST IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING SUICIDAL THOUGHTS. YOU SHOULD CONTACT AN ATTORNEY IN YOUR STATE TO OBTAIN LEGAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL WITH RESPECT TO ANY MEDICAL ISSUE OR PROBLEM.

Transcript

Hey, free birds. Quick announcement before we get started, for all my local listeners, I still have a few spots left in my 2025 vision board class on january 18, Saturday, I'm also going to have my go to psychic there, and she has a couple spots left too. So don't forget to check that out. The link is in the show notes. And enjoy this short little episode that I think will help you make it through the holidays. 

Welcome to Confessions of a Freebird podcast. I'm your host. Laurie James, a mother, divorcee, a recovering caregiver, the author of Sandwiched A Memoir of Holding on and Letting go, a therapy, junkie, relationship coach, somatic healer and now podcaster. I'm a free spirit, and here to lift you up on this podcast, I'll share soulful confessions and empowering conversations with influential experts so you can learn to spread your wings and make the most of your second half. So pop in those earbuds, turn up the volume, and let's get inspired, because my mission is to help you create your most joyful, purpose driven life one confession at a time. 

Happy Holidays, free birds. I hope you are all managing your holidays the best you can. I know this time of the year isn't always easy. If you listen to my podcast around Thanksgiving, you know that I had some struggles as well, and I was going to start talking about a different topic. And then over the weekend and the last week, I just ran into the same issue with a couple of clients a friend, and it also came through this weekend with my boyfriend, Jeff. And thought that when something shows up multiple times, that that's a sign from the universe. And I figure if this is something that I am running into, that you might be running into this as well, and I thought I'd share this, this topic that I'm going to talk about today. It's not new. In fact, I have talked about it a lot on my podcast and others. It's something that I struggled with through the years, and sometimes still do, which is probably why I'm recording this at 9 30 at night on a Sunday evening. It's what I didn't do for myself for a long time, which led me to falling ill about six years ago, after I left my marriage, and I'm putting a little bit different spin on it. 

Any guesses on the topic? Before I tell you what the topic is, Jeff came over this past weekend, and he had thrown his back out. He showed up at my house, and he was in a lot of pain. His voice was very weak, and he was struggling to bend down. And I won't go into all the details, but the theme was he kept asking me, What can he do to help me? And this happened repeatedly show throughout the day. And after trying several times of saying no, no, thank you, I'm going to do that on my own, or I'm not going to let you do that right now, I finally said to him, if you want to help me, take care of yourself. And then I repeated that a couple of times over the weekend, and basically saying, taking care of yourself is taking care of me. And I think that that's something that we often forget. 

As we are taking care of Christmas and making sure that everything is ready, especially if we also are coupling this with vacation, and we have kids coming into town or home from college, or we've got family coming over, we want things to be perfect, and we've got to wrap all the gifts and and and, and in addition, I watched a friend struggle with this this past week, and a couple of clients, and I get it. It is so hard for us to put ourselves first to ask for help, especially when we're. We didn't have anyone taking care of us when we were young. I know for many of us, our primary caregivers weren't tending to our needs. They weren't asking us, what do we need help with? And then we might fall into relationships where we repeat that pattern and we don't ask for help. So if this sounds like you during the holidays or rushing around to get everything done, not asking for help from anybody, trying to push through handling everybody else's emotions, I would like for you to see if you can just pause here for a moment, because trying to push through, it will eventually push back. It will catch up to you, and you will pay the price. 

I did research. More and more research is talking about this Gabor Mate who has been studying emotional well being and the nervous system for many years. Recently did a podcast with Mel Robbins where he talked about this, about how when we tend to put others, emotional and physical needs before ourselves. When we to feel like duty and responsibility comes first. We're always nice. We have a hard time saying no. We repress our healthy anger. And number four, we feel responsible for how others feel emotionally. We don't want to disappoint others that will take its toll on you. It starts with unease in the body, then it becomes dis ease in the body, and eventually disease, including auto immune issues, which he talks about. So taking care of yourself is caring for others. And I'm saying it this way, because if you won't do it for yourself, do it for those you love, do it for those that you want to care for. 

When we prioritize our own physical and mental well being, you will become better equipped to provide the support and care for those around you, essentially when you are healthy and stable and sleeping well and setting healthy boundaries, you have the capacity to be more present. You'll have the capacity to be more effective in your relationship with others, whether that is an intimate relationship, friendships, family, and you will also start finding more happiness and joy. So if you're feeling like you've put yourself last on your Christmas list and feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, maybe feeling some resentment, anger, I invite you to slow down. Let this be the sign you need to bring awareness to it and start making small steps towards changing this. So how do we do this? I don't want to do anything big right now. I would suggest starting with something very small.

In coaching and in somatic experiencing, we always want to take things slow and take small steps in the somatic world, we want to take titrated steps, and we want to touch the edges. We want to touch the rough edges of what we're experiencing until they soften. So how do we do that? So pick one thing that you would like help with, or you'd like to change in the next week, in the next two weeks, and this is an exercise that you can come back to any time. So bookmark this episode and also please share it with a friend. So first think about something that you would like to ask someone for help with or with changing a tradition around the holidays that causes you angst or stress when you think about doing this without asking for help or doing it the way you've always done it, because it's a habit you. Things become a habitual What do you notice inside? I know I used to often get a pit in my stomach because I didn't have any needs for the first 18 years of my marriage, and by the time I started asking for help and support, let's just say it wasn't well received. So going back to what you notice inside, I'm going to use an example, and we're going to walk through the four step process. And first, can you just stay with that sensation? Maybe you have restriction, like I said, I used to get a pit in my stomach instead of trying to move away from that or feel like that is a sign that we should be doing it all. And why can't I handle this? Can you just stay with the sensation you're feeling instead of moving away from it. We want to just take small, tolerable moments to be with this feeling that maybe you couldn't be with in the past. Are you able to create a deeper capacity for this feeling, for the fear, for the anger, for the anxiety, for the shame that might be coming up that's associated with this. Just notice, if an emotion emerges, if it doesn't, that's okay, but if it does, can you stay with it? We want to complete this experience that maybe didn't get completed in the past. Because when we do this, it helps our nervous system come back to a more regulated, resilient state. So we want to allow one. We want to allow What's there to emerge the emotion, the feeling inside, if you're having trouble sometimes playing music, whether it's happy music or sad music, or watching a movie, I know that when I've like, felt an emotion that I want to come up like, if I want to cry, I will put on music, or I'll watch a movie that I know will get my emotions moving if I can't allow it or it's not coming up naturally. 

So first again, we want it to emerge. We want to experience it. Again, going back to that sensation. Can we stay with the sensation we want to experience, the sensation we want to experience what's inside of us so that way we can express it? Does your body want to cry? Does your body want to push at a wall. Does your body want to hit a pillow? Maybe you want to yell or ask for help or roar, yes, roar. Maybe you even want to run in place so you can run away. We want our bodies to express what maybe didn't get expressed in the past and what needs to get expressed in the moment, so that way we can expel it, check back in with your body. If there's still some residual sensation, can you stay with it? See if it can dissipate completely? This is an important piece. So that way, this helps our body create the capacity to deal with our emotions, to deal with a difficult situation. So often when the somatic world, so many people are talking about releasing trauma and letting it go and being in a calm state all the time. That's not the intention of somatic experiencing and this four step process emerge experience, express and expel. It's meant for us to grow our capacity to be with what's happening when we might get triggered. 

So I know I went through that fast. Please feel free to replay that, if necessary. And while I'm on the topic of caring for ourselves in order for me to care for myself and for my clients and my family, I have an announcement that I want to make, which is hard for me, that I am changing the interval of my podcasts to. To every other week, not every week. So I'm still going to be here, but I'm going to just be here every other week. So every two weeks I'll be dropping a podcast. This is so I can spend more time doing the things that I love and working with more clients, offering more classes and courses, versus spending a lot of time, which I've enjoyed, doing the podcasts. 

And again, just to go back and recap real quick, if you're struggling with some overwhelm, anger, frustration this time of the year and having difficulty slowing down, or having difficulty asking for support or help. Pick one small thing that you would like to change. Notice, if there is any emotion sensation that comes up with it, allow it to emerge. We want to also experience it. Stay with the sensations. We want to express it. What does our body want to do? Cry, push up against a wall, grunt, yell, ask for help, run in place. We want to do this. Notice what the sensations are before and then also after, as we are expelling it, check in with your body, see what sensations are still there. Notice what's different and allow it to dissipate. This will again allow us to create more capacity. 

So next week, I'll be off for Christmas, and I'll be back on January 2 with Ali Brady, who is a functional nutritionist and hormone expert, our empowering conversation will start the year off talking about perimenopause and menopause, and will empower and educate you on the science of emerging nutrition when it comes to women's health and how you can optimize yours. So thank you, free birds for being with me. Happy holidays, happy new year, and we will see you in the new year. And don't forget to download my FREE guides, my beginner's guide to somatic healing, had a couple of dating guidelines, Girlfriends Guide to Dating. And wish you a very safe and happy new year. Until next time, free birds. 

Thank you for listening to this episode of Confessions of a Freebird. I'm grateful to be in your ears and hearts. If you're interested in becoming a free bird, I'd love to support you. Please check out my website at laurieejames.com to learn how we can work together, or to sign up for my newsletter so you can receive tips on how to date and relationship differently and ultimately find more freedom and joy in your life. If you found this podcast helpful, please follow or subscribe, rate and review and share it with friends so they can find more freedom in their second or third act also. Until next time.