December 20, 2024

“Joy isn’t a to-do list item. Joy is something you need to notice. It’s something that’s in the ether that just bypasses us unless we’re looking for it. I have a personal mantra right now: ‘I create space for joy.’ We tend to think we don’t have time for joy, but once you create that space, you have more opportunities to find it. Look for it in those messy, funny moments, like when the flour spills on the floor and the dogs get powdery noses. Find the moments. They’re there if you look.”

– Sari de la Motte

Podcast Transcript

Well, welcome everyone. We are deep into December, and if you are celebrating the Christmas holiday next week, then this podcast is for you—or any holiday. My particular holiday is Christmas, but of course, I know there are other holidays going on at this time. So all of these things can be useful to any of you.

As of this recording, the election has just happened, and I’m still reeling. What I will say about that is that the things I’m going to talk about in today’s podcast I’ve also used myself as of late. I believe—as you’ve probably heard me say before—that every decision we make comes from either fear or love. And the decisions that many people made last—whenever that was for the election—in my mind were made from fear. And that, to me, says we cannot respond in fear. Love is still the answer. And I just want to remind you of that, remind you of that, remind you of that.

Love is always the answer.

Alright, so why are we stressed out during the holidays? It’s supposed to be this magical time full of joy and wonder, and I think that’s part of the problem. In fact, I’ve identified four problems. I’m sure there’s more, but these are the ones that came up for me as I was outlining the podcast today.

And the first one really has to do with this idea that this is supposed to be a magical time of wonder and joy, which is we idealize and/or romanticize holidays. For one, we believe that they are perfect or should be perfect.

We look back into our past; we’re like, “Well, that’s the one time my family was happy.” I used to say that all the time to my husband to tell him why Christmas was so important. And then he took part in several of our family holidays, and he’s like, “Okay, this is not perfect. I don’t think that you have the correct memory here.”

And I think he’s right. There again is that romanticization—I don’t know what that word is—but romanticizing the whole holiday situation and this vision in our mind of what we think it should be.

And then we either give up before we even start because we’re like, “Well, I can never make that happen,” or we knock ourselves out trying to make it happen.

And of course, it never happens the way that it’s supposed to happen—again, in our mind when I say “supposed.” And so I think that’s the first reason holidays are really stressful, is because we romanticize what they used to be, what they should be; we’re trying to follow all the traditions and all of the things.

Closely related is another one that I’m going to talk about in just a minute.

But number two, I think, is the excess of the holidays.

This is particularly true around Christmas. I don’t see this—again, I’m not a part of that holiday—around Hanukkah or some of the other holidays, but Christmas particularly brings its own baggage when it comes to excess. There is too much of everything.

There are too many gifts, for one thing. Every year, Kevin and I are always like, “We are not going to buy that many gifts for Elena.” And every year we’re like, “We bought too many gifts for Elena.” Every single time. And then add the gifts that she gets from other people.

We drink too much. We eat too much. It’s just too much. It’s just excess on a grand scale. And that, I think, obviously is part of the reason why holidays are so stressful.

Family is a big one, I think. Holidays get people together, and that’s not always a good thing for some families, for a lot of the reasons that we’re talking about today. Some people have toxic families, and they’re very hard to deal with, so that can actually cause a lot of stress around the holidays.

And then number four is the expectations that we have around holidays.

Because of the romanticization—okay, I don’t know what that word is.

Kevin de la Motte:

Romanticization.

Sari de la Motte:

See, you don’t even know what the word is. So because we all romanticize things, I’ll just stay with that. We say things like, “Well, we always have to have X recipe,” even though maybe that recipe is a hundred years old and we can’t even find the ingredients. Or we always go to Grandma’s house even if we don’t want to go to Grandma’s house. Or we always go to midnight Mass, even though we don’t want to go to midnight Mass.

And so there’s all this expectation about what we think it should be, what other people think it should be, what other people think that we should be doing—all of the things.

So, this being December 20th, I know you’re in the thick of it. So here’s what I want to talk about today, which is how to protect your energy.

And so let’s talk about—what do I mean by energy? Energy is a force that flows through everything in the universe. I’m going to say every living thing, but they’ve found that there’s energy in rocks—at least I think they have.

So energy is this thing. We tend to think of physical energy when we talk about energy, like “I don’t have any energy today.” And when we think about it that way, we think about we eat calories and then we burn calories, and that creates energy. But there’s so much more to energy outside of food. This is the season of food. We can both absorb and burn—or I want to say leak—energy in a variety of ways.

For example, we can absorb energy in a positive way through being in nature or spending time with a good friend or resting or having quality sleep or doing edifying work. But we can also leak energy by having negative interactions or having toxic people in our life or being overwhelmed or burned out.

Now, when we have more negative energy, either that we’re absorbing or we’re leaking positive energy, that leads to us feeling run down, feeling depressed, feeling anxious, questioning ourselves. We get sick more often. And this is especially true for those of you who identify—or maybe you don’t and you don’t know what this is, so go look it up—as empaths. So, an empath is a particular style of personality—I don’t know if it’s personality—but it’s a way of being in the world where you tend to absorb way more than the rest of us.

For example, my husband Kevin is an empath. And as a coach, he absorbs the stories and the traumas and the issues that his clients are dealing with. And so he has to have a way to “process” that out, whereas I’m much more easily able to separate myself—not because I’m colder or don’t care about my clients, although that could be argued. Not the “don’t care about my clients,” but the colder part. It’s just that I’m not an empath.

An empath is like a sponge; they just take on other people’s emotions and energy.

So when we’re talking about protecting energy, what I want you to think about is the concept that you are always giving or receiving energy, both positive and negative.

So meaning that you are absorbing both good things and bad things, and you are also putting out good things or allowing bad things. And you could be putting out bad things too. I’m assuming that you’re not, but you could—that’s not what we’re talking about. You are allowing other things to deplete you of energy.

And so I have seven things that I want to talk to you about today.

I’m going to keep today pretty short because I know we’re all busy and we’re going into the holiday. But here are seven things that you can use to protect your energy so that you are not feeling drained and you’re not feeling stressed out during the holidays or really at any time.

So the first one is you have to say no.

This is so hard for so many of us—I’ll include myself in this—especially around the holidays because of what I just talked about: that there’s so many expectations. We always do this. We’ve never had that. We always eat this thing. We never eat that thing. We always go to this house. We do this on that day. We watch this movie on this day.

You have to learn that you get to decide how you spend your time. No other adult on the planet gets to decide for you how you spend your time.

And in addition—and I say this from personal experience—you do not need to justify your “no’s.” You don’t need to say, “We’re not coming because the kids are sick,” or blah, blah, blah. Just “no” is a complete sentence. “Thank you for the invite, but no.” “No, I will not be hosting this year.” “No, we will not be putting on the party we normally put on.”

You get to decide how you spend your time, and if you are really serious about protecting your energy, you will learn how to say no.

And Mama Sari is here to say and give you permission to say no.

Which brings up number two, which is you need to create boundaries.

Because once you say no, other people in your life are going to say no to your no. They’re going to be like, “You can’t do that.” And this is where boundaries come in. So I want to take a moment and remind you that here at H2H, when we talk about boundaries, what we’re talking about is that it is not this: it’s not “You can’t do that to me anymore,” “You can’t say those things to me anymore,” “You can’t treat me that way anymore.”

And this is where people get really confused about boundaries because they say, well, a boundary is I’m going to tell this person what they can or cannot do. And just like I said in number one where nobody gets to tell an adult how to spend their time, you don’t get to tell other people how to behave. I mean, you can, but good luck getting that to actually happen. That’s not how this works.

So when we’re talking about boundaries, boundaries are always for you, not the other person.

So where that might come into play is, let’s say you say, “No, we are not coming for Christmas,” or “We’re not going to do this thing,” and the other person won’t stop harping on it. A boundary is not, “You need to stop harping on it.”

A boundary is, “If you continue to harp on this, I will end the phone call, leave the room, block communication if it comes to that.”

So, boundaries are always about what you are going to do in response to someone not accepting your boundary.

So my boundary is I’m not going to talk about this anymore. So when somebody then says, “Well, we’re going to talk about this,” your option isn’t “Well, you need to stop doing that.” It’s “Here’s what I will do if they choose that.” It’s always about what you are going to do versus what you hope other people do.

We don’t get to control other people’s behavior. Believe me, I have tried. It doesn’t work on Kevin or Elena or anybody else. So you’re just going to cause yourself some problems if that’s how you think this works. So create boundaries. Decide what you are going to do in response to someone not accepting your no, which is step number two.

Step number three, or the third thing—it’s really not steps, just the third thing that you can do to protect your energy so you don’t have those energy leaks that are depleting you and you’re not absorbing other people’s negative shit—is you can “nope out.”

I want to give you permission to just “nope the fuck out.” And what I mean by that is there are certain relationships in your life—maybe; it’s not for everybody; I know it’s in my life, so it’s true for me—that cost more than what they give you.

Meaning it is so damaging to be around these people that it is a better situation or decision for you to just “nope the fuck out.”

Now, when I say that, I know it sounds impossible for many of you to be like, “I can’t do that. I could never do that.” And I’m not suggesting this is something that you do lightly. When I made this decision in my life, it’s with the guidance of a therapist and a coach and a lot of thinking about it and talking about it and really processing it after trying all of the things and none of them working. But I wanted to hear—and so I’m hoping those of you who need to hear it, I am providing that for you today—I wanted to hear that that was an option. Because it never felt like it was an option, especially where family is concerned.

It’s like blood is thicker than water and you always have to let your family in. And what I started to realize is that my health was literally at stake. I would literally go into a six-month depression or three-month depression every time I would be in contact with these certain family members.

And I had to decide that I and my health were more important than maintaining this relationship.

And I want to give you the permission—even if it’s just this holiday—to “nope out,” but overall to “nope out” of any relationship that is costing you more than it is giving you.

And I know that you may think, well, that’s not what relationships are; they’re not all about what you can get out of them. And that’s not what I’m saying. But I am saying that you have to look at your relationships, whether that’s family, friends, or anybody else, and say, this relationship is costing me, and it’s not giving me anything, but it’s taking so much.

Maybe it’s time to end that relationship, and I want to give you permission to do that. And I know that for me, as I was going through—and this has been a years-long process of getting to this place—it was, “Well, that’s ridiculous. I’m a mindset coach. I should be able to mindset my way around this and not let it bother me.” And when it comes to trauma, for example—which is what I’m dealing with—it just doesn’t work that way. We’ve always said—and if you go back to some of the podcasts I’ve done with Coach K around here and talking about trauma—we always say that we’re not therapists, but we are a trauma-informed company. We understand trauma; we have trauma. We’ve been and are currently being treated for trauma. We’re not the experts, but we are trauma-informed.

And what we’ve always said is that trauma isn’t something that exists in the brain; it exists in the body. It’s not something you can mindset yourself around.

That doesn’t mean that later on in life, and maybe you’ve done your work, that you could be around these people again. But for me, I had to put that aside and be like, look, I don’t know why I can’t be here or deal with this or whatever, but I don’t need to have a reason. I just need to know it doesn’t work for me right now and give myself permission to “nope out.” I would have said, “nope the fuck out.” But these are all two words, so I just said “nope out.”

Number four, gray rock.

All right, if you haven’t heard of the gray rock technique, let’s say that there is someone in your life and they are toxic, and for whatever reason you either can’t “nope out” or you’re choosing not to, but you don’t want your energy to be affected—or you want it to be affected as little as possible—you can choose the gray rock technique. If you Google it—and marketing, if you’re listening, which I know you are—go ahead and put a link. Any of the links that you find are fine as long as they’re a reputable source.

But the gray rock technique is basically when you are dealing with a toxic person, especially a narcissist—and by the way, you don’t need to know that the person you’re dealing with is a narcissist to be able to use this. Just someone who is toxic in your life. Oftentimes the toxicity continues because you give them—I’m not blaming you, I’m just saying—just you existing gives them fodder for more toxicity and a reason to engage.

And so the gray rock technique is a technique where you—I mean, when you think about rocks, what are the most boring rocks? They’re the gray rocks that everybody sees—the gravel, the rocks that you can find anywhere, all places.

And so the technique is basically that: become the most boring thing that ever existed around this toxic person.

So they try to get into it with you or give you advice; you go, “Huh, yeah, I’ll keep that in mind.” They ask you how you’re doing; you go, “Great. Good.” They try to talk about politics; you go, “Hmm. Interesting.” And you just don’t give them anything sticky to hold onto.

Now, in personal experience, when I was beating myself up for like, “Why can’t I just be in this relationship? Why can’t I just do the gray rock technique?” I was talking to Coach Jody, who I love and adore, and she said, “Sari, you are many things, but one thing you are not is a gray rock.” And for me, it would have been more harmful to do the gray rock technique because that would have to turn something off in me that is so part of my values—which is authenticity—that I chose not to use it. But it is very helpful for those of you who are looking for something—a way to get through the holidays without getting into it, without having your energy drained.

Because here’s the thing. You’re like, “But when they say the thing, it’s so untrue, and I need to argue with it.” And I’m saying, what is it costing you? What is it costing you? I care about you and your energy more than I care about your ability to put the truth out there or change their mind or all the things that we know probably aren’t working anyway.

I want you to protect your energy because here’s what I know when I come back to what we started the podcast with today, is that love is always the answer. And you are going to be more available to love when you protect your energy.

So I want you to really think about either noping out or using gray rock instead of getting into it with the toxic relatives, friends, or colleagues, because you’re protecting your energy for a bigger purpose. And that is to spread love in the world.

Number five, self-care.

During extremely stressful situations, whether that’s holidays or times at work or whatnot, this tends to fall off of our menu of choices, and this is the time when it is needed most.

There is nothing that you can be spending your time on that would benefit you more right now than taking care of yourself. So that is getting good sleep, drinking lots of water, exercising, and eating well.

I know there’s a lot of snacks and things around, and I’m partaking. Don’t get me wrong, I love my sugar cookies. But I am going to make an effort when I’m not at the parties, when I’m not doing the things, to eat well then and get my water and exercise. We tend to view that as another thing on our to-do list. And what I’m here to suggest is it is going to fuel all of the things.

It’s going to make you feel better. It’s going to ground you. It’s going to help you do the gray rock or the noping out if that’s what you choose. It’s going to give you the physical energy to be able to protect your mental and emotional and spiritual energy. You can’t be broken physically and then be managing the energy over here. They all are in tandem. So I want you to take meticulous care of yourself during these times, whether that’s during election cycles or holidays or overwhelm at work. Self-care needs to be at the top of your list.

Number six, create space.

You do not have to do all of the things. You don’t need to go to all of the parties. You don’t have to be in your kids’ classroom for all of the things. Where can you create space in your life to be in the holiday? I mean, there must be a reason why you’re doing the holiday things. Hopefully you’re divorcing yourself from those expectations. I mean, fuck the recipe that nobody eats but you always had since 1954. If nobody’s eating it, stop making it, for one.

But create some space in your life during this time, whether that’s carving two hours out on a Saturday morning to journal and have your tea while your husband takes the kids out to do some Christmas shopping for the aunts and uncles, or whether that’s getting together with your girlfriends, or whether that’s dropping a couple of the parties that you normally go to because you need some space. But I cannot tell you how much just creating some space, some moments, is going to make all the difference, even if they’re just small things.

Kevin and I have an agreement where twice a month he will take Elena and do something for the day, whether that’s watching movies—it’s always watching movies; what am I saying? It’s always watching movies. They’ll watch three movies in a row, eat so many Sour Patch Kids that they both have stomachaches, and I nope out. I’m like, “Y’all are on your own. Go have diarrhea, have fun.”

But all day, and they do a sleepover and the whole thing. So I get one Saturday—a whole Saturday—to myself. And we flip it. Two weeks later, I do it, and I’m with Elena all day, and we’re going shopping or getting our nails done or doing girly things—not that I believe there are girly things and boy things. And he gets to have the whole day to himself. Guess what he does? Watches movies. You guys, he’s obsessed. The point is that just knowing we have that time is so precious to create for each of us to just regroup.

And so maybe you can’t get a whole day in here during the holidays, but it is so important that you take that time and create some space.

The last one that I’m going to say for how to protect your energy during the holidays—a lot of these things have been how to avoid absorbing negative energy and how to help keep your energy intact—but this one is how to bring in more of that positive energy.

And two words here are: find joy.

Listen, there’s a lot of joy to be found in Christmas, and it has nothing to do with gifts, and it has nothing to do with having your house perfect. But there’s a lot of joy, whether that’s just enjoying the lights or a cup of hot cocoa or it’s snowing—which it rarely does here in Portland, but when it does, it’s amazing.

And going out there and just taking that afternoon off because school’s canceled and sledding with your kid.

I mean, there are moments of joy, and we miss them because we’re in the overwhelm and we’re trying to get everything wrapped and we’re trying to get everything decorated and we’re trying to make the food. When you create that space from the last tip, you have more opportunities to find joy.

I have a personal mantra right now that is “I create space for joy.”

We tend to think we don’t have time for joy. And joy isn’t a to-do list item. Joy is something you need to notice. It’s something that’s in the ether that just bypasses us unless we’re looking for it. So what I want you to do—that’s why I say find it—I want you to look for it. Find it in those moments of baking cookies and the flour gets spilled on the floor and the dogs’ noses are powdery white because they think it’s real food and then they realize it’s not.

Whatever. Not that that’s happened to me. Yes, it’s totally happened to me.

But find the moments. You have to go look for them. Find those moments of joy because that’s the one thing about the holidays which I think we all want and we look forward to, and it gets lost in all the rest of it.

No matter what happens over the next week or two, I do want to wish you a wonderful holiday, whatever holiday that you celebrate and however you choose to manage it. But do know that I want you on the top of your to-do list. So take care of yourself, enjoy your friends and family, or if you don’t celebrate the holidays, enjoy just some quiet time while the world kind of shuts down and grab your favorite beverage and just spend some moments finding that joy. I love you, and we’ll talk next week.