Episode 80: How to Avoid Holiday Burnout with Grace

The holidays are fast approaching. Do you know where your sanity is?

Join me and my guest, Life Coach Gretchen Larsen as we discuss the traps women fall into during the holiday season and how to create the kind of holiday you really want.

What You’ll Learn:

• The truth behind the frenzy of the U.S. holiday season.
• How to bring more grace into your every day life.
• Permission to do things differently.
• What you really need to enjoy this time of year.

Want to learn how to really start putting yourself first and make those changes you crave? Schedule your Discovery Call with me today so you can get a head start on how you want your 2024 to look. 

Hey friend! I’ve created a new training and companion workbook for you that will help you ditch those limiting beliefs that keep you stuck and create the confidence you crave. It’s 22 minutes of pure gold that moves you to the next level of success in your career or business. Go to my website, barbarachurchill.com and click the START HERE tab in the upper right hand corner. Enter your name and email and you’ll have instant access to this life-changing information. It’s that simple!

Transcript

 Hello, friends. I had the pleasure of having a conversation with my friend and colleague, Gretchen Larson. She's an ICF certified life coach, somatic expert, and all-around fabulous person. We talked about the upcoming holidays and how women in particular carry most of the load and are expected to do it all perfectly.

So many of my clients dread the holidays because of all that it adds to their already full plates and the pressure that they put on themselves. Wouldn't it be great if you actually had fun this year? Listen in as Gretchen and I discuss the issues and share our tips for not just surviving but thriving in all that holiday chaos. You're gonna love it. 

Barbara: I am so excited to welcome Gretchen to the podcast today. 

Gretchen: Thank you, Barbara, so much for having me. It's so great to be here. 

Barbara: We are going to have a blast. So, we have put this together and what we're going to talk about today is burnout. And it isn't just burnout in general. You know, this is November, the holidays are coming up. What are we going to do? And I don't know about you, but so many women I know have this sense of dread. So, we're going to talk about ways that we as busy women who want more can recreate our holiday experience with more grace. And I want to just say grace for ourselves. Okay, let's just give ourselves some grace, right?

So, Gretchen, let me just say, I'm so excited to have you here. She lives in France, you guys. I think this is so awesome, which of course I am so jealous of, but women are burned out, right? Talk to me about that. 

Gretchen: Yes, and I think definitely this time of year, we have so many expectations on us. We have our own expectations and the expectations of family expectations of job, all the stuff we're supposed to finish by the end of the year, but also all the stuff we're supposed to create for holidays. I think in Europe here, we're a little bit later in the peak of that because we don't have the U. S. Thanksgiving holiday. But you guys, you know, the US ramping up already for Halloween next week, right? And then Thanksgiving and then Christmas and you know, no wonder we're tired. There's so much to do and there's so many ways of enjoying the holidays now.

Barbara: So, what just fries me and, you know, and I don't think you guys have the retail frenzy over there that we do here. Right. 

Gretchen: Some it's later. 

Barbara: So, you know, it's August and I'm at Costco and there are Christmas trees out. What the hell? Every year it seems like everything is earlier and earlier. You know, I'm just waiting for them to tell me that Black Friday is now in July. I mean, honest to God, it's ridiculous, the pressure, right? 

Gretchen: Exactly. 

Barbara: And I remember... I mean, full disclosure, I used to be the woman who thought she had to be perfect. I was raised by a woman who was not, um, a very present mom, uh, but she liked everything to look nice. You know, it looked good on paper, right? We were really a good hallmark looking family. If you looked through the window, right? Oh, aren't they sweet? So, I got this thing like I have to, I don't know where I even got this idea. I have to be the perfect mom. I have to be the perfect hostess. I have to be perfect at everything. I remember one year I baked my face off. Now I enjoy baking. Okay.

But my timing was so bad because I'm working full time. I have kids, you know, all the things, right? Who thinks about baking a ton of stuff two days before a holiday. That's insane. But I did. And I know lots of women that do that. And I was my own worst enemy. I'm telling you; my expectations were way off the charts and I didn't have the time or the energy to do it, but I didn't realize how much it would take. I'm very famous for that. Um, I will look at something and say, Oh, it'll take a couple hours and then it's like a 10 hour project. So, I subscribed to what we are fed via advertising and the societal pressure of how, you know, a great holiday or rather a perfect holiday should look a certain way. And I nearly made myself nuts, honest to God. I was exhausted. And I tell you, I didn't enjoy that holiday at all. 

Gretchen: I would say that my top tip in this space of like getting ready for the holidays as well as just life in general for women is anything you can do to loosen your own grip on perfectionism is gonna help you and especially here because you know like you just said you told a story about ways that you went after all these perfect things for holiday for other people right but did you by being so tired and and not enjoying it ended up not being a really perfect holiday.

Barbara: It wasn’t for me. 

Gretchen: Right. And I'm sure though, for some of your family, it's like, would they rather have the burnt out, tired Barbara that isn't having a good time, or would they rather have you be present and show up? So can we, for the sake of having a whole holiday that actually... hits on the most important notes.

We're going to talk about this, I think a little later. But can we let go of the need to be perfect and move into what do we most want? And it does seem kind of, we kind of have to let go first. Let go a bit of the story we have about perfection. Let go of other people's expectations. But really with women, the ones I find we grip onto the most are our expectations of ourselves that we inherited from the outside. But we've made them our own. We're the ones who are staying up at midnight and one wrapping gifts and still trying to bake more cookies and, and, and, right? 

Barbara: You know, I'm so glad that you talked about stories because the whole month of October we focused on stories here on the podcast. And so I want to tell my listeners, if you're new, if you skipped October for whatever silly reason that was, go back and listen to episodes 75 through 78, because we talk a lot about stories and how we take on other people's stories and make them ours and how we can rewrite them. But the other thing that you said that I just, you know, it's the perfection thing. And if you're a listener, if you have been a follower of mine for any period of time, you know that I talk about The 4 Derailers™, and one of them is Perfectionism.

And I will say during my heightened craze of being perfect and trying to be all things to all people, um, the Pinterest boards of the beautiful tables, all of the social media posting, Martha Frickin Stewart. I know if you are out there and you love Martha Stewart, I mean, no disrespect to her, but honest to God, really? We're not going to use gold leaf on blown out raw eggs for our children's Easter baskets. What the actual hell? That was one of her shows. She lost me there. I was like, yeah, no it's craziness. But letting go how many of us can do that? We are high performing women we either own our own business or we're in the corporate space - letting go - that is not in the corporate handbook my friend. That's just not - you used to be in the corporate space, too. 

Gretchen: I think it should be. I think we need to learn to let go of the things that are not serving us, for sure. Yeah. And If we focus on the things that are very most important to us, there's a lot of other things that get in the way of that and those again are things that they are drivers. They are good things by their own rights like email, right?

You have to check your email. You're never going to not be able to check your email, but choosing when and how much you do it in relation to what's most important. 

Barbara: Yeah. 

Gretchen: Right? So, learning and, you know, maybe practicing small release, right? This is the only, we can't, again, we can't do this perfectly either, right? So, we're not going to go from being, you know, super driven about the holiday to having a totally Zen holiday. Right? So, we're not expecting that of you, everyone who's listening, please. We're not doing perfect, you know, letting go either, but can you just let go of one little thing, right? Like, for me, I let go of going to the mall any time in the month of December.

Barbara: Good idea. 

Gretchen: And I just started actually buying gifts in the middle of the year, like, especially when I was traveling, or whenever I'm somewhere in the summertime, I know this doesn't relate because we're in October, if you haven't bought your gifts yet, right? But I started doing stuff like that. So, when I got into November, I'd make a list, and there'd be just two people or three people on it that didn't have gifts yet. Because I'd been buying them all year long because I hate going to the mall in December and I did it because I hated it. But I also let go of the expectation that I'm supposed to do it when everyone else is doing it, or I'm supposed to go out and shop with my friends. No, that doesn't feed me going to maybe a party my friends are throwing if I have time away from my family. Yes. 

Barbara: Yeah, but so and that really speaks to, um, some of the shoulds that we take on, you know, we think we should go shopping with our friends because it's a way to connect. We haven't seen him in a while or we should, you know, I really want to talk, I want to remind people. Women do not put themselves on their to do list, their take care of list. They're not a list at all. Okay, I want, I just want to say, listen, let's just try and experiment this holiday season. Okay. Put yourself at the top of the list. Just give yourself permission to do that. It, I know it's easy to say and it's harder to do.

Women are pulled in so many different directions and we have bought into the belief that we have to do it. We have to do all of it. And be all things to all people. And I'm going to ask you to just take the first step to reversing this and put yourself first. Here's how I did it. And I just did this.

I've kind of been doing this over the years, right? But, um, my situation, my personal situation is very different this year with my dad and everything else. And so, I said to my kids and they're all grown and adults and perfectly capable of making a meal, right? I told, we had a conversation around the holidays. Thanksgiving, here's the gig, we're going to do most of the cooking prior to, and who wants to do what? I actually let go of the need to make certain items. And I watched myself struggle with it. I listened to what was going on in my body, I felt, I was like, oh my stars, this is big for you Babs, you better, you better get on this and look at it.

Gretchen: It is big. 

Barbara: And then for, for the, you know, Thanksgiving is the biggest holiday at my house because it's all about gratitude. It's Christmas, I understand, but I said to the kids, listen, I'm managing my energy this year. One, one major gift. The rest I will sub, you know, subsidize in cash. I'll, I'll do the stockings as best I can. That's the best I can do. You all are going to have to pick up the slack. And here's the thing. They were happy to do it. We just have to remember to learn to ask for help. We have to say, listen. Here's my limit. You all figure the rest out and then be okay with what they figure out. 

Gretchen: Yeah, there's so many great things in what you just said, Barbara. So the first I'm going to say it again for everyone listening Women and this is not just for the holiday and not just for Christmas. Practice it now, but take it into the new year put yourself at the top of the list. Even if you are serving your family and other people in all the ways that you serve in the world You need to be at the top of the list to show up to do that. That's the strongest best position for you to be in. So I just encourage everyone to play with that sort of notion. I love this idea too, Barbara, of asking for help. I think we don't learn how to do that early enough as women. I think women are more saddled with it than men. I think it's just sort of epidemic as well.

We just don't learn. Helpful, healthy ways to just ask for aid and assistance or sharing, right? And it is so hard to let go of the things we love to have turn out exactly the way we want them. Like you said, you noticed in your body. So, I encourage anyone listening, like if you find that you're there, you've put yourself at the top of the list, you're having a conversation, you're letting go of things. It's okay to just notice the things you want to hold on to. But still, I invite you to practice letting at least one more of them go than what you're comfortable with, and just see what happens, you know? 

Barbara: And the other thing is, we gotta remember, these holidays is, and I'm just gonna speak for the states, okay? The holidays here are, so much of it is based on consumption. All of the shopping, the sales, the, the push for that, right? All the food, all the drink, all of it. You don't have to buy into that. You have a choice. You have the power of choice. And I just invite you to use that this holiday season and start playing with it a little bit. You know, you and I talk a lot about play and all of that kind of stuff when we have our uh, bimonthly, um, calls play with this. It doesn't have to be a hard and fast rule. Don't worry if it doesn't work for you this year. Don't worry if you decide to let go of something and then you take, pick it back up again. Trust me on this. I'm the queen of that. 

Gretchen: Yeah. 

Barbara: No, just experiment with some of this, you know, and you, you talk a lot about focusing on what's important and. what is most important, you know, the traditions, you know, what do you want to, you talk about what do you want to create? What do you want to let go of? What do you want to recreate? Let's talk a little bit about that. 

Gretchen: Yeah. Can I actually just interject one thing before we jump there? 

Barbara: Yeah. 

Gretchen: So, we've already talked about women being at the top of the list. I also invite you as you ask these questions about what is most important and what do you want to create and recreate, um, to start within you, not from outside, not the message you get from your husband or your kids or your boss or all the other forces, but to turn the direction around to come from inside you. Like when you ask yourself, like, what's most important and you start this laundry list of the traditions in your family, right?

Notice what are the ones when you think about them, they make you tired or they don't bring you joy or, and it doesn't mean don't do them. It just means bring the rest of yourself into the equation. When you're asking, is it important? It might be really, really important, but if it takes you 15 days to pull it off well, and you need those 15 days to do other things as well as get ready for Christmas, then maybe letting go of this thing is the best option for you.

Right? So, as we talk about and think about what's important and what traditions do we want to have and to hold and what do we want to let go of, and maybe there's a new tradition we want to have. Right? And how do we make that shift? Right. But to start from what feels right for you inside, um, not just at the top of the list, right? Does it feel good? Does it not feel good? Do you have dread? Does it bring you joy? Does it bring you happiness? 

Barbara: I'm all about that. I'm all about if it's not fun, I'm not doing it. 

Gretchen: Great. 

Barbara: And here's what I've noticed too. 

Gretchen: If you have that But yeah. That's it. 

Barbara: And here's what I've noticed too, because my, my kids are all grown adults, you know, but as we moved through the changes in their ages and all of that, I kept doing the same things. And what I noticed were our traditions evolved. You know, as they grew up, I mean, we've kept some, you know, and the ones that we've kept, and it's so hysterical to talk to them now, you know, because Chinese food, Chinese takeout on Christmas Eve, I'm telling you right now. That is a must. That will never change. They look at me, like, if I try to suggest something else, they're like, what? Chinese food, old holiday movies and Christmas Eve. And then we made some new ones. You know, we were very staunch. You only open gifts on Christmas day. No, we, we opened one, uh, from Santa on Christmas Eve and then the rest in the morning.

And, you know, the other thing is there is a lot of pressure to celebrate with certain family members or certain people because you know, you haven't seen him in 364 days, but then we're all supposed to come together like some Currier and Ives print and be happy and all of that. Right? I, I am all about my house is open to whoever, whoever needs a place - come and share my table. Right? You have to add value. You have to be someone who adds to the energy. If you detract, I'm so sorry you're not on the list. You're on my naughty list. Okay? 

Gretchen: That's a fantastic thing to do. 

Barbara: And it's not coming because, seriously, I'm so done with all of the fakeness. And the, and the pretending and all of this, it's like, no, I have boundaries.

So, you know, sometimes you spend the holidays with your family of origin. And if you do, and it's lovely, that's great. Sometimes you get to choose your family. 

Gretchen: You absolutely do. And you get to choose how you, how you interact with all of that. My sister, actually, a couple of years ago, I'm the youngest, she's the oldest. So, she's got 17 years on me, she's approaching, she just turned 70, right? So she's not got the same amount of energy and she's got three girls. All two of them have families of their own. So she's four grandkids tired, right? She uninvited me to Christmas two years ago, three years ago, and I was crushed at the beginning.

We started having the conversation, but I understand it now. And once I understood what it was about for her, it's not that she didn't love me and didn't want me to, if I could just teleport in on the day, but she was being honest. She was like, I can't show up for my kids and their kids in the way I want to and have house guests that I feel the need to take care of.

Barbara: I love her. 

Gretchen: I love her too. And so once we talked about it, I was like, I was totally supportive of the idea and was like, can I come for Thanksgiving or what happens? And then that was a couple of years ago. And last year we went for the holiday, but we didn't stay the whole time with her. And. That the holiday dinner wasn't at her house we went to the holiday dinner and honestly after two hours we were tired of everyone running around and how crazy it was so we left because there were too many people doing too many things and half of the people that were there needed to just leave because it was too crazy. But this is the learning it's like actually what we used to think was perfect doesn't fit with how we are now. So how do you need to reform it and how do you want to reform it to have it be the way that's most meaningful for you and not tiring for you? 

Barbara: Yeah, and you know what? It's okay to leave early. You know, everybody doesn't have to stay, you know. 

Gretchen: Exactly, or you can come on Christmas Eve for the Chinese food at Barbara's house.

Barbara: That's right. Come on over doors open for Christmas Day. But that leads really beautifully into your next point, which is thinking about feeling and flow. Talk to me more about that. 

Gretchen: So, I think that one of the things we always forget, especially whenever we have a long laundry list of stuff to do right along Christmas list, is we don't always spend the time to think plan ahead.

We put everyone's parties and everything on the calendar and the work and stuff. Maybe we do that. Maybe we don't. But one thing we definitely don't do is we don't usually stop and pause and think about how do I want to feel. At the end of Christmas day how do I want to feel? On Christmas morning how do I want to feel? At Christmas noon how do I want to feel? The night before how do I want to feel? Two days before - do you want to feel rested and whole do you want to feel.

Um, like you have some space for yourself. One example, like going into maybe some more detail is like, you know, when you're in the kitchen and you're cooking and you've been cooking all day and now you're cleaning up and everyone else is sort of like passed out on sugar or turkey and or watching football, but you're still working and all you want to do is sit down and read a book or take a bath. But you don't get to. Well, if you're on the list, you put yourself at the top of the list and you've planned how you want to feel.

I want to feel like I'm done and I get to relax, too. I want to get some relaxation. Then how do you plan the activity differently? So either someone's help, everyone is helping you in the kitchen clean up, or you clean up the next day. Or even more like all this planning and present buying. What if you take all the money you spend on Christmas and take a trip to Hawaii?

Hey, yeah, like radically breaking out of the molds of the molds, right? You can take stockings and your Christmas Santa hat to Hawaii with you and sit under a palm tree and drink a Mai Tai instead of having a Chinese dinner. 

Barbara: Well, and I think this is so important because You know, how often really do we think about, well, how do I want to feel in a certain situation? We are so reactionary. We don't do that. And most women are just trying to get through the massive to do list that they create for themselves. And I think it's so important to pause and decide ahead of time how you want to feel so you can plan it. So, here's what you said that I think is so interesting.

And I would, I may try this experiment. Because you said, you know what, you're in the kitchen, you're cleaning everything up, everybody's watching football, and maybe you wanted to take a bath or read a book. What if you did? Everybody's, if everybody, if this is the thing that happens at your house, for example, if everybody's watching football, you can't have a conversation anyway, because everybody's watching football. What if you said, okay, I'm going to take the next half hour. I'm going to go soak in the tub. You guys enjoy the football game. I think there is this misnomer that we all have to be together. Every moment of the holiday celebration. What if you just need to recharge your battery? There are a lot of introverts that are like, listen, after two hours, I'm spent.

I love y'all, but I've exerted all my energy. I just need to go in a room and close my eyes, meditate, listen to some music, read a book, whatever. And then I'll come back because I'll be recharged. What if we did that? 

Gretchen: I think that's fantastic. And I would say to anyone Like, definitely do those things when they happen, but also, as we're talking today, we're still in October, before you make the to do list, before you list all of the stuff out that you have to do, or want to try to attempt to do, take some time and think about how you want to feel, and after how you want to feel, write down what are the ways that help you feel that way, because sometimes the way we feel that way involves support or something from someone else. Right. So, an example I would give is I know my nieces felt like they had to have everyone over to the house first thing in the morning, but then once they had kids, they realize, well, I actually want to just spend time with my sons, the two of them watching them open gifts before I have to do anything. I don't want to put, I'm just going to wrap my bathrobe on, we're going to eat muffins or something. I don't want to have to make breakfast for other people. I don't want to dress for the holiday yet. I just want to be by the tree in my sweatpants and robe and watch my kids joy.

That was so important. So they had to ask people in the family. Don't come over till three, don't come over till noon, right? But to think about how you want to feel, how you want to experience it, and then what are the conditions for that, and then those are the things near the top of your to do list that you're creating.

Barbara: And then you have to tell people about it, right? We have to, we have to discuss it like I did just this last weekend with my kids. I was like, here, what does it look like for you? What's the most important things? You know, I wanted this to be a collaboration instead of mom is putting this on. Right. I want this to be a collaboration and I will say I used to be all over.

Yep. Come early. Do all of that. Now that my kids are grown, you know, they're out of the house, they've been out of the house for a while. It's so lovely. For me to get up in the morning, make my tea, turn on whatever holiday music I enjoy, turn the tree on, and I just sit. 

Gretchen: Yeah, it's beautiful. 

Barbara: And I just enjoy being, and I, you know, I'm a big gratitude girl, so I go into my gratitude, I journal, I think about it, I feel it, the whole thing. It is such a beautiful way to start the day, instead of the frenzy and the rush, and I have to have the caramel rolls in the oven by 7 a. m. because, you know, what? No. So, really having a discussion and a collaboration. This isn't your holiday that you're putting on. 

Gretchen: Exactly. 

Barbara: This is a performance, like we're not on Broadway, right? It's how are we all going to create the kind of holiday that we want and let's find out what we want. Does that... Exactly. 

Gretchen: I was, I love that you used the word collaboration because I was gonna invite people like, can we shift out of, I am the creator of Christmas for my family or the primary one, right? I'm the president to, it's a team and. What does that shift look like for you right because it is probably a shift how do you have a conversation I think Barbara you just had a conversation with your family.  I’ve had some strange odd and interesting conversations over the years with mine as kids come and leave and grow up and have their own homes and everything else right but even without those forces at work you know just, you can still move into a space that's more collaborative, have a conversation with your family now the way it's formed now. Um, and again, I would do this after you have, you know, come into yourself and thought about, you know, what's most important for you and how you want to feel take those things into the conversation and maybe invite other people with those questions.

How do you want it to feel? What do you want it to look like and create something together? 

Barbara: And I. And I think it feels better. And I even asked my kids, uh, you know, when we had our conversation recently, I said, you know, what is it that's important to you? Because really, I think we assume over the years, there are certain things that are still important. And a lot of it, they didn't really care about anymore. Now, here's the thing. If it's important to me and it brings me joy, I will still do it. It doesn't matter if they want it or not. 

Gretchen: Exactly. 

Barbara: If it's important to me, like making pumpkin bread, I love that. I love sending it home. It's an old recipe. It just, it just makes me feel good, right?

So I will do that. I will not make a gazillion kinds of cookies. A. nobody needs that much sugar. B. I'm gluten free. Um, yeah, I already skip enough of stuff, right? And C. it's one day and then you have them and then, so I have gotten down to four cookies, four different kinds of cookies, and I will make a half a batch because they come, you know, I, I used to think that I had to feed the world. It was hysterical, you know, okay, everybody brings Tupperware, you know, here we go. My, you know, it's like they get the entire meal twice again. And I'm thinking to myself, okay, seriously, sister, you don't have to do this anymore. You don't. So, but then there are some things that are important. Like I mentioned to them, you know, maybe we should have my pumpkin cheesecake with the ginger snap crust for Thanksgiving instead of pumpkin pie.

Well, oh my God. The gasp sucked all the air out of the room. They looked at me like I had grown a horn in the middle of my head. What are you talking about, Mom? I thought, okay, well, that's a big no, but you know what? I want it. So, I'm going to figure out a way to make a, a, you know, mini portion for me in a much smaller. Cause I don't need, you know, this massive pumpkin cheesecake. Trust me. Yeah. But these are the kinds of things. 

So, let's, okay, let's kind of summarize best practices, right? We have make space for yourself. Even tiny spaces to think and clarify, right? And then we have what? Exercise choice? 

Gretchen: Exercise choice. When you exercise choice. Let go of expectations and perfection if you can, to the extent that you can. 

Barbara: To the extent that you can. Right - because you don't have to be okay. This is so good. You don't have to be perfect at letting go of perfection or any of the other Derailers™ .

Gretchen: Try it on. See where it fits. Where does it help you? Keep it in mind. Yeah. Right. Put yourself at the top of the list. Start from inside you.To outward. Make sure to ask for help. Gotta ask for help. Define what's important, ask for help. Ask for help. Think about how you want to feel. And then have a plan and have a conversation to collaborate on this with people, right? That's how you're gonna find out what's important to them, what's important to you when you can then, you know, negotiate. Right. Collaborate, ask for help in this conversation around the most important things. So, everyone gets something that's most important to them or two or three things. 

Barbara: I think one of the biggest things, and I remind myself, I have to remind myself of this all the time because, you know, our brains are always just going a gazillion miles an hour. And, you know, if you're a high performer, you just keep going, right? You got to give yourself permission to just slow the frick down. Just slow down. Give yourself grace. Nobody's looking for perfection except for you. So give yourself some grace. Have really good self compassion. Watch what that narrative is in your head.

Please do not get down on yourself if you didn't get the, you know, the end all be all gift that somebody wanted because it was sold out or, you know, whatever. I mean, just allow yourself some grace around this holiday. Be grateful for those that are able to come, those that are with you. Um, be grateful for the, the joy that it brings.

Be grateful for whatever it is that you need to be grateful for. But man, give yourself some grace because there's nothing worse than being trapped in the shoulds. Right? 

Gretchen: Right. Absolutely. 

Barbara: Any parting words for us? I'm telling you, Gretchen, she, when she talks about feelings, she is like major league certified and all this somatic stuff.

And she can, she's an amazing human being. We're going to have her contact information in the show notes so you can get ahold of her. But. What do you want to leave us with, my friend, my all knowing, all seeing, all intelligent woman that you are?

Gretchen: Well, I'm going to go back to, I think, something we've, you just talked about. One is having grace. But I think when we choose what's most important, we have this conversation with the people around us that are most important to us, and you decide what's most important for you, right? There's probably a whole bunch of stuff on the table. It doesn't fit anymore. That's okay. So, I give you permission. I know Barbara gives you permission. Give yourself permission to as much as you can release. It's again about letting go, but you're releasing the things that aren't as important. You're also releasing them because they can clog up and get in the way of what's most important.

So how can you graciously release the other options that help you just have you filled the table with stuff that's important and important to you and important to the people in your life. So, anything that doesn't fit anymore, I give you permission to let it go with grace and love. 

Barbara: And don't you just feel good when she says that isn't her voice soothing. She's got great meditations to y'all. I'm telling you what. Thank you my friend for being a guest. I really appreciate it. Happy holidays to you and  thanks for coming on and just letting us know we don't have to do everything. 

Gretchen: You definitely do not. All right, my friend. Thanks so much. 

Barbara: Have a great holiday.

Gretchen: Cheers.