Cultivating Peace and Preserving Self During the Holidays | EP 051

In this episode we talk about the art of setting boundaries with love and how to communicate how you're feeling from heart space. This time of year can be particularly difficult when it comes to navigating strained relationships, so let's talk about it!

If you're feeling stuck in what to do, there is a simple practice I share in this episode that will help you gain clarity.

Check out all of my offers and ways to work together:

The Frequency Journal
It's Time to Fight 6 Week Workshop
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lionheartcoachingco.com

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Transcript

Navigating Strained Family Relationships During Holidays

Speaker 1 0:00

Because maybe you have decided that this is the last time you will not be wearing the mask any longer, but you're not sure what to say. I want to give you this framework today. Welcome to courageous conversations with Lionheart Coaching Co. I'm your host, mandy Woodard. My goal with this podcast is to empower you to own your story and to live courageously in your relationships, with your goals and any adventures you might go on, and especially in your healing and self-discovery journey. I want to show you what's possible through what I teach and share and through the stories of others. Alright, my friend, let's get started. Hey friend, welcome back to the podcast and if you're joining for the first time, welcome.

Speaker 1 1:04

It is December 19th 2023, and this is episode 51. We are coming to the end of the year, and what a time for reflection and also a little bit of chaos. I don't know about you, but it gets a little crazy this time of year. It's not even just the holidays, though. It's the holidays on top of regular things that you have to do sports and dinners and all of the things that come with life, all of the things that we have to navigate on a regular basis. Let's throw in several holidays at once and to see if you can make it through. Let's just see if you can make it through. So I hope that you are not just making it through. You are enjoying the holidays, but I also know that it can be a really stressful, hard time of year for people and I want to talk about that today. That's what I wanted today's conversation to be about. Christmas is coming, it is literally this weekend and next Monday actually is Christmas Day and with that I want to talk about how that can feel energetically and, if you are in a strained relationship with your family members, how that might feel too, because it's almost like, since it's the holidays, there's this obligation to make things work and to reach out or take that first step.

Speaker 1 2:44

And, funny enough, I was really thinking about this after watching Home Alone the very first Home Alone and if you haven't seen it, that's a shock. It's been around forever and it's a staple in our house. My kids love those movies Not my favorites, but it's their favorites so we watch it a lot, and I'm thinking about the part at the end of the movie when Kevin is sitting in the church with the older man that he had been scared of the entire movie and the older man is sharing with him that he doesn't have a relationship with his son and it makes him sad. And Kevin's asking you know, why don't you guys just talk, why doesn't someone just make the first move? And I have watched this movie so many times and always thought, yeah, why doesn't somebody just talk?

Speaker 1 3:45

But now, being an adult and kind of living in that space where it's not always easy to be the one to reach out, and it's maybe not even something that we always want to do, maybe we don't want to do that, and I know that families can be really complicated, the dynamics can be really messy sometimes, and so that's why I felt like this would be a really good topic for the podcast right before Christmas and New Year. So I want to give you some insight and some tips on how you can navigate this season and what you maybe could do. So I've found myself in this place where I'm not sure if I should reach out. I do have family members that I have become very distant with Some don't talk to really at all and the question of do I reach out has come into my mind multiple times, and it's a different answer for each person, and you might be wondering, like Mandy, why do you have so many people you don't talk to? I kind of have to laugh about it, because it almost looks like is this where I insert the Taylor Swift song? I'm the problem? It's me. It's possible I could be the problem, but I actually also think that I have really good boundaries and over the years I've tolerated a lot and at some point this decision of I can't put the mask on anymore, I can't tolerate anymore, and so I got really brave and addressed things that needed to be addressed. And this is where it's left me and it hurts, it sucks, but it's also okay.

Speaker 1 5:51

We have to be able to honor other people's journeys as well and know that if we speak our truth, and especially if we speak our truth in such a loving way that it might not go the way we hope it does, it might not be received the way we hope it. It would be received. And I'll tell you I don't regret it because at the end of the day, I had to honor myself. You know, there's this saying that we've heard I'm sure you have too when a family member is acting a certain way and everyone else just kind of brushes it off and says oh, that's just how they are and I don't like that. That doesn't sit well with me. Just because somebody is the way that they are from, for whatever reason, doesn't mean that we should just tolerate it. It doesn't mean that we should just deal with it, with being treated a certain bit, with being treated poorly.

Speaker 1 6:57

I always believe in dropping into heart space and coming from a place of love love for yourself, love for the other person, hope that things could actually just get better. You want things to get better, but maybe sometimes things just can't get better, and so you have to put that boundary in place and I just want to hold space for you there. I I understand that totally. So when it comes to making plans for Christmas or Hanukkah or any holiday that you might celebrate this time of year, I want you to check in with your body and see how you feel. I did this episode, a couple episodes back, about. The body knows, and I want you to know that your body is gonna tell you what you need. Now, when we get anxious and we get really stomach achy, things can get a little dicey there, but we know that it's a sign that we need to take care of ourselves, that we need to take care of the situation, and when I say dicey, I mean like our brain likes to tell us stories, stories that just aren't true, and so with that, you have to be able to discern which path you need to go, but truthfully, checking in and honoring yourself. So let's actually do this practice together now.

Speaker 1 8:33

If you're driving, please don't close your eyes. If you are in a situation where you cannot participate, that's okay. You can just listen. It'll, it'll be the same. Maybe you can do it later.

Speaker 1 8:44

But what I want you to do is place your hand on your heart and close your eyes if you're able, and I want you to take yourself to a place in time where you felt so much gratitude and joy, just pure happiness. When in your life have you felt this? Everything was well, all was right in the world doesn't have to be an extravagant memory. It can be a simple one. Just take yourself to that space and really think about the details. Who are you with, what do you see? Can you recall the smells? Really get into that memory and sit with it. Give yourself time to just be here in that moment, and I want you to just take a nice deep breath and I want you to move to another memory. See if you can think of another memory, another time period where you felt so much gratitude and so much love, like all was right in the world. Who are you with? What were you doing? And then I want you to just send love to that time, take a nice deep breath again and one more time I want us to together move into another memory that you have, a time where you were full of joy and gratitude. Notice how old you were Again. Who are you with? Maybe there's a fun story that goes along with your memory. And then, from here, I want you to take a nice deep breath again. And now I want you to ask the question should I, should I reach out, should I go, should I take action? And the first thing that pops into your mind is what's correct? That's your intuition. And I love this practice because when we can get into that feel good space, that space of gratitude, we are then in that gooey feeling and from there we can make a pure decision, because it's our intuition speaking to us, it's us being able to do a quick, get quiet, get into heart center and then ask the question. And if you don't get the answer right away, you may have gotten a little bit closer to the answer. So do it again and again, and again, as many times as you need, and it will help you get to that space of clarity. So courageous conversations.

Speaker 1 13:00

I started this podcast because I did want to talk about the hard stuff. I did want to talk about how hard life can be sometimes, but also how can we move through it, because it's really important that we do. We move through it. We don't allow ourselves to stay stuck, and I talk about that so much. It has a lot to do with energy, and stuck energy it makes us sick, and we don't want to be sick. We want to be happy and healthy and live full lives. I know that that's what we all want, and sometimes we just don't know how to get there. We will get stuck in the victim mindset or we will use our wounds as currency and hold them up like they're this badge of honor. If you need help navigating that, I just would encourage you to listen to more of these episodes.

Speaker 1 14:00

But also I am hosting a workshop in January that I am really excited about, because it's a collection of tools that I have been using with my clients for the past several years and I really feel like, after all this time coaching one-to-one, I have this understanding of what works for the majority. So, now that I have this, I feel like I'm just being pulled like a magnet to do this, to host this workshop and give the opportunity to have that coaching without the one-to-one. One-to-one is powerful, by the way, and I never want to discount that. It's still something I will continue to offer, but sometimes we like to just listen, we want to just be observers and we want to kind of navigate things as they come up for ourselves, and so this is that opportunity for you, and I've been coaching for the last since 2019. I got my first coaching client in 2019, and, ironically enough, it's those first people like I was helping them navigate family dynamics, and it's a pattern that's continued through my sessions.

Speaker 1 15:28

So when you're having a hard time with someone and you're not sure how to address it because maybe you have decided that this is the last time you will not be wearing the mask any longer but you're not sure what to say I want to give you this framework today, and also, this is all improv and I'm going to say this and I'm going to tell you After this, maybe you go back and redo the part where we get into Heart Center, because it might bring more clarity to you, because you'll now gather this information as well. So if you're having a hard time with someone and you need to say something, it's time to say something. You can't stay quiet any longer. I want to offer you this framework for how to orchestrate the conversation. So the first step is to decide how you feel, and so if you just did the gratitude practice and got into Heart Center, perfect. If you need to do it again after this, that's great too. There's no wrong way to go about this. But I want you to first listen to your intuition and make the decision of whether it's time to say something. So I'm going to share with you something that I use with my clients and with myself.

Speaker 1 16:46

When we are needing to confront a difficult situation, it starts by saying an apology. What can you be sorry for? What responsibility can you take? Because that's difficult, but let me tell you this simple one. You could say I am sorry that I have not been honest with you in letting you know how I feel. I have instead kept things inside and that is not fair to either of us. So that's the beginning.

Speaker 1 17:21

The next piece and this next sentence is very important and I'll explain why. But the next sentence is but the reality for me Now that part right there, but the reality for me is huge because your reality might not match their reality and we have to honor that. Everyone's perspective is different and they may feel like theirs is what's true and you feel like yours is what's true, and reality is all skewed because we all see things through our own set of filters, so to say. But the reality for me is that I feel blank, you could say I feel uncomfortable, when you say XYZ. I feel like we have grown apart. I feel like we are no longer in alignment. I'm just giving you some examples.

Speaker 1 18:28

And from here, this is where you can say what it is that you need, what are you needing and what's the request you can make. This is a little bit of nonviolent communication mixed in. Now, if you want to just go the nonviolent communication route, you can. So you could say your observation. If it's a specific incident, you would state your observation, the facts of what happened, no opinions, the feelings that were created based off of your observations and the need that you have to enrich your life and the request that you can make Now. I wanted to talk about that because when it comes to this time of year and having to be around people and maybe you don't want to be around them there's sometimes a good way to say things. There is always a nice, loving way to have a conversation Now. If they can't receive it and it doesn't go, well, that is on them. That is not something that we can ever predict either, but honoring yourself is really what matters here, and also being respectful to the other person, and I find that when you go about it that way, you are handling it from such a place of love and compassion. It's compassionate communication.

Speaker 1 19:43

And the last thing that I want to share is I created something called the frequency journal and I want to explain to you what that is. So I have found that when you can evaluate where you are on the frequency scale which if you're not sure what that is, you can Google that, but also it's in my journal and I will link that in the show notes. You can also go to stanstorelionheartcoachingco. If you aren't able to see the show notes, that's where you can go to grab that. It's free. Just put your email in and it'll show up right to your inbox. So the emotional frequency scale you're figuring out where your emotion is, and then the next step is then to see where you feel it in your body and which chakra is it aligning with? Where is it connecting for you? Once you do these things and then you start to journal out the situation, it can help you to zoom out, to see the story from the higher place, from another perspective, and allow you to then navigate what to do next.

Speaker 1 20:55

The goal is to neutralize, to become a little more detached. Detach yourself from the outcome, detach yourself from the thing, because if it is taking your power, if it is a power leak, that will drain your energy and will leave you feeling unwell. So we have to clean that up, and this is just one method to do that. There's many. It's one way I like to go about doing that. I'm going to wrap this up because it's the holidays and we got stuff to do, but just to kind of bring it all together. One if you are having a hard time with family, know that you're not alone, and if you're not able to see someone this year. Maybe you can make it a goal to have a different conversation next year, if that's what matters to you, and if not, that's okay Do the practice to get to heart space and then make that decision of how you want to move forward. If you do need to confront someone, though, I really hope that framework that I laid out helps, and if you need more from me, you know you can always book a one-to-one session. I do virtual sessions, and also I would love to see you in the workshop in January.

Speaker 1 22:19

It's called it's Time to Fight, and it's because I believe so much that it's time to fight for a life worth living. You have so much power inside of you, and sometimes we just need a little help reigniting that light, reigniting that flame that burns inside. I am sending you so much love, though. Please, please, if you love this episode, share it with a friend and feel free to give me a shout out on social media. I'm at Lionheart Coaching Co on Instagram and YouTube. I'm on YouTube now, by the way, so excited about that and until next time, please remember that you are loved and you are valued and you are appreciated. Bye now.