Calm and Bright Holiday

The holidays don’t have to feel rushed to be magical. 

Welcome to Episode 2 of   The Calm & Bright Podcast Trail — a  podcast holiday collaboration sharing 6 gentle episodes to help all of us find more calm (and Fun!!) this season. 

Each episode lives on a different podcast, so you follow the trail one voice at a time. Start here and let calm make room for joy. The next stop is waiting for you.

Day 2 Dec 20th will be on the Live A Vibrant Life Podcast

Day 3 Dec 21st will be on  the Her Gypsy Rebel podcast

Day 4 Dec 22nd will be on the Inner Spark podcast

Day 5 Dec 23rd will be on the Aligned & Abundant podcast

Day 6 Dec 24th will be on the Worthy & Abundant podcast

Tools to help you stay calm this holiday season

1. Feel your feet.
    Literally. Wiggle your toes. Press them into the floor. Feel the contact.
   
   
2. Breathe low and slow.
    In through the nose for 4…
    Out through the mouth for 6…
    Drop your shoulders.
    
3. Name one sensation.
    Warm? Tense? Buzzy? Whatever it is, just witness it. No judgment. Just notice.

Let's connect.

I am cheering for you!

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the Calm and Bright Holiday podcast Trail. I'm Kelly Tibbitts, host of the Live A Vibrant Life podcast. Today we're going to be talking about how we can care for ourselves in the middle of this busy season. Welcome to the Live A Vibrant Life podcast. I'm life coach Kelly Kibbitz, and each week I'll be here to encourage and equip you with the tools you need to grow in self-awareness and invest your best energy in your dreams and your purpose. I believe self-awareness changes everything. Let's get started. This is our second episode in this holiday series. I'm here today to help bring a little calm into the chaos of your holiday season. Do you find that the holiday season can feel overwhelming? Your people, who you love, can still create chaos! If we don't pay attention our emotions get bigger and really try to get our attention. That emotional wave can feel like a tsunami. So before we jump into the fun tomorrow, let's take some time to honor our body. Here's the truth, we can't play and enjoy life if we don't feel safe. So we're not going to skip over all the heavy just to get to the place where we're feeling that joy we want to feel in the holiday season. If we take some time today to land in our body, to allow what is to be. Everything will be more spacious. More joyful. And more you. One of the things that changed my life as I began to do the work that led to me becoming a coach-was learning about the fact that my body is constantly somatically speaking to me. I am an Enneagram coach. I help people understand why they think, feel, and do life the way they do. One of the primary things I help people notice is if they process the information of life through their thinking center, their feeling center, or somatically through their body. And so today we're going to take a moment and look at all three areas. Maybe you'll notice this is what you normally do and the people that you love, they might do it differently. So before we begin, take that breath. Allow yourself to just notice how you're doing. Do you have a power thought that's going to drive your actions this holiday season? I'm choosing a thought from silent night. All is calm, all is bright. I'm going to be calm and I'm going to be bright. What does that mean? Calm is noticing the feelings that are rising and falling in my body and landing in that place of neutral. Not the overwhelming, everything is too much! And not the everything so much i'm going to pull back and take a nap and not get out of bed. Where is that neutral of calm? What peaceful thoughts bring me there? How do I feel my feelings and allow them, notice them, journal them, speak about them? And then in my body, do whatever I need to do to get back into that calm energy. To release all of that overwhelm and frustration that comes. Being a mom during the holiday season, it feels like everything falls on our shoulders, doesn't it? So let's take a moment today and notice what you're thinking. Some of those thoughts, they're just not serving us. Let's write them down so we can notice them. Kind of like cleaning out your purse and you start to think, why am I carrying all of these things with me? Why am I carrying the thought that everything has to be perfect? Or have to make five different kinds of cookies and bring them to people who don't even want any more dessert at this point? Let's notice what we're thinking. Do we want to keep it on repeat? Let's notice what we're feeling and begin to allow it. And then finally, let's connect to our bodies somatically and do a few practices that bring back the calm the enthusiasm and the joy, this holiday season. Okay, so how can we start? What's a real life portable practice we can have? I know most of us aren't walking around with our yoga mat under our arms, so what are we going to do when we're at a party and it's just too much. It's too hot, it's too loud. There's just too many people, and you're tired. Is there a way for you to just pull yourself away for a few minutes? Maybe you just walk into the bathroom and act like you're fixing your hair, but really you're just taking some of those breaths so that you can calm back down. Maybe you're going to go to your car and go for a ride. I remember one time where my adult kids were home, became so overwhelming for me. I just got in my car and drove away. I didn't tell them in advance, so they were all really nervous about me leaving, but it just became too much. Does that ever happen for you too? It's all too much. Everyone's yelling, everyone's loud, everyone's frustrated. The car might be a great place to just go and spend a few minutes put on your favorite song. Or sometimes we can't go any more. We need to find the practice that serves us in the middle of the space. I was a teacher, and I know at the end of the day when things would get really hard, it wasn't like I could just leave the classroom. So I'm going to share some of the tools that I've used that you can use anywhere. In the middle of a church service where it's too loud and too crowded and you can't leave the pew, or you're at the party and you wish you could go home and just put on the Hallmark movie, but you can't. So what are we going to do? Let's start with just feeling your feet. Literally right now. Wiggle your toes, press them into the floor. Connect.Ground. If you're able to go outside, look at the stars. Maybe you need just a few minutes of breath work. Put one hand on your heart, close your eyes if you can, and breathe in. Maybe hold for four and then breathe back out. See if you can drop your shoulders, drop your jaw, take a couple more breaths. How about those feelings that are vibrating through your body? Can you name them? Are they warm, cold, moving, still, heavy, light? I know some of us can even notice the colors. Whatever it is, can you feel it? Start at the top of your head are there any of those vibrations there? Sometimes they're right behind your eyes. Might be a little bit sad. It might be in your jaw, a little tight and frustrated. Whatever it is, just witness it. There's no judgment. Let's just notice together. And by noticing and allowing often that feeling that felt so big and overwhelming, it just starts to soften a little bit. I would put my hand on my heart and take a few breaths, maybe pat a little bit and say, it's okay. We're good. Sometimes our body feels so overwhelmed, we forget that as we look around we're actually okay. Do you have a playlist that helps you maybe putting on a song that feels calming and gentle. Maybe deciding you're going to take a bath every single night with some Epsom salts? I like to use battery operated candles and keep the lights down low. Whatever it is, I wanted to remind you today nothing's gone wrong. It's the busyness of the season. Thoughts that we're not noticing, feelings that haven't been allowed and honored, and then time to connect again just to yourself, even if it's for 30 seconds. So I hope listening to this has helped you feel a little more grounded. Practice that maybe two or three times a day get back to that calm and that bright energy. And when you feel connected and you're ready, I'd love for you to listen tomorrow to Her Gypsy Rebel podcast because she's going to help us notice what we need to this season. I am gonna link Jacqueline's podcast in the notes. I hope you get to follow her on Instagram as well. Thank you so much for being here today. We would love for you to listen to all of the episodes and find one small tool each day that can help you live the calm, bright holiday this season. Thank you for joining the Live A Vibrant Life podcast. I hope our time together encourage you and will equip you with the tools you need to move into the vibrant life you desire. I'm here to help you live a brave, creative, purpose-filled life. And if you'd like to learn more. You can follow me on Instagram or Facebook, Kelly tibbits life coach, or visit my website kelly tibbits.com. I look forward to connecting again soon.