Listen to the full episode here: Making Space for What Matters Before the Holiday Rush
Hello. This week we're going to talk about making space for what matters to you before the holiday rush and to just talk about space in general and how you feel about yours and what's going on in it.
This time of year, we're all returning back inside and spending a lot more time indoors.
I notice my spaces and the quality of my spaces in some ways even more this time of year than I do in the summer. In the summer and in the spring, you know, windows can be open and the birds are singing and there's a lot of energy and a lot of light.
And this time of year, it's a lot less bright until the snow falls and then it gets really reflective and there's oddly more light inside.
It gets darker earlier, it's a lot more cozy. The air quality might not be as good because the windows aren't as open, so I'm paying more attention to the HVAC and making sure filters are running and making sure that I'm vacuuming more and that the cat hair is getting vacuumed up and not just blowing around.
It's an interesting season, and it's also a time where I think about all of the people that I'm gathering and bringing in because I'm spending a lot more time at home and I'm inviting my daughter's friends over to spend more time and my family's coming over and our friends are coming over.
And we want to host more board game days and just role-playing nights and having a really great time.
Doing all of that requires having the space to do so and I'm so grateful to have that.
And I think about the quality of that space and what I'm finding important to tend to.
Sometimes in my life, I've thought that it's important about everything, you know, being clean and uncluttered and I would think of that more in a, I don't want to disappoint anyone kind of way. Like if people come to my house, I don't want them to be turned off or disgusted by the quality of my space.
And then as I got older and had kid, I thought, you know, I have a child, so there's gonna be clutter and there's gonna be stuff. And to me, it was important that it's clean, but I wasn't so worried about cluttered.
And now that she's getting older, I'm returning more to the wanting things to be pretty organized and not wanting to have just everything out all the time.
I personally find there's stress when there's a lot of clutter and stuff out.
So when I look in my office in particular, which is like my sanctuary, I will have my books, but it's also where I do my hobbies. So if I'm sewing or I'm knitting or I'm drawing or I'm playing viola, or I'm playing games or writing like anything, stuff just starts to accumulate.
And I think it's natural for any of us when you're doing an activity that those items start to just be laid out and maybe they don't get cleaned up and then you get caught up in doing things and now there's dishes and utensils and cups and mugs of tea and things that kind of got left behind.
If you have children or pets, like there's all of their stuff that kind of migrates into your space, whether you want it or not.
And eventually, without realizing it, we can start to feel like we're just oppressed and stagnated by the quality of the area.
And my cue for that is when I start to get really irritable, when I realize that I don't want to do anything or I feel like I can't even get started. That's usually my big one is if I have an idea of something that I want to do, and I feel like I don't even want to start.
Often if I look at my space, I can see that part of the reason that I don't want to start is that it's not even clear enough for me to feel comfortable doing so. And that's a good opportunity for me to just realign myself and think, "Okay, well, what's the next activity that I was hoping to do in this space?"
And how might I pave the way for that to be possible? This to me feels like the two sides of a coin. You can have a lot of things going on and it's very full and then you want to have the opposite side where it gets cleared out and there's space and it's empty so that you can flip it again and fill it up with more things.
I think that's a natural process and it's something that I can appreciate more now than I used to. I would get so angry.
Why does this keep happening? Why does my space always get so disgusting or cluttered or laundry keeps happening?
I've come to realize, you know, that's something to be thankful for, that obviously life is living and I've been able to get dressed many days and of course there's more laundry and I have to do it. It's the other half of having had laundry to wear and things to do.
It's not a bad thing, but it does need time and it does need attention.
And if I'm able to build in a rhythm into my days and into my weeks and months, that allows me to catch up. And I guess that's what it feels like, right? It is catching up when we're tending to our space and clearing it out so that we can do the next thing. I need to catch up, and I want that space. But I want to say that that's a very normal and natural process.
And we don't need to feel like we haven't lived up to something if we need to clean up or declutter or catch up.
Growing up, I felt like it was a punishment to be told to clean my room or that at the end of the day, when I was told, you know, "Clean up the living room or get your stuff out of here." It felt like a punishment, like, "How dare I have taken up the space and made a mess of it or used it." Now I look at it and go, "Oh, well..."
What if it wasn't a punishment so much as this important part of the other half of doing things. It's wonderful to come in and do things and have hobbies and have enjoyed that experience.
And then the second half of that is being able to tend to those items and put them away and care for them.
I enjoy looking at it as caring for my stuff and appreciating it when I'm putting things away or cleaning it up or throwing things away even.
Rather than feeling like I've disappointed someone or that it was bad that I had taken up all that space and used all of those items.
I had a lot of guilt at having hobbies and particularly with art where you're creating stuff, but you're making a huge mess. And there's lots of failed experiments, I would say, in painting. And there's lots of cleanup.
And just stuff everywhere where there's turpentine and solvents and paint brush cleaner and the clutter of all of it. There's so much technical stuff that would go into painting and setting up those areas.
And weirdly, I took up a lot of space even with writing. Even if I was just typing it on a computer, I'd still want to print everything out and look at it. And I even do that today with coming up with ideas to speak to you. And what's my brainstorm about the podcast and the next one? And I'll print out a bunch of pieces of paper and take notes and have ideas.
And all of that's part of my process. And then I find here I am speaking to you and recording it. And I'm not even looking at my notes. I just needed to have them and spread them all over the room in order to feel comfortable and like.
I was ready for that next phase. If you can look at your life as this beautiful process that keeps unfolding, where as you're doing things, you needed that process to get where you are and to be able to produce what you're doing and to enjoy what you're enjoying.
It becomes a lot nicer and kinder when you look at it and go, "Okay, Here's the evidence of all of that living. Here's the evidence of all of those things that I've been off doing and creating and experiencing with other people. And of course, the natural outcome of that is it's time to clear it up and clean it up."
I look to nature and I think of animals and how they also clean up their nests, right? And they clean up their dens to go and hibernate in the winter.
And that's a normal part of the process. It's not something that they're mad at themselves for, or that they think, "Oh, I failed myself by needing to have to clear a space and clean this up."
It's just something that happens. You know, leaves come in, leaves go out, you've got to move some stuff and freshen things up.
And that's okay. And if that's just something that you expect and you're not worried about either needing to enjoy it. I guess if I take away the need to enjoy the cleanup, it's really not that bad of a deal. It's just something that happens next.
And then there's this ability to enjoy the space that has been cleared.
And I really love that part and it tends to unleash a lot more creativity for me to feel like I finally have the room and the space to thank even. It amazes me how much my physical space is really translate into my mental capacity and how much space I have to think and to create and to plan.
And when I'm cluttered up and I have a lot of other projects out, my mind is very much occupied with whatever that stuff is, even if that project's been long over or it's not even my staff. If it's my daughters or my husbands or it's just things that are out and about I enjoy the cleaning in that regard to be able to feel that everything isn't it's right place and I know where to find it.
So there's something also about, for me, spaces and locations for things and feeling very secure and knowing where all of my stuff is.
Maybe in the heart of hearts, I'm like a little squirrel and I just want to know where I've hidden everything. And I like that and I want to know that there's a place for everything.
Mmm. So there is a price that we pay for all of our stuff and the things that are around.
And there's kind of an emotional clutter that we have to, perhaps particularly at this time of year of all of the things that we should have done or need to be doing. And that takes up space as well. And it's something that I've thought about clearing just as consciously as my physical space is my mental space and my emotional space.
What am I holding onto? And what am I worried about? What am I trying to plan for that's taking up an awful lot of my energy?
And how could I relieve some of that or declutter it so that I have space to actually do what I want to do and prepare for what I want to prepare for?
As we're coming into holiday season, there's a lot of big events that people are planning.
And there's the gift giving too, there's the gathering and the planning for all of the people that we care about in our lives, all of the events that we want to do in community gatherings. And all of that has its physical preparations, but it also has a lot of mental and emotional prep that goes into it.
And we're thinking, how are we going to pull it off? When do we have the time for all of this stuff? There's the mental gymnastics of...
coordinating budgets and timing and driving and schedules.
It can be a crazy time of year. I know that there's sports going on.
There is just general work. There's chaos, honestly.
And some of us are working extra to make up the difference and there's a lot going on.
So how do we relieve all of that clutter and all of the things that seem to be impinging on us from the outside to take up an awful lot of energy and space on the inside and in our brains.
So something that I do when I realize that I have a lot going on mentally and emotionally is I like to email myself to the future and schedule it out.
So if I know that I have something that I need to do, but I don't really need to do it yet, but I've noticed that I'm thinking about it a lot and I keep coming back to the thought and worrying that I'm going to miss it.
I will give it to myself as a task and because we live in this world of smartphones and every freaking device has a way to alarm you and tell you about something. I thought, "Well, why not use that for the forces of good and just take this off of my plate and just tell myself later."
So I would realize I would do this for bills and things that only come up once or twice here.
And the reason I would email myself into the future is that I didn't want to forget it. It felt very important, like, don't miss this bill, but it only comes up in April, or don't miss this renewal that's coming up. Do you want it or not? And I would find that I would stress about it for months.
Knowing that in the next season, like in the springtime, I was gonna have to remember to cancel some subscription or something and maybe I needed to use it a lot right now or I would feel very guilty.
To take that stress off my plate, all I had to do really was just have a little sticky note, but I didn't need it to be in my space all the time, cluttering up my space.
So my first attempt was really to write all these little lists, and I was like, you know, I don't like staring at this list of things because it also feels like a huge demand.
And I keep checking it, thinking it's something I have to do now. But the beauty of having the task on my phone or emailing myself for a future date was that I could just go, "Oh, I know that I've done it. It's taken off this list. I don't need to stare at it anymore." And it will come up like a week before this thing is due and I'll have plenty of time to handle it.
And I don't have to think about it for the next, you know, days, weeks, months, year and now that I've done this for a few years, I'm very relaxed about a lot of things like taxis and doesn't seem so hard for me anymore. Getting the minutes done up for my business isn't a big stress because I know that I'll just get the email when I'm supposed to do it and then I can do it then and it's done that kind of comfort and decluttering I learned to do over the course of practice in many years and I think everybody individually has their own ways of handling their own process.
So for you it may look different than it does for me.
But for sure, it's important to recognize when you have a lot going on inside of your head or a lot going on inside of your heart that you need to kind of offload in some way and stop carrying around.
You can figure this out for yourself that you already know if you're listening to this, if you're stressed out or there's something that you keep coming back to.
It's that kind of thing when you go to fall asleep and you realize that you can't because you keep almost alarming yourself awake with "Oh no, I forgot" or "Oh no, there's this thing."
Sometimes what you need them is to be able to have a practice or a ritual or a way to offload this for yourself that lets you feel heard by yourself, sometimes by other people, but I find when you do it for yourself, you're the one who can do the most for yourself a lot of the time.
So if you're able to have a journal or a voice recorder or something to be able to offload the thoughts, to be able to say out loud, this is the thing that I'm scared of, this is the thing that I'm thinking about or I'm worried about.
Ah, maybe a few sentences in, maybe a few minutes in to either writing and scribbling or speaking out loud.
Suddenly the thought comes up, the actual thing, at the heart of the worry.
the thing that you're like, "Oh, there it is. That's the thing. That's what I was worried about." And when you say it, there's this sense of relief.
that comes with it where you finally identify the thing, the actual root of the problem that was giving you the stress. And you're like, "Okay, I see you now." And because I see you, I don't have to hold on to you so tightly inside my heart or inside of my head. It's outside of me now. And I can trust.
This is something I say to myself. I can trust that if I go to sleep now and I wake up in the morning I'll still have this little voice note or this piece of paper or this journal that I wrote.
And it's gonna be okay. I'll be able to look at it again and handle it in a time that feels more beneficial or more possible to deal with this, but now is not that moment.
And I think that as we move into this stressful season, right, where we're gathering with a lot of people and a lot of emotions come up.
And a lot of activities come up that don't happen all the time, that they aren't weekly or daily activities, but yearly ones. So they have like a lot of emotional impact for us. This is the time where we have to take care of ourselves and give ourselves some space to clear the area and make it a little safer for ourselves to have our feelings, to have our thoughts, and have a place to put them so that we can come back to them when it feels like we do have more time when we have more space, when we're not feeling pressured by all of the things that are happening around us and to us in these moments.
And we can trust too that as much as we pack so much into the holiday season.
Following that, there is a big lull. I know in my experience anyway.
There's a lot of stuff happening just before, like, I guess Halloween Thanksgiving Christmas and up into New Years. It feels very busy and very social and overly packed for how quiet everything should be.
And then there's this long pause. It's like nothing happens in January and February. It's just a long slog of darkness and shoveling yourself out of the winter. So we know that that's coming and that there will be a time when it's quieter, when there's less demanded of us. And we have the time to maybe address some of these issues. So what I'm saying here is not to advocate for like putting everything off, but to give yourself some peace, realizing that there is time to deal with stuff. There is time to feel all of those things.
If you have time for it now, that's great. If you can clear space for it now, that's lovely. And if you don't, find some peace in realizing time is coming, space is coming.
It's natural, it's inevitable, there will be time for all of this stuff. And you do not have to solve every problem that you have right now. What a relief that is. Gosh, I feel much better when I have the thought that as much as I have going on right now, there's going to be some time. As much as I'm worried about what I'm planning right now that moment will come and crest and then recede and in that whole process.
There's no time and there's space and I can get back to whatever it is that I wanted to ponder more.
Ah, life can be really big and full, but you have your home, you have your heart and your mind, and these things are your sacred ground.
It's okay to treat yourself really well. And remember that giving yourself space for rest and slowness and silence is actually where you're filling back up and giving yourself the battery power to be able to handle everything that you want to handle.
Giving yourself that space is a gift and I think it pays off so much, so much more than if you think that you need to just power through the holidays full stop and never have those moments.
If there's anything that I could leave you with this week, I would say it's to remember that slowing down gives you more energy. That sounds so basic and so foolish and every kindergartener would be able to tell you that and say, "Well, yeah, you need to rest." And that's how you get your energy that you get up and you can do more stuff.
But we forget it as we become adults because we live in this society that's so busy.
And we have so many demands, and we have such creativity and desire to connect and do all the things.
So also, give yourself some credit and some praise and some appreciation for how much you want to give and to participate in the world.
Recognize how beautiful that is and how wonderful it is. Sometimes the appreciation alone powers you up, but if it's not enough and it can't be enough all the time, remember that you can put up some boundaries and that it's generous to put up some boundaries. That saying no to people when you need the break is a gift to let them know where you're really at.
And that people do want to support you and help you out. I find when I'm honest with where I'm at and how much I can actually provide or give, most of the time that's met with a great deal of understanding.
And I've noticed now that when it's not, it's usually because I'm talking to someone else who is equally as stressed out as I am. And there are...
At that level of such energy that they can't handle a change to the plan. And if that's where you're at, I have so much empathy for you and so much love. Let's take a breath.
Let's feel into what that is and why we might be so frustrated and stressed and fearful about everything not going the way that we want. I mean, usually it's born out of just wanting to be accepted and wanting things to go well.
But if you're finding that you're on that precipice and you're feeling really stressed out to...
Take a moment and be with yourself and recognize it and imagine being able to give yourself a big hug and say, "Okay, I see you."
And I see how stressed you are. And it's alright. It doesn't have to be perfect.
It doesn't have to go any which way, but the reason that you're showing up, the reason... that you want everything to go well. That's everything. And that's your values. And that's the important thing.
And just having that is good enough. It might not feel like it in the moment. Sometimes the surrender is hard but there is so much benefit to taking those moments to clearing that space.
To allowing yourself the time to breathe and to remember why you're doing all the stuff so that you have enough moments and enough space cleared to appreciate it. That's what's lovely.
Hmm. So I'm gonna leave you with three things, three questions.
The first one is to ask yourself, "What's something that I could release this week that isn't serving me?"
And it might be an attitude about needing everything to go right or...
a pace that's a little bit too fast. It could be an actual activity that you're like, "You know what? I just don't need to do that this week."
And remember, I'm just asking about what you could release this week, not release permanently from your life, because that also is a lot lighter and not so deep. The next question is, what's something that I want to hold closer to me? Something that truly matters to me.
Because that really recenters you in your heart and what's important to you and that alone can give you kind of a guiding light and compass. And then the last question is,
What is one small action that could honor that choice, the thing that I want to hold closer, or the thing that I want to release? Is there something very small that you could do right now, or sometime this week that proves to you that you're important and that your choice matters?
And how good would it feel to even do just something very small and tiny that honors that?
Ah, it feels good. So this is kind of a verbal clearing of your space.
And if you wrote it down or you just spoke them out loud, that can feel really good too, 'cause it kind of gets it out of your body and into the world.
Mmm. When you clear what isn't yours to carry, you make a lot of room for your own peace to arrive in your life.
You don't have to earn this kind of simplicity. You can actually just choose it every now and then in a tiny way.
The space that you're choosing to create today and this week going into the holidays could become the sanctuary that you get to return to as life gets louder and louder in the days and weeks to come and it's a space that you'll get to really rest into over the winter if you decide that you want to. I hope for you that you are able to take even just a tiny moment today or this week.
To clear space physically in your world, maybe in your office or your bedroom or your bathroom or anywhere.
Often for me, it's the kitchen table and my desk, and also the floor in my bedroom. Okay, so I'm clearing space all the time. But I hope that you're able to do that with a tiny smile on your face.
And I hope even more that you're able to clear out some of this stress that you might be carrying within your body, your heart, or your mind. I am sending you so much love and appreciation and I'll look forward to connecting to you next week when we'll talk more about rest and why it's so powerful.
Have a wonderful week and I'll see you then.
✨ Ready to feel calmer and more connected?
Download your free Emotional Alignment Starter Kit - a soul-centered guide to ease overwhelm and reconnect with what truly matters.
👉 Get your free kit here
Comments