Week 12 (of 12) of Soul University’s Holiday Blues Busters Series.
We’re nearing the end of our Holiday Blues Buster series. As we prepare to launch you into the rest of the year, it’s time to set up and review some healthy habits. This particular exercise, you’re going to need two large sheets of paper. We’re going to do some brainstorming. We’re going to do some mind mapping so that you can get a very clear idea of what you need to do for the rest of the year, and ongoing, to increase some healthy habits.
As you scramble for that sheet of paper, and something to write with, I want to thank you again for taking this journey with us over the holiday season. We hope you’ve enjoyed your journey and getting to meet and greet some interesting people along the way.
Exercise 1
For this first half of a two part exercise, on your first sheet of paper, I would like you to draw a circle. Have that circle take up most of the page. This circle is going to represent a pie. As in a time pie. 24 hours, 24 slices. So drawing a big circle. In that circle, one healthy habit I pray all of you have is enough rest. So I’d like you to first section out that pie with the amount of rest you should be getting. So if there are 24 slices, I hope and pray that you have at least six, if not eight, of those slices colored out for rest.
Or basically one quarter of your pie chart is designed for you to have your eyes closed. Yourself tucked into bed and getting plenty of rest. Once you’ve sectioned out your rest portion of the pie, what other things do you do that you know are healthy for you? For example, each day, do you spend some quiet time?
If so, how much? Each day, do you spend time in a particular exercising program? Or maybe you do a little tidying up. Just brainstorm on the backside of that first sheet of paper some of the things that you do that you know are healthy for you. Exercise, cleaning, meditation, laughter, reading.
Things that aid your health physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Brainstorm a list of things. On your pie chart side, color that in so that you’ve got a full, healthy day. Part of your full, healthy day, of course, would be… whatever you need to do to make sure your bills are paid. Now, if going to work, if how you earn an income is something that’s less than healthy for you, we need to deal with that. It’s time you get in one of our classes to help you resolve the stress related to earning an income.
So part one of this is creating a map, a time map of what a healthy day should look like. On one side of that sheet of paper, you’ve got your pie chart. And on the other side of that paper, you’ve got a list of things that you know are healthy for you. As time goes on, you can add to your list and color in your pie chart.
Exercise 2
The second sheet of paper now we’re talking about that stuff that you know is not healthy. Ha. You know all too well you should not be doing whatever those things are. On one side of that sheet of unhealthy habits, what are some of those unhealthy habits you know you have?
Let’s get real. The only person who’s going to see this pie chart and this list is just you. Brainstorm a list of things you know that you do on a daily basis that shouldn’t be part of your daily basis. You know they’re unhealthy for you. Maybe you’re eating or drinking or doing something that you know is unhealthy.
What are those things? Doubt, Guilt, Shame, and Worry will be on everybody’s list most likely. As you think about how much time you spend with Doubt, Guilt, Shame, and Worry, one way to get a handle on that is take a little sheet of paper with you throughout the day, draw four squares. Write the word doubt, guilt, shame, or worry, one word per square.
And as the day goes along, put a little tick mark in there. Every time you catch yourself doubting yourself. Feeling guilty. Having a sense of shame. Or worrying about something, just put a tick mark in there. And at the end of the day, look at those tick marks! What were those tick marks representative? A minute or two? An hour or two?
As you list those things out that you know are less than healthy for you. Maybe it’s time you spent arguing with people. Maybe it’s time you spent in rush hour gridlock traffic. Maybe it’s time you spent simply avoiding what you know you need to do, like possibly go for a walk. Ha.
Avoidance is another one of those unhealthy habits. Procrastination is another one of those unhealthy habits. The goal in your brainstorming of things that you do on a daily basis, that you know aren’t as healthy as it could be for you, as you get your list together, you’re going to begin to see themes.
And you can start grouping those themes together, and on the other side of the paper where you have your pie chart, you can begin to draw out the time that you actually take with those unhealthy habits. Once you have those two pie charts, you can look at where you can be and where you are.
What’s the middle pie chart? What are the steps you need to take to get to that healthy day? We’ve set you up for a healthy day through the last few weeks of our Holiday Blues Buster series. If you recall, our very first healthy habit is we started talking about time management skills. We asked you to look at how you set boundaries.
Do you set enough boundaries? For example, are you saying yes when you should be saying no to people? Are you pacing yourself accordingly? In week two, we looked at the difference between what traditions are and what rituals are. Habits, as you recall, fall into those categories of healthy and unhealthy. In our second week of the Holiday Blues Buster series, we began to look at how to dissolve unhealthy habits.
Another way to get to a healthier day is to be really clear on your balance between giving and receiving. Week three of our journey together, we looked at finding that healthy balance between giving and receiving, and that has a lot to do with your time management skills, your boundary setting skills.
So that balance between giving and receiving, where are you out of balance? Where do you sense you need more of? Or less of. Spend some time just pondering this. And you need not answer every single question that you’re hearing in this class immediately. Take some time. Ponder. Have a journal handy. Write your thoughts down.
Another way to regain a better sense of health on a physical, emotional, and spiritual level is recalling what we talked about in week four. Week four we dealt with clear communication skills. We practiced ways to be clear in how we communicate. Because, let’s face it… If we’re not hearing someone correctly. If we misinterpret something. Or if we say something that causes a bit of a damage, then we’ve got damage control, right?
If we say something and we assume someone understood what we said we all know how that may end up. So once again, part of establishing some healthy habits is by establishing healthy communication skills. If you need to, go back and listen to those suggestions so that you can remind yourself what actual communication is all about on a healthy level.
Finally, another step. Recall what we did in week five. We looked at a perspective. A perspective by looking at how we just ponder. Are we the glass half full type or the glass half empty? Are you more of a positive person? Or are you more of a pessimistic or negative person. One way to get a handle on our healthy habits is where do we fall more often than not when we ponder?
Are we pondering the worst case scenarios all the time? Or are we pondering the potential, true potential? Again, I invite you to put some reflection time in your healthy habit pie chart. Reflection time could just simply be having a nice… cup of something, staring out over nothing, and just pondering, allowing your brain to go wherever it wants to go.
A little different than meditation. But as you ponder, it’s like composting. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a compost pile, but when you have your lawn clippings and then your leaves and other stuff, you throw it on the compost pile and over time nature does its thing. The leaves and the grass and the weeds and whatever else you’re throwing in that compost pile slowly begins to dissolve and decay and turn into some really rich dirt.
If you think of your pondering time as your composting time, meaning you’re pondering what happened today. What all unfolded before you? What are some of those things that struck a chord with you for that day? And maybe making a mental note of what the highlights were. And throw them on your mental compost pile.
And over time, as you just allow yourself to ponder, you’re going to find your compost pile is rich with extraordinary ah hahs. That’s something we strive for in every single class at Soul University. As we begin to wrap up this class, we’re going to remind you of Week 7, our post holiday sigh of relief.
We looked at some extreme self care tips. Another way to get into some healthy habits for this year and every year is, what do you need to do to take care of yourself that you think is extreme? If you recall, one of the things that we talked about is, it might be extreme for you to say no to somebody more regularly.
It might be an extreme self care habit to start setting more healthy boundaries with yourself. I’ll give you a classic example of setting a healthy boundary with myself. Just about every grocery store I’ve ever shopped at, by the time you get up to checkout, what do they got all around that checkout?
Candy, treats, all this little stuff that your impulse buying wants to kick in, right? One of my healthy habits it’s just looking at the diversity of all the things that are waiting for me to buy, but that I really don’t need.
Ultimately, before the end of this month, I encourage you to put some thoughts into action and make them bite sizeable. For example, are you drinking enough purified water every day? We talked about this in extreme health care. Eight ounces of water. One cup of water, every hour, from the time you wake up to about six hours before you go to bed.
Do you have a water bottle with you at almost all times throughout the day where you can refill it, avoid filling up the landfill with all those plastic bottles. But one of the ways to put thoughts into actions, and especially increase your health, is simply being hydrated. It seems so simple, but there are so many people that I’ve met that, Oh, I just can’t drink water.
Here’s a reality check. Our brains are mostly water. When we become dehydrated, thanks to tea. Thanks to coffee. Thanks to breathing! When our body needs more water, the first place it starts pulling water from, when we start sensing a need to drink something, that we’re thirsty, is our brains. As our brains decrease its water have you noticed you get fuzzier? You might get crankier? Your attention span dissolves?
By drinking just water, and ladies and gentlemen, just remember, water. Not water with some fruit additive. Because any water with anything else in it, our body processes it as food. And our body requires water to process food. If you’re drinking water with a little squeeze of lemon in it, it’s actually eating not drinking.
Thank you again for making these pie charts between your healthy and your unhealthy habits. Before the end of the month put some thoughts into action. Pick just one thing. One thing that you need to do to have a more healthy day.
And by all means let’s talk about the support that you need to make sure that those actions actually are done. How can we help you get those done? When you dial into our conference call classroom, we’ll help you create ways to gently, persistently, maintain accountability, one day, one step at a time.
Alright, that’s it. Lecture time is done. Time to get into our conference call classroom.
And in class, we’re going to explore more the information that you just experienced in this lecture. To register for the series, click the links at the bottom of the page. Follow the registration instructions to join us for our weekly, live, lively, conference call classroom. Get ready for some wonderful laughs, some ah hahs, all from the comfort of your phone.
I look forward to meeting you and to being of service. And now, time for class.
Soul: As you were listening to class, I’m curious. What did the little angel say on one side of your shoulder and the little devil say on the other side of your shoulder? Anybody have anything pop up for them?
Marsha: Oh, gosh. I know the little angel was saying: “You should be taking walks every day.” Because it’s so cold out. I don’t want to take a walk. The angel also said I’m doing good with drinking more water on a daily basis all the time now. I’m starting to like water. I was one of those people that did not like to drink water at one time. I was.
Soul: [In a silly voice.] “Oh, I can’t drink water. I don’t want to drink water.”
Marsha: “Want to drink soda.”
Soul: Uh-huh.
Marsha: But now it’s water.
Cheryl: Good. Water is much more healthy. Sodas have a lot of stuff in there that nobody should be drinking. Water is a lot more healthy.
Marsha: Absolutely.
Soul: Cheryl, I have a hard time envisioning you drinking sodas. You don’t drink sodas, do you?
Cheryl: No, no, we haven’t for years. I used to drink Coca Cola all the time. I can’t take the caffeine of any of those. It makes me really jittery. I can’t even have hot chocolate. But I am a chocoholic, I do have to admit. And that’s one of the things that popped up for me. After Christmas sale for Christmas stuff this year I bought lots and lots of candy canes. They were 65 percent off, which made them 25 cents for a whole big box of them. And I bought many boxes. They’re getting down there. I probably have one box left, but I did indulge in that. So I have to admit that I oversweeted on those. I’ve been munching them, but I figured the peppermint oil in them was good for me.
Soul: Of course.
Cheryl: And Rik did help me in eating quite a few of them too, so it wasn’t just me on my own.
Soul: As a good husband, should, come on!
Rik: Remember that alien guy on third rock from the sun? He used to fill his bowl with sugar and then sprinkle little cornflakes on top of it. And then they say it’s bad for you. Listening to other people, like, all of us are so different. Our metabolism, our genetics, and our psychic makeup. We went to a party just last night. There was people there that were in enormous, immense shape, that work out, that look like gods, and they surf all the time. And they don’t eat what you think they should be eating. They’re drinking tequila, and yay! And drinking beer, and eating anything they want. But they have 4 percent body fat and they’re just cut. I learned a long time ago. You have to learn for yourself what’s good for you and what isn’t. It’s a journey and a really difficult path to make yourself. If you grew up eating a certain thing, like I still want to eat certain things that I grew up eating. The health food? I’ve been on health food for 30 years. Maybe it made me live this long, but it certainly didn’t keep me healthy. Because you’re thinking all the time. Oh my god. Is it organic? Is it GMO? Is it this? That’s more stressful than anything else. Just eat this stuff.
Soul: How true. How true.
Rik: You will never get a pure diet in this toxic world. I don’t care what label says. If you grow it… and produce it yourself. Yeah.
Soul: B A L A N C E. Did anybody figure out that today’s class, the tipping point between a healthy and unhealthy habit, is when we go from being balanced to not balanced. Anybody figure that out?
Marsha: Yep.
Soul: Traditionally over the holidays, what has normally unbalanced you? What habits have normally unbalanced you ?
Rik: The social media and the computer is like the absolute worst thing for your health. Your psyche.
Soul: Who’s fallen into the trap of baking their pants off thinking it’s the holiday tradition, you got to bake all this stuff up so that you can share with everybody. You think you’re being a good family member or a good neighbor but then you realize it’s a lot of work.
Marsha: I have. Cookies!
Cheryl: It is a lot of work, but with me it’s a labor of love. It’s not really work to me. I have noticed some of my choices of recipes take a lot longer than I would really like it to. I get stressful sometimes when I’m stuck for, oh I have to do something at a certain time and I choose a recipe that takes half of a night to make.
Rik: It was a lot of work for me learning to let go. Allowing individuals to do whatever they wanted to do over the holidays. As long as they didn’t involve me with their ideology. Or their philosophy. Their dogma. Their scripture. I’m cool with it. This year was really good for me. It wasn’t as difficult for me to just shut up and laugh. Because all I did was laugh at the ridiculousness of all of it. I think next year, I’ll be laughing way before that. Way before the holiday season, because it is comical, and insane, and utterly, pretty much ridiculous.
Soul: What about the decorating? When I grew up, the holidays was always about decorating. We had to have the big tree. We had to have all the decorations. Things had to be put up on the mantel. And then there was a ritual of taking it down. And how it’s supposed to look the same year after year. You can’t alter anything. Like one year somebody brought home this what I called a plant for a tree. You got to remember I grew up in a household where it was a big old home 14 foot tall ceilings. We had the humongous evergreen in the house. Stuff it through the front door. One year, somebody came home with what it looked like a potted plant. And I looked at it and I said, “What the hell is that? Do you think that’s going to be a Christmas tree? Really? Seriously?” so habits in the form of routines. Habits in the form of expectations. There are certain expectations that come with the holidays. You’re going to do certain things with certain people at a certain time, year after year. How many of you have loosened up on all that?
Cheryl: Once we started moving around and we lived in a different state than everybody else, all of that dropped away.
Rik: Yeah.
Cheryl: Yeah.
Rik: It’s easy if you just move away from your relatives, then they can’t expect you to come cross country.
Cheryl: Yeah, and bring your kid and everything else.
Rik: Like on all my side of the family, I’ve conditioned them not to expect anything from me ever. I might show up. Don’t ever expect anything from me, ever, in your life. My sisters go, “When are you coming home?” I’m like, “Don’t ever expect me to come back there, ever. If you see me there, be surprised.” It has been a lifelong quest to eliminate the things for me in my life that weren’t making me happy, that were pressuring me.
Soul: Marsha has your holidays changed in the form of expectations since taking this series?
Marsha: Oh definitely. Even before that because all that expectation stuff really took place when family was close. When my kids were young. We were living in Hawaii. There was always, “Whose turn is it to have the holiday gathering for the family.” But it seemed like it was always my turn. It was always big to do with the dinner and everything. Because I had the kids. They would come over to my house. My mom was living downstairs, so everybody would gather over to my house. It was just cooking. There was cleaning. It’s just non stop. So you don’t even get to enjoy the holiday, really. You don’t really get to enjoy the Christmas. You take a moment to watch the kids open the Christmas presents, and that’s it.
Soul: And that only happened to Marsha. That didn’t happen to anybody else! Listeners? That’s never happened to you at all. Once again, I’m just so delighted that we have journeyed together. For those listening in on the very first time Rik, Cheryl and Marsha, this is actually round two for them. Now that you’ve gone through this little rollercoaster ride called the Holiday Blues Buster Series twice, anything that comes to mind that has shifted from round one to round two? Have you noticed a difference in anything in particular?
Marsha: I’m more aware and attuned to my body and how my body’s feeling when I get thrown off balance. So I immediately know how to put myself back in balance. I go okay, step back. Or okay, time to meditate. Okay there’s always that has me feeling out of balance and then gives me direction what to do. Which is very cool because it’s not like I have to force myself to go, am I imbalanced? I don’t, I’m not constantly having to ask myself that. I just intuitively know what to do. It’s like there’s an intuition that kicked in that says, okay, time to do this or time to do that. And keeps me in balance. Keeps me in check.
Cheryl: I’d have to say that mine would be a different awareness that calms the stresses of the holidays. Being aware of so many things that we covered in the Blues Busters. Remember that show Bewitched and sometimes they would pop in and they’d be up in the corner and watch down at
Soul: Esmeralda watching over Dagwood
Cheryl: Yep, Derwood, whoever she called him that day. Yep! So that’s what I feel like now when I go to the grocery store. Or I saw all of the people during the holidays just acting like maniacs. I could put myself aside and not feel that way and didn’t have to be stressed. I could see those people doing it and realize it was good. It was much better feeling to not take that on.
Rik: The first time, I still had a lot of resentment in me and hostility toward the whole process of the holidays. The whole indoctrination of the whole ideology of what was happening. I really felt victimized most of my life from that. I believe I’ve been able to separate myself from it and find a looking within is far more fascinating. Depending on myself is a lot better for me than depending on somebody outside of myself. I appreciate the series. It’s helped me come to a new awareness about myself and an understanding of why I was acting the way I was. And why I don’t necessarily have to act that way if I don’t want to anymore. Thank you.
Soul: It’s interesting how we go through this series. Once, twice. It’s much like washing a window. You wash the window the first time, and you step back, and you go: “Okay, there’s a streak there. There’s a streak there.” Or when you’re refinishing wood, you’ve got to take off the layers. Or taking the wallpaper off the, it’s in layers, isn’t it? So each time through this cycle, we wash away another set of old habits. We wash away or become aware of some routines. Remember one of our very first classes we talked about the difference between habits, routines, and rituals. And that the difference between the two is the depth of the roots. Oftentimes, habits have really deep roots based on rituals, which are based on routine. Have any of you found yourself creating new habits? New routines for the holidays?
Cheryl: We’ve pretty much had to. Being over here on the island, we have just done our own thing. Nothing like what it was when either of us grew up. So we’ve developed our own things in the last few years, yeah.
Rik: I do believe in the next few years that I’ll be eating my words because my son is moving over. And with his fiance and they want to have three kids. And she loves the holidays. And so you know damn well, if there’s three grandkids up there, Grandpa’s gonna be whispering stuff in their ear, but he’s gonna be up there on Christmas Day if he’s invited. I’m not letting them go. So I’ll be eating krill. My dad only required me … he goes, “I don’t care what you do on the holidays. Where you go or where you are. But I want you to be home Christmas day to sit with me and watch the kids open presents.” That’s all he required of me for my whole life. And I was grateful that he told me what I was required to do. And I tried to fulfill that requirement because it wasn’t that hard of a thing to do that for him. And I remember doing that for him many times. I didn’t want to, but I did it for him. And I had a good time, too, watching the kids. I liked it.
Soul: Here’s why I asked you to do your pie charts between what you consider to be healthy and what you consider to be unhealthy habits. They sometimes flip flop back and forth, don’t they?
Rik: Life is an unhealthy habit. [Lively group laughter!] That’s what I told Cheryl.
Soul: Life is hazardous to your health, yes.
Rik: How you perceive life. Health, yeah, that helps too, but I see lots of healthy people that are miserable as crap.
Soul: Final thoughts on your journey through the holiday roller coaster ride.
Marsha: This year has been one of the most calmest periods for me as far as my inner self and how I’m feeling. I think the other holidays before that, there was a little bit more chaos going around. Even though I’m really focusing and doing more, it seems like I was so much more calm during this holiday.
Cheryl: Yep, me too. I have to say the same thing. Did what I needed to do and enjoyed everything else. Basically forgot that it was the holidays. They just came and they just went. I usually start my crafts and stuff oh about this time of year for Christmas next year. I don’t have to do too many things right at the end. Learn to prioritize I had all year to sink in.
Soul: That’s the magic. And we’re going to wrap up with this question. What one class of the Series you think is more apropos to daily life than any others? Or do you think all of the different classes that we had applies to everyday life?
Marsha: I think all of them apply to everyday life. If I’m missing one part, then I know I’m off balance. Because every aspect of each class has helped me to take a look at the different ways we can get off balance. That has been… amazing to just understand how to apply it in my life.
Rik: You could call it the family blues busters. It’s all relationships. You go year round. There’s holidays. There’s Fourth of July. There’s holidays in Hawaii. They think the Superbowl Sunday was a holiday. Holiday, they’re going.
Cheryl: Yeah, I heard a lady had wished somebody, have a happy holiday this weekend.
Rik: There’s so many darn holidays and people, it’s very stressful for them to deal with their families. A series like this is vital if you have issues with that. And we all have at one time or another.
Soul: There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. The jury has spoken. They’ve rendered their verdict. What you’ve experienced on this Holiday Blues Busters journey is applicable to everyday life. So just because the title of the show starts out, Holiday Blues Busters, and then week something, and then a topic. Go back. Listen to these classes. Find out different ways that you can live a more happy, healthy, stress free life. That’s really the goal of this series.
Ah, wow. As always, I’m smiling from eye to eye. I’m doing gratitude bows for being with us throughout this entire series. Thank you again.
Marsha: Thank you.
Cheryl: Thank you for having us.
Rik: Thank you.
Soul: For those listening in throughout the year pencil us in on your calendar. Put us at the top of November. Sign up for the series. We open registration the third week in November. The best bet is to get in right at the beginning because then you can be in class with us sharing your thoughts and having some laughs along with us.
Join us in this series to enjoy the holidays with much less stress and a lot more fun. Click to register.
Aloha!