Episode 53: Are you Celebrating the Holidays the Way You Want to?

Podcast

Episode 53: Are you Celebrating the Holidays the Way You Want to?

“What if we sat back and contemplated what really matters to us? How do we want to feel on those special days and more importantly, how we want to feel after?”

I can’t wait for you to LISTEN to this podcast. Holidays and celebrations can be the peak experiences that we look forward to all year (or let’s be honest—dread).

When you add children to the mix, it can create a crushing amount of pressure to make things absolutely perfect. We might do things that stress us out, don’t like, or even loathe just to keep up with traditions or expectations. 

What if we sat back and contemplated what really matters to us? How do we want to feel on those special days and more importantly, how we want to feel after? What if you factored this into the planning phase (or last-minute scramble) so you’re not exhausted, depleted, or resentful? 

These questions below are meant to spark ideas to find happiness, rest, and ease amid celebrations. You may find that you keep all your traditions.

You may also find yourself wanting to change how you show up for yourself or your family. More importantly, you get to define what that looks like for you! These prompts were originally published on PSTPRTM

Journal Prompts: Write this out, open a Goggle doc, or do in your voice notes on your phone. Give yourself the space to write for 5-10 minutes. NOTE: Make this your own practice! These answers can (and often do) evolve and change over time.

Get out a journal and write for five minutes or sit and think about your answers. You can do this right now or bookmark a time in your calendar. Note: These answers can (and often do) evolve and change over time. 

1. How do you want to feel before, during, and after the celebration? What’s your highest priority?

2. What would your Pinterst board look like if you created these days to be filled with happiness, rest, and ease or your highest priorities in mind?

3. What do you see as essential (activities, food, presents, travel, etc.) to create those feelings of happiness, rest, and ease?

4. What would you want to get rid of, stop doing, or add to your celebration days? Bonus: Ditch the guilt and see this as an opportunity to bring the fullest version of yourself into celebrations.

5. How do you plan to communicate your new or updated holiday or celebration plans to those you love?

Listen on ITUNES + Spotify Please tag me @chefcarlacontreras on Instagram so I can continue the conversation with you. Use the hashtag #showupfully

I can’t wait to hear your thoughts!

Eat Well,

xo Chef Carla

PS: Social Media stressing you out? Create, post, engage, and consume content with ease Learn more

About Chef Carla Contreras

For the last 24 + years, I’ve worked as a trained chef in: Restaurants, hotels, as a chef instructor at three culinary schools, and personal chef in New York City.

Since 2013, I have been sharing my gift of content creation with publications and brands like Better Homes and Gardens, The Wall Street Journal, Shape Magazine, justBobbi.com, Nutritious Life, Well + Good.

In my personal brand, I not only show up for the hard things, I own them and then share them with the world, like my $38,000 lesson I learned in my business and evolution of a Digital Entrepreneur over the last ten years.

In my online courses, I bring my years of experience as a trained chef, content creator, health and life coach, and meditation teacher to help you with you shift mindset around cooking & the content creation process. Learn more here

Find + Work With Carla:

Online Courses & Book: Learn more here

Instagram: @chefcarlacontreras

Full Transcript:

00:00.00

Hey, it's chef carla and welcome to show up fully. This is a podcast where I share what it's like to show up for your real life if. You don't know me. I'm a food stylist, photographer and health coach. I'm also a content creator for food and wellness brands. You can find me at Chefarla underscore c on Instagram and more information in today's show notes this podcast episode is based on an article that I wrote for postpartum it included holiday and celebration stress how to reduce it. And here's the thing whenever you're listening to this episode. It's the right time we have celebrations and holidays throughout the entire year and these are things that we look forward to or sometimes dread. Let's be honest here right.

And when you add kids into the mix. It creates a lot of pressure and maybe that's just me I'm a parent of 2 kids and there is there's a lot around it and we might do. Things that we are stressed out about things that we don't like things that we might loathe just to keep up with traditions our expectations and what if we sat back and contemplated what really matters to us. How do you want to feel in those special days. More importantly, how do you want to feel. After what if you factored this into your planning phase or let's be honest for me the last minute scramble so that you're not exhausted, depleted or resentful and I have a bunch of journal prompts around this too.

Spark ideas for you to find happiness and rest and ease even amidst celebrations and you might find that you want to keep every single tradition and every single thing that you're doing and you are doing an amazing job and you also might find that. You might want to let things go and guess what you're still doing an amazing job because you're taking care of yourself and this is the most important thing you get to define what it looks like for you and taking this moment of pause. Taking in this moment of reflection to really understand what you want and what you need is just a beautiful gift to yourself. So I'm going to link the journal prompts below in the show notes.

02:46.50

And I also give you an example, a real life example of what I was doing for christmas of 2021 now plans have changed because I instead of doing. You know all of the things on christmas eve I decided that the gift to my children was to take them on the polar express holiday train now that has been canceled. There has been. Um, Covid cases within the staff so that has shut down so I'm actually going to spend some time today really reflecting on this and how I can create the Holiday experience that I want to share with my 2 children.

This is a beautiful example of our plans constantly evolving and constantly changing. I am sending you so much. Love and whatever. Holiday or celebration that you are celebrating whatever time of year that you're listening to this I hope that it's beautiful I hope that it's magical and if you enjoyed this podcast episode. I would really appreciate it if you could share it with your friends, your family, or your community in any way that you like a text message and email on social media.