4 Steps to Stop Your Holiday Stress: Clean up the Chaos one Baby Step at a Time #252
Click the triangle to play this episode or scroll down to read:
We’re in the thick of the holidays and perhaps your sanity is already wavering. School performances, shopping, baking, less sleep, unusual schedules, no routines, more asks… yikes!
We still have 2 more weeks to go!
In today’s episode, I’m sharing 4 ways to lower your stress and make the holidays enjoyable for both you and your family.
Free resources mentioned in today’s episode:
Not sure what to put on your holiday wish list? Ask for a Successful Mama Gift Certificate and choose your course, community, coaching, or retreat next year. https://successfulasamother.thrivecart.com/save-up/
Patricia Sung [00:00:02]:
Are you overwhelmed by motherhood and barely keeping your head above water? Are you confused and frustrated by how all the other moms make it look so easy? You can't figure out how to manage the chaos in your mind, your home, or your family. I get you, mama. Parenting with ADHD is hard. Here is your permission slip to let go of the Pinterest worthy visions of organization and structure fit for everyone else. Let's do life like our brains do life, creatively, lovingly, and with all our might. When we embrace who we are and how our brains work, we can figure out how to live our lives successfully, and in turn, lead our families well. At the end of the day, we just wanna be good moms. But, spoiler alert, you are already a great mom.
Patricia Sung [00:00:52]:
ADHD does not mean you're doomed to be a hot mess mama. You can rewrite your story from shame spiral to success story, and I'll be right here beside you to cheer you on. Welcome to motherhood in ADHD.
Patricia Sung [00:01:07]:
Hey there, successful mama. It's your friend, Patricia Song. Well, we're in the thick of it. It is the holiday season, and I don't know about you, but it is already pretty crazy over here. There's a ton going on. We had our big annual Christmas party this weekend. You know, the Christmas performances have started, and it's a lot. I want you to know that it is okay that this feels like a lot.
Patricia Sung [00:01:34]:
There is a lot going on. And when you have ADHD, our nervous systems are quite often already at the brink of stress level. We're already in a stress level, and all this extra stuff of the holidays simply adds on to that pile, making everything feel like too much. Too much noise, too much to do, too many emotions or interacting with family that we may be able to avoid more in the rest of the year. Extra sounds, extra smells, extra asks on our time, our talents, our treasure, what little of our sanity we're still clinging to. It's not you. It's a lot. So I have a couple of helpful resources for this holiday season.
Patricia Sung [00:02:27]:
Let's start with planning. If you have not already planned out your holiday and you're like, hey. It's already weekend of December and I haven't planned anything. That's okay. Can you take a suggestion from everyone? Can you take 2 or 3 suggestions? What do you have the capacity for? So we said 2 from each person. What are the 2 things that are going to make this holiday season feel like the holidays for you? We came up with a list, and those are the things we're gonna do. And if we have space for other stuff, great. We can add it in if we feel like we can do that, but, otherwise, that other stuff is clearly put in the no category, and it makes it really easy when people say, well, not really easy.
Patricia Sung [00:03:10]:
Easier than when people ask like, hey. Do you wanna do this, or can you come over to do that? You already have a clearly defined list of, like, these are the things we're doing and these are the things we're not doing, and it's a lot easier to say, no. We're not coming. Because in that moment for us, we always wanna say yes. We don't wanna disappoint anyone, but we only have so much energy and so much sanity to go around. And when we have a clearly defined group of these are things we're doing and these are things they're not doing, it's a lot easier to know in the moment whether or not it falls in that way that I can uphold my boundaries a little better is knowing, hey. This is what our family said is important, and if it's not on this list, it's not on this list. And if you realize partway through like, oh, this is important and we didn't mention it, it gives us a chance to be like, oh, well, when we had our little meeting about, you know, what was important, like, if this wasn't brought up, was it really important, or is it just, like, we had a moment where, like, we just didn't think about that? And that's okay, and you can add it to the list.
Patricia Sung [00:04:14]:
And the great thing is that like, I keep all these lists on my phone, and I put a reminder to or, like, if I'm doing it in, like, Google Keep, I put a reminder for next year in mid November, and this you know, my gift list pops up, my activity list pops up, and then I know, like, he'll here's all the things that we did last year. Here's all the things we bought last year, like, all the people we had to shop for last year. It's already pre prepped, so it's not as much of a brainstorm level. And then you have the chance to say, like, okay. Well, you know what? So and so's caroling Christmas party didn't come up when we thought about all the things we wanna do in the holidays. Like, is that really important to us? Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. But that gives you a chance to think about it.
Patricia Sung [00:04:55]:
It. And another thing I've been doing to ease that, uncomfortableness when I don't know how to answer someone is just answering like, oh, let me check my calendar, and I'll get back to you. And then I make a note to myself to get back to them. Or you can say, like, oh, I need to check with my partner or let me check my work schedule. Like, whatever thing you wanna blame so that you have extra time to think about it, pick something. And that way you can actually sit back when that person's not staring in the face and decide, like, does this matter to me or not? So that's tip 1, is asking everyone in the family what matters to them in this holiday season so that you know what are the things that you wanna put your time and energy into. Suggestion number 2 is having a conversation with your partner about family stuff. Like, it's a lot in these holiday seasons where you're having to spend a lot more time with extended families, and there's a lot more opinions and a lot more stressful people and stressed out people to deal with.
Patricia Sung [00:05:52]:
And having those chats with your significant other ahead of time allows you to go into, like, how are we gonna deal with the stressfulness of you know, you can do this before Thanksgiving. You can do it going into Christmas. Like, how do we wanna handle these situations knowing that it's gonna be a lot of time with family we don't normally spend time with, or it's gonna be a lot of late nights and, hey. 1 of our kids doesn't do well with late nights. Like, how are we gonna handle all these things? So having those discussions ahead of time, and if you're a single parent, it's just as important to sit down and think about how that matters to you in deciding what you want it to look like. Because whether you're planning it by yourself or whether you're planning it with a partner, the whole point is to have that proactive planning there, like we talked about in the series last month of, like, proactive planning makes such a huge difference because then we can feel like we're choosing the way that we want our life to unfold instead of, like, life just happening and we're just, like, getting pushed along the river with it. We're choosing how we want this holiday to look. And if that means that, you know, one person in the family doesn't wanna spend 14 hours at grandma's house this year, how can we make that compromise ahead of time to make this enjoyable as much as we can for as many people as we can? Do we need to have some uncomfortable conversations with our family members ahead of time and let them know, like, hey.
Patricia Sung [00:07:18]:
We're not gonna be at this event from sunup to sundown. We're gonna show up right after lunch, and then we're gonna leave right after dinner. And setting those parameters ahead of time are really uncomfortable, and it's also a lot easier on the day of when we do those things. So that is suggestion number 2, is have a little planning meeting with yourself or if you're in a partnership with your partner to decide how are you gonna handle these obstacles that we know are coming ahead of us. Suggest number 3 is when you look at all the things that are going on, do you have space for rest? Do you have space for normal? What can we do that is, like, keeping some semblance of regularness so that we're not overwhelmed by everything? If our kids are gonna be up late 3 nights in a row, how do we make sure that they're getting enough sleep earlier or, like, before that or after that? Because we know if, you know, if our kid is up late multiple nights, it's gonna be a big disaster. Are you giving yourself space to rest? If you have a day that's full from top to bottom, is there a place in there where your 1 year old can nap? Is there a place where you can nap? Is there a place where you can have some downtime in that day? Is, you know, your family eating lunch, like, real food at some point in that day? Like, what are you doing to take care of you, to take care of your family amongst all the craziness that's going on? How are you taking care of you? How are you lowering your stress level so that you're not losing your absolute ever loving mind on your family every evening? What are you doing to take care of you and your family in creating that space so that it's not overwhelming 247 for the next 3 weeks? That rest time is just as important to plan as all the activities going on. Now for our like, when we're thinking about all this planning, you can do all of this planning in a very, like, thrown together ADHD friendly way of just throw it on a piece of paper and hope for the best or throw it on a note on your phone and hope for the best. You can also go on in the link that I'm gonna post here in the show notes, I have a holiday planning class that I taught a couple of years ago about how to plan your holidays in a proactive way.
Patricia Sung [00:09:48]:
It's totally free. I will post that link in here as well so you can if you wanna be more detailed and be thorough about it, you can plan it that way. If you wanna plan it in you know, throw it together, just jump in and write some stuff down on a piece of paper or a note on your phone, like, whatever is going to feel most comfortable to you. You know, obviously, the class has, like, the prompts in there and the questions to ask yourself, like, it's a lot more thorough. So whatever method feels good to you, you've got both resources there. And for my final suggestion, the cleanup process is just as stressful as the going into it process. So on December 26th, I, every year, start a series called, Cleaning Up the Holiday Hangover. I really should've looked up the exact name of it.
Patricia Sung [00:10:35]:
I did not before I started recording this. And y'all, it's one of those days I'm just gonna run with it and trust that y'all can find it. I'm gonna put the link here in the show notes. It's every day for 2 weeks. I give you a, like, one singular step to clean up all the holiday stuff. The videos that are emailed to you are 30 seconds long, and you can also read it if you wanna read it. And it's super simple, all broken down for you because, you know, people always say, like, oh, just break it down into pieces and it'll be easy to do the project. And we're, like, wait.
Patricia Sung [00:11:08]:
What? What what were the pieces? I don't know. How do I break it down? I did all that for you. So in that 2 weeks, every day, super quick task, 5, maybe 15 minutes tops on a couple of them, but most of them are, like, 5 minutes, where you gather up different pieces of holiday chaos and deal with them. So one little snippet at a time for 2 weeks, and it all goes through. Boom. Boom. Boom. And by the end of the 2 weeks, you'll have everything cleaned up and ready, to hit that new year running with all the holiday disaster gone.
Patricia Sung [00:11:44]:
And, yeah, that's totally free too. So head over to my, show notes here. Click on either of those links to grab it. If you want the detailed planning for the holidays, if you want the super simple cleanup plan, they're both there, free resources for you. And if you are, you know, if your family is going like, what should we get you for Christmas? And you're like, I don't know. My Thai suggest that I have gift cards, like gift certificates on my website where your family can buy you a gift certificate to go towards either community courses or coaching on my website. So if you would like to work with me somehow, some way in 2023, this is a great way to give a gift that is not just for you. It's also for your family.
Patricia Sung [00:12:30]:
Like, spending time figuring out how to work with your brain and being proactive and knowing, like, how to live well as a mom with ADHD, it's not just for us. It's for our whole family. Because when we learn how to work with our brains, we learn skills that we need to teach our kids. We learn skills that make our kids' lives less stressful too. So this is a gift for you and your family. I absolutely love hanging out with my mamas every Wednesday, and that is such a gift that I didn't know I was making as much for me as for them for you. Like, knowing that I'm not the only one who is overwhelmed and frustrated and burnt out and needing support, it's just really life giving, and I want you to have that too. So, yeah, if your family doesn't know what to get you, snag a motherhood and ADHD gift certificate.
Patricia Sung [00:13:31]:
They're on my website. They're in the tab for support, and you can collect those up and decide what you wanna do for the year coming up. And, you know, you can use them for community, the successful model meet ups. You can use them for coaching. You can use them for all the different courses, you know, time agent mastery, daily planning, how to outsource, simple morning routines, simple evening routine, any of them. So yeah. Oh, and the retreat if you wanna go on the retreat next year. So take care of yourself, mama.
Patricia Sung [00:14:04]:
This is a very stressful time, and we can make it through with some proactive planning, rest planned in there, and knowing it's okay to say no. So reach out. Get some support. Go grab those free resources I mentioned on my website. And, yeah, have an amazing week, and I'll talk to you soon. Successful mama.
Patricia Sung [00:14:25]:
For more resources, classes, and community, head over to my website motherhoodinadhd.com.