Tired of the holiday stress? Join Eddie Reece and Bill Courtright as they explore why the holidays often fall short of our Norman Rockwell expectations. They delve into the pressure to create the “perfect” holiday experience, the challenges of navigating family dynamics, and the struggle to stay true to yourself amidst the chaos. Eddie and Bill offer practical tips and real-world advice for setting boundaries, communicating effectively, and finding joy during the holiday frenzy. Tune in for a compassionate and insightful conversation that will help you create a calmer, more meaningful holiday season.
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Freedom From Holiday Stress: Rethinking Traditions And Finding Meaning
Welcome back to this episode. We have Eddie Reece. Happy to be back. As we record this episode, we are one week removed from the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States, which puts us right in the middle of holiday decorating, if you’re anything like my family. The tree is up, the lights are hung, and there are boxes all over the house. Everybody here is exhausted.
Eddie and I were talking a little bit off-air about the holidays, family and relationships. The reality is, and I think there are a lot of people out there that would agree, that the holidays and family aren’t always the most joyous time of the year for some folks. Eddie has a lot of experience in relationship counseling, individual counseling, and all kinds of counseling.
Strained Relationships During The Holidays
It’s a relevant topic to dive into a little bit because we would imagine that some of our readers or viewers might be experiencing some anxiety, certainly some angst or maybe some doubt. Maybe the relationship isn’t what it once was. Maybe the holiday cheer isn’t as prevalent as it once was. Eddie, with that description or topic or waterfall to wash over this conversation, what’s going on around the holidays that can strain relationships or bring people to perhaps reach out to someone like yourself?
Pretty much everything about the holiday stresses people out with the exception of the Norman Rockwell fantasy of what it’s supposed to be, which is the center of the stress in a lot of ways. Folks are trying to make the holidays what they picture the holidays are supposed to be. I would guess they rarely achieve that because people are going to do what people do. Families are going to behave the way families behave.
It makes it pretty difficult to turn it into that Norman Rockwell. Everything runs smoothly. We all are together, love each other and sweet to each other. We’re all excited to be here. That’s generally not the case. With all the pressure to buy presents and get the right gift and who do we get gifts for? Who do we not? Did they get anything? We got to send out the annual Christmas card. We got to get the house decorated. We got to get the fake house set up for people to show up. What are we going to make?
Full disclosure, I’m an outlier with all of this. I was a teenager, late teens, when I moved out of the house and living on my own. Christmas came around and I contacted everybody I knew and said, “Don’t buy me a Christmas present. I’m not going to buy you one. That’s one more you can take off your list. I’m just not going to participate in this madness.” That’s the way I’ve been. If I want to buy somebody something at some point I will. It doesn’t have to be a holiday.
My wife and I do the same thing. We might get some little fun something for each other, but our Christmas gift is the new heating air conditioning unit. That’s for $10,000 Christmas gift. That’s pretty sweet. Thank you, Santa. I have a very different perspective when clients come in and talk about this. The common problem is if you take your typical couple, this person has their family and this person has their family.
If they both want to be with their family on the holidays, there’s usually a lot of tension about how do we pull that off. Do we go to both places? They’re 50 miles apart or four states apart. “Your mom hates me.” “I cannot stand your brother” “Your uncle’s going to be there drunk.” When I say to them, “Let me ask you, you’re talking about visiting these people. How often do you visit them because you want to go see them?” The answer is 99% never.
They’ll go if it’s one of their birthdays or if the grandkids have a birthday. They’ll come visit. There has to be a special engagement. I go, “This is somebody that if there were no holidays and no birthdays, nothing like that at all. You’d never see them.” They get this weird look on their face. I said, “You’re telling me that what you’re arguing about is about going to see people you don’t want to go see. I’m confused. Don’t go see them.” They’re like, “It’s Christmas.”
I go, “Do you like Christmas?” “I really like Christmas.” “You’re going to ruin your Christmas, the holiday you like, by visiting people you don’t like. That’s your idea of a celebration. This is what you want to teach your children. I’m still very confused.” A good bit of the time they don’t go. They come back and they go, “They didn’t quite understand why we weren’t there, but more than that big of a fuss but I don’t know. How about that? I don’t know.” There’s a general rule of you don’t have to spend time with people you don’t want to spend time with. You really don’t. Unless it’s your parole officer. You just don’t.
You don’t have to spend time with people you don’t want to spend time with.
Do you think people have the obligation of, “This is what we’re supposed to do. This is what we’ve always done. I should just bury it?”
It’s like, “It’s Christmas,” or, They’re family.” I go, “What does that have to do with anything?”
Most of the abuse comes from family.
The meanest people in the world are family members to family members. The most violent deaths wind up with people you’re closest to. A lot of those people you’re related to. You don’t have to hang out with people you don’t like. If you like three of your family members and you don’t like four of them. Make time with the three you like.
Addressing Obligations And Creating Your Own Traditions
Is there an element in your opinion of non-confrontalization going on? What I’m hearing is like you don’t like to be around certain family members and then you’re feeling obligated and so willing to be around them around Christmas. Would it be healthier to address the lack of kindness or level of discomfort or disrespect or mistreatment maybe in July so that Christmas could be resolved?
Chances are it won’t go well if it’s a child talking to a parent. This is one of the downfalls, so to speak, of being in therapy. You see things a lot clearer with people in your life in terms of, say, the relationship is not what you thought it was or you see that it’s primarily about feeling obligated, but you’re not or because they say mean things to you and you don’t want to hear it.
If you go and say to them, “I don’t want to be here with you or I don’t want to come see you because you say things like.” If you do this, you need to quote them. You cannot say because you say mean things to me. In their mind, they don’t say anything mean. You’re crazy. When you say things like, “It looks like you’re putting on a little more weight.” I don’t want to hear that from you. I’ve never heard of a story where anybody went, “Okay.”
You’re going to get into a mess with them that probably is not going to turn out really well. You can sure try. Every now and then I’ve had relatives or siblings or parents agree to have some sessions with my client. I once saw three generations, which was awesome. It went well but on your own, it’s a lot trickier.
I generally don’t recommend it. One of the ways I put it is to make your own holiday tradition. Your parent’s holiday tradition is the turkey, dressing, everybody’s together and exchange presents. Somebody gets way too drunk and starts being obnoxious. Somebody else just wanders off and it’s never seen again. That’s their tradition, so you can make your own tradition. Your own tradition is that anything you want. We go on vacation.
For years, I’ve gone to Florida to play golf on Christmas day. Our kids are getting older and we want to spend more time with them. We want to make a tradition just for us and so we’re going to do that. Anything you want. We’re going to sleep late on Christmas morning. We all like to sleep late and hang out in our pajamas. Maybe go to a movie and eat Arby’s because we don’t like turkey dressing.
Holiday Stress And Coping With Relationship Challenges
What about the families where the immediate family is having challenges? Maybe the option to not go is not there. I’m not sure but my suspicion is there are some couples, parents or otherwise that are that you talk to on a regular basis. I can only imagine that with all that goes on with couples around the holidays.
When couples maybe aren’t what they once were that the holidays could be stressful for one or both, because of maybe the desire to hide or suppress the reality or the transparency. It evades them that the marriage or the relationship isn’t what it once was. You don’t have the option of saying, “We’re not going to participate this year.” What advice or what can you make sense out of that situation?
For what I hear what you’re talking about is the typical issue or the typical problem every couple has, which is, I believe this and you believe that. That’s entirely different. It’s so different that each of us is disgusted by the fact you even think that way. That’s your typical couple issue and the content of it doesn’t matter. What always happens is that instead of acknowledging that we’re different, they argue about which way is going to be our way.
That’s never worked in the history of mankind. No one side has argued well enough to where the other one went, “You’re right. I cannot believe I’ve thought this way my whole life.” That’s never happened. What I teach couples is, “First of all, this is what you’re doing when you’re arguing.” “I’m not arguing.” “Now you’re arguing with me.” You’re arguing and you have countless ways you argue. You don’t even know you’re arguing. “I’m not arguing. I’m just trying to tell you the way I feel.”
If you use the word just, you’re arguing. I have to help you learn that you’re arguing and that this is an argument and this is an argument and then stop. You replace that with what I call the kindness dialogue where you have to listen to the other person. You go through this process of listening and you get to a point where you can feel it. You go, “I get it you want to go visit your parents in Christmas because this and this. Everything you said.”
There are countless ways to argue with another person, but you can replace an argument with a kindness dialogue where you actually have to listen to the other person.
That makes sense to me which is different than I agree with you. I still think you’re delusional and disgusting but it makes sense to me that you’re disgusting. Follow the logic. When you do that well enough, you’ll get a head nod from the other person when you say that. They’ll go, “Yeah.” and you’ll be nodding your head, “I get it.” “Now, I do. I see it.” At that point, you swap roles and do it the other way.
If you do that well enough, the same thing happens. “I see why you want that. You see why I want this.” We can see that we want two incompatible things. Instead of arguing about what we’re going to do, we could have a discussion about, “What do we do now? Given this.” Now, that puts you on the same team and you get to be creative and come up with what the Buddhists call the third way, which is not this way or this way.
It’s a whole different thing that the two of you make up that you both go, “That will work.” That’s called consensus. Not compromise. Don’t compromise. If it’s important don’t compromise. Compromise means two people are unhappy. You don’t want to give up anything. You don’t stay on the opposite sides of the argument and say, “I’ll give up going to my parents on Thanksgiving and you give up going to your parents on Christmas or go to the other parents.”
Who’s going to be happy with that? It seems fair but not all fair. I don’t care about fair. I’m not here to be fair. I’m here to get what I want. You work out that third way, but we’re not taught that. Our culture teaches us constantly that you get what you want by going out there and getting it. It’s this very aggressive fight for what you believe in and go back down. The message is that if you fight hard enough, argue hard enough, and well enough, the other person will eventually agree with you but I don’t see that happening.
Suicide And Divorce Rates Increase Around The Holidays
It’s interesting. I don’t know why my brain went here hearing you and I had to Google it to make sure I remembered it correctly and I did. There are two things that unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, depending on how you look at it, occur around the holidays in much greater frequency. One is tragic and its suicides. Two, divorce. January, according to Google, is known as divorce month because it’s the month when divorce filings increase after the holiday season.
Valentine’s Day is right there with it. Valentine’s Day is when people break up. I got better pictures and words. You turn the heat up. When you turn the heat up, you cannot handle it. It’s going to crack. That heat being an event that brings these differences out in a way that you can’t avoid them is which is what you’ve been doing all along in order to get along and not make waves. In my mind, people get divorced, they break up, and get away from each other because they’re like, “I can’t spend another holiday season with your family.”
“I cannot spend another holiday season with you running around like a crazy person, barking orders to everybody, and putting us all on a schedule that’s impossible so that we’ll be happy. I’m not doing it again.” A lot of breakups right at Valentine’s because it’s like, “I cannot buy another romantic gift for somebody I have no romantic feelings for ever again.”
They give a damn. Broke.
This leads to, how do you sustain a long-term committed relationship? The answer is you turn the heat up and then you learn to be with each other in a way that promotes intimacy instead of difference. The way most people handle the heat creates distance. If you cannot come through the heat and feel closer than you’re not doing it right. That seems like a simple concept, but there’s so much more to it because you cannot even begin to do that unless you truly have deeply explored who you are as a person.
In relationships, it’s about turning up the heat and learning to be with each other in a way that promotes intimacy instead of division.
What you really want and what you don’t want. I went to a workshop one time. I wish I thought it up, because you don’t have to do anything as a facilitator. You get the people in the room, then you pair off with somebody. It might’ve been fifteen minutes or a half an hour. Two people look at each other and one person goes, “What do you want?” The other person’s answers, “What do you want?” They answer, “What do you want?” They answer, “What do you really want?” They answer. That’s all you do.
The whole time you’re sitting there and then you swap roles and you do it back the other way. I tell you, there were a lot of folks screaming, crying and having some pretty heavy-duty realizations. After about three hours, what do I want? Most of us don’t know. We think we know. We think what we want is that new shiny thing but you don’t.
You’re never going to find what you want if you don’t even know what it is. It’s not something like I’ll know it when I see it. No you won’t because you don’t know what it is. All of this comes into play in the holidays. Somehow and someway don’t ask me how. I just knew I did not want to participate in buying and getting presents. I just didn’t and I said it. Nobody to my recollection went, “I really want to buy you something.” They were glad to knock another name off the list. The holidays turn up the heat about as well as anything other than things like a serious illness, childhood cancer or things like that.
Again, you’ve got to be able to go through things that are for whatever reason going to turn that heat up for you and the holidays generally do that. I remember maybe the first time was around Cabbage Patch dolls, where the store would open and people were literally being crushed to death. They would run toward the dolls or whatever toy of the year it was and start to rip each other apart. I don’t go within miles of any shopping place. There are no holidays. That made me go, “I don’t know.”
No, it’s a zoo.
That demonstrates as well as anything, the buying in of this Norman Rockwell fantasy, I called it in the beginning, that my kid has to have a cabbage patch doll. Why?
It’s because it says something about them if I get it or give it or don’t.
They’ll hate me. Their kid will hate me. Your kid’s going to hate you anyway. Get used to that. I have a saying that good mental and emotional health is a reality at all costs. If I had a kid who said I wanted a cabbage patch for Christmas. I’d say, “Sorry. Not happening.” If they threw a fit, I’d go, “I can see you’re mad at me. I don’t blame you. You’re not getting what you want. I’ll get mad when I don’t get what I want. You can be as mad at me as you want to be for as long as you want to be. I’m not going to change my mind.”
Now, what I will tell you is sometime maybe April or May, they’ll come around the holiday. “Do you want to go by the store and get a cabbage patch doll?” “We will, but I am not doing it now.” Do you want your dad to get killed trying to get you a doll? Would you be happy standing at my casket holding your doll and go, “Worth it?”
Not sure if that’s rhetorical, but I can imagine some children might be answering that question.
“I don’t care. Get it.” Sorry. It’s not happening.
The Gap Between Expectation And Reality
There’s so much wisdom and we could talk about this one for a while, but what I’m hearing is there’s this difference between expectation and reality.
That’s the definition. One of the early definitions of stress by Hans. The difference between your perceived ability and the ability that you need. I cannot remember exactly how he put that one like that.
I think it was something like stress is the gap between the demands placed upon us and our ability to meet those demands.
The perceived ability to meet them. That shows up on a golf course every time I play. Not with me but with the other people around me. I don’t know if I ever mentioned this on any of our episodes, but Chuck Lorre, who is a TV producer. He was a writer on the Roseanne Show back in the day. He produced a show called Dharma and Greg, which is phenomenal.
Every show he’s ever done has been great, Big Bang Theory, Two and A Half Men, and Mike Molly. Now he’s got Young Sheldon and now Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage is new. Anyway, he writes what I called vanity cards and back in the Dharma and Greg days with the VCRs. I watched the show and the show ended and you could see a blip on the screen.
I’m like, “What was that?” I had to go back and freeze-frame it to find it. It was vanity card number one. He said, “Thank you for watching Dharma and Greg.” I was like, “Wow.” He has a vanity card. To summarize it, he says it very eloquently. It’s worth looking up. If you’re irritated at all, it’s because the world is not acting in a Chuck-approved manner.
That’s the way he wrote it. “If I get mad, it’s because the world is not behaving in a Chuck-approved manner.” That’s so true about any outrage, any mild irritation, and anything that gets you like this. It’s because something’s going on that you deemed not supposed to happen. “You’re not behaving the way that I think you should behave.” People are going to do what they do. You’re shocked. Every now and then, I’ll play with a guy a few times and I’ll feel a little more comfortable to say something to him.
He hits a shot and he’s just all upset. I’m like, “You’re not as good as you think you are.” He says, “Look at me,” and I go, “You’ve played a few 3 or 4 times now. You had a lot of shots like that. I’m not shocked about it. I wonder why you are.” Fees will, and it hit me with golf club. I’ll explain this thing. Your expectation of what you should be able to do is way higher than your ability.
In a lot of areas. Expectations being the seeds of future disappointment.
If I’ll hit a good shot and if the guys I’m playing with will go, “That was great.” I go, “Nobody’s more shocked than I am.” I really am. He says, “That’s not the norm.” I think what Chuck says this in his vanity card, it’s that what we all do is we’ve made ourselves supreme ruler of the universe. Therefore, all must behave, including me, the way I demand everyone including me behave. If they don’t, they will catch my rat. I don’t know how that could be true because I’m not a supreme ruler, so I don’t know how you think you are. We all think that in some way, shape, or form. Otherwise, we would never get upset.
That’s not reality.
I spent a lot of time playing golf. I’m working on that to where I hit a shot that I don’t like. I hit the ball over in the trees, and a good bit of the time I wave at it. I go, “I love that pole.” Hit a shot way over there. The hole is way over there and I’m going to go, “This is going to be awesome when I knock this.” Instead of, “I cannot believe I’m doing that.” How do we do that at the holiday?
The holidays stress us as we call it because we have this fantasy that since we are a supreme ruler, the holidays have to go exactly like this. Anything outside of that is slightly off, it’s a freaking tragedy. It’s very all-or-nothing. We get all-or-nothing. It’s very much a child part of us to where you read a kid a book at night and you’ve read a hundred times. You’re tired and you try to skip a page and they’re not going to let you. It’s all-or-nothing.
It’s, you’re going to read the whole thing or I’m not going to be happy. It is a real child’s place everything has to be perfect. No, it doesn’t. It really doesn’t. I’ll ask this question in a lot of different situations with the golfer, “Why do you play?” “It’s fun.” “Are you having any fun? “I don’t think so.” “Why are you celebrating Christmas?” A lot of people don’t have an answer to that. They have never thought about it. “It’s the holidays. It’s Wednesday.” Who says you have to go crazy and make everything perfect because it’s the holidays? Holidays are a time of celebration. Not a thing. How would you like to celebrate?
Why are you celebrating Christmas? A lot of people don’t have an answer to that. They really have never thought about it. It’s just the holidays.
What are we celebrating?
“I’m a Christian and it’s a Christian holiday.” Go to church. Why do you celebrate? By buying somebody’s uncle’s brother or sister-in-law a present? That’s how you celebrate the birth of Jesus? What would Jesus do?
The Dichotomy Of Holiday Celebrations
You’re touching on it. It may be the third rail but therein lies the dichotomy of Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or Ramadan. Whatever it is. It’s the societal, cultural, and national version of Coca-Cola and Santa Claus. It’s the religious connotation and where those come together.
The guy that drew that iconic Santa Claus for Coca-Cola was the first one who lived in Atlanta. It’s awfully narcissistic to go, “It’s Christmas time.” Not if you’re not a Christian. It’s not Christmas time, Christmas time for you.
It’s a winter solstice for everyone else.
Why don’t you celebrate my holiday? It’s not about your holiday. There are so many different ways that all of this comes at us. We’re just not equipped to pull it off. Eric Sevareid said the number one industry in this country is the creation of anxiety. He said that 40 years ago. He’s been gone. I think he’s right because the anxiety is created to get you to buy.
They make money so you can buy and so you can celebrate. Can you celebrate without money? That would be hard for a lot of people. How about we get together as a family? Everybody likes ham sandwiches. Make some ham sandwiches to sit around and talk about what Christmas means to us. When you get to me, I’ll go, “Christmas don’t mean much of anything to me. Next.” Neither does Labor Day. Neither does this day or that day. I work a schedule that’s all my own. People get excited about all the Monday holidays because they get a three-day weekend.
I’m like, “I have a four-day weekend every week or a half-day weekend.” I don’t even know what the holiday is because I’m not paying attention to it and I should because what it means is it’s going to screw my schedule up. Christmas screws my schedule up. Thanksgiving and New Year screws my schedule up. That’s what it means to me. I wanted to give my wife a gift card to Honey Baked Ham, which is awesome. Thank you. That’s what it means to me.
I can tell you, Eddie, I think it’s a little bit refreshing. We started this episode talking about the reality behind what the holidays may be. I don’t even know what the likelihood is but for a lot of us, it’s not the most joyful time of year. It’s a lot of stress and anxiety. It’s a double underline or maybe a light shined upon a relationship that maybe has seen its best days. The questions that we face as to whether or not we move forward status quo or finally make a change, whether that change is a conversation, a confrontation, or perhaps a consultation with someone like you.
The reality is hearing you talk about it with such great transparency and as a matter of fact is what the holidays mean to you. It’s refreshing in the fact that much of the pressure that we’re feeling is self-induced. We’re putting this on ourselves to maintain some level of preconceived outcome or behavior, which to your point in earlier episodes, was placed upon us by marketers and corporations. What I heard you say and what I’d like to close upon is maybe we should give ourselves a little bit of grace and have the conversation.
You just said something pretty wise, which was what does Christmas mean to you? You mentioned Labor Day, Thanksgiving and other holidays. Maybe there’s a holiday or an event or an experience that means a heck of a lot more. I’m sitting here listening to you and I’m asking myself, what’s my wife’s favorite day? What’s my wife’s favorite thing? What’s my wife’s favorite activity? Could I answer those three questions right off the top of my head?
We could certainly look at what we like about Christmas and what we don’t, and what we like about Thanksgiving and what we don’t. Whether or not we like giving gifts or not, or going out and trudging through in some places in the country, snow, and bad weather to go sit in line at a crowded mall with a bunch of cranky people who are dying to get out of there.
Surviving The Holidays: Advice For Those Struggling With Stress And Pain
It’s a lot. Thank you for showing us that you can go your own way and look inward and say, “What would make me happy?” The last question I have, and I’ll give you the last word is, for the folks that are reading that they’re maybe a little bit lost or maybe a little bit troubled. They’ve just survived Thanksgiving and now they’re looking at the next four weeks of holiday gatherings, new year’s, gift buying and giving and the chaotic schedule that you referenced a little bit ago.
also, for those that need help. Maybe they’re looking at the bottle. They’re looking to other things. They’re looking to escape, quiet the noise, or ease the pain. Do you have any advice for the people out there who are sitting there and they’re asking themselves, “Am I going to make it?”
The first thing that came to mind when you started talking was that I don’t want to come off in any way that says the way I look at all this or the way that I do it is the way anybody else should do it. What the message is, as you said, go your own way. Listen to Fleetwood Mac.
Be authentically true to yourself is what I heard.
What do you want? One of the joys, if you can find it, of being a grown-up, which I know as children we all longed for. You’ve grown now. If you want, stand in front of the refrigerator and put the door open. Stare into it. Sit three inches away from the TV. Run through the living room with scissors. You can do that. If you want to escape, to get to your question, okay. You don’t have to escape in a way that’s self-destructive because that’s not escape. That’s self-destruction. You can say no. You can and that’s one of the hardest things for people to say. a lot of times.
Quite often, I’ll say to my clients, “What I want you to do is I want you to start saying the word no in as many ways as you can think of saying it.” Most of the time, all they can do is get a real meek of no. I say, “Keep going.” A good place to practice is anytime you’re by yourself and you can get as loud as you want and let it rip. “No way. No way anymore.”
Our nervous system has been trained to not say no. The neural pathways to say no aren’t very well developed in a lot of us which is why you’re going to wind up self-destructive, which is why you’re going to go visit people you don’t want to visit, and which is why you’re going to stay in a relationship you don’t want to stay in.
I had a client about an interaction with his mom. I said, “You could just say this to your mama, ‘I’m not handling kitchen duty too well. I’m going to go watch a game.’” He goes, “That never occurred to me.” It doesn’t. It doesn’t occur to people. It doesn’t occur to people that you can say, “Mom, Dad, we’re going to do this for the holidays.” “No, we’re not going to come visit you.” We’re going to do this.” “No, we’re not going to buy all of those things.” No is a huge part of the path to freedom.
Freedom is a pretty good way to put what it is most of us want that we don’t know we want. If we ever think about it, we think what we mean is nothing will bother me. That’s not freedom. That’s just being dead. The trick is to have things that will bother you and then know what to do with them like I want this and they want that. Know what to do with that so that it brings you closer together and you feel more connected.
You feel the freedom to find a way through difficult times that you come out going, “That was awful and it’s better now, or I learned something,” and live your life. That’s another thing we all want. “I want to be.” You’ve got to go and find yourself. You got to go find out who you are because we get so much pressure. I think I’ve said this before the E coming poem of, “To become yourself in a world that works night and day, to turn you into somebody else is the hardest battle you’ll ever fight and have to keep fighting.”
That’s so much of the meat of what we’re all looking for. How do I be me? How do I learn that this is me? How do I express that this is me? How do I do that as freely, openly, and relaxed as I possibly can? The pressure of the holidays is a great example of what coming is talking about. I’m going to turn you into something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. I don’t want to.
To those folks, reach out to somebody who will allow you as best they can to be you and go be you with them and allow them to be them. If you have nothing to celebrate on Christmas, celebrate something that doesn’t have anything to do with Christmas. Celebrate the fact that you got a good friend there with you. Celebrate the fact that somehow and some way, without any decent training, you’ve made it this far.
If you have nothing to celebrate on Christmas, celebrate something that doesn’t have anything to do with Christmas. Celebrate the fact that you had a good friend there with you.
There’s a Fannie Flagg quote I wish I could readily pull up from one of her books and the four little things that dropped into this world with no idea what they’re supposed to do or how they’re supposed to do it. That’s us. We’re all muddling through as best we can to be patient. I like the idea of the holidays of being kind, generous, and caring.
Good will towards men.
I take that time to give a chunk more of my charitable contributions away at this time. That feels like a good way to end 2024 to me. You can make your own tradition and then you can change it if you want to. You can.
Well said. I’m telling you. Bookmark this one, ladies and gentlemen. This has been in the spirit of the holiday season, one day from Giving Tuesday, which Eddie and I both participate in. There’s a lot of good wisdom and a lot of good nuggets in this episode to empower individuals to take back their own joy from what the holidays can be, even if it has to be different than what has been.
As we go into what is typically historically one of the most anxiety-ridden, stressed-out times of the year, even for those of us who are in good relationships or have good support systems or great therapists, we do know that there are a lot of folks out there for which this time could be hanging on the bottom rung.
It could be scraping the bottom of the barrel or desperately seeking something more fulfilling, more kind, and more understood. Folks, we urge you that if you find yourself struggling, perhaps burning the candle at both ends and unable to find any more wax, reach out to someone. Find a therapist.
Find someone who goes to therapy. Find a counselor, a psychologist, or a friend. It could a pastor, a minister, or a priest. Maybe it’s a bartender, but whoever it is. Find somebody that cares about you enough to give you some good advice and perhaps to reach out to someone who unlike a bartender could give you some helpful non-self-destructive advice. Both Eddie and I love bartenders, by the way. We both have been in our past and can be at the right time again. I’ll give you the last word, Eddie.
As you’re saying, reach out. If you are at the end of your rope and you’re thinking about suicide, you think you cannot stand it a day longer. Dial 988. There’ll be somebody there to talk to who will care about you although they’ve never spoken to you. They do that job because they care. It’s a good starting place. I’ve had the privilege to sit with John Lewis one-on-one a couple of times in my life.
He was the guy that said, “You don’t quit. You don’t stop. You never give up hope.” For him to be able to say that with all that he’s lived through in his life. It must be true. I hang on to that myself sometimes. Don’t quit. Keep going. Don’t be afraid to reach out. There are people who don’t even know you who care about you, I promise you. There are people like that in the world. The conversation with a client was something about people. He said, “People are just mean.”
I go, “Go outside anywhere. Do anything around people and tell me how long it takes you to find the mean person.” There are not a lot of them. More likely, you’re going to find a lot of nice people if you talk to them for a few minutes or need some help or something like that. Instead of complaining about somebody not taking their shopping cart back to the store, go take it back. You go take it back. Show a little kindness. Thanks, Billy. As always, I hope everybody has a good next few days, weeks, months, and years.
That’s right. We look forward to talking again. This has been the pre-holiday edition of the show. We’ll talk to you again soon.
Bye.
Important Links
- Honey Baked Ham
- Giving Tuesday
- Eddie Reece on LinkedIn
- Eddie@EddieReece.com
- Getting Along
- Bill Courtright on LinkedIn
- Bill Courtright
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