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S2E44 TRANSCRIPT:

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Yucca: Welcome back to The Wonder Science-Based Paganism. I'm your host, Yucca.

Mark: I'm Mark. 

Yucca: And this week we are talking about self-care about prioritization boundaries around the holidays.

Mark: Yeah. Basically how to get through the next six weeks. 

Yucca: Yeah. With all of the wonderful things that come along with this time of year. There's also some, some challenges. Especially when it comes to being able to take care of ourselves and, know, be the person that we want to be in that.

Mark: Right. Right. And I think that a lot of that has to do with expectations from family. And friends' friends can also have expectations of our time and our attention and that kind of thing. And this particularly falls heavily on women who end up being expected to cook stuff and be the ones who wrangle the kids and do Shopping and all that kind of stuff. and it's utterly unfair and it can lead to a real sort of burden. On what should be really a time of celebration, a time when we're, we're enjoying the winter solstice and everything around it, and

trying to have a holiday 

Yucca: yeah. 

Mark: know, 

Yucca: And this is a really interesting year because for a lot of people they're trying to do makeup because of last year. Right. Let's make up for so much was missed last year and being like, okay, so we've got to go all out this year or, but then still, also, you know, trying to be safe and responsible. And there's just such, there's just even more added on top this year than there typically is during this time.

Mark: Yeah, there is. I really feel that and of course That's showing up and kind of creating more nervousness in all kinds of ways, whether it's that the supply chains for presents are, are backed up and broken or, 

Yucca: Or booze. I was reading an article today about how there's not going to be enough of whatever, you know, 

Mark: oh wow. Our society will grind to a 

Yucca: whatnot. Yeah. 

There's a lot of drinking this time of year. 

Mark: Oh, there is. Yeah.

And we're going to talk about that some later. The, so the, you know, there's. There's that pressure on the one hand to try to really do it up this year, because we were so locked down last year. And then also there are constraints. We've got a new variant of the Corona virus that is causing some concern.

There are all these sort of economic and supply chain issues. And so it could be. Even a harder to deliver on that expectation of really doing it up. Right. And all of that adds up to stress. And what this episode is really about is how to minimize your stress and try to turn these holidays into something that you're actually celebrating and enjoying.

Instead of just kind of going through the motions and working like crazy in order to do what you think you're supposed to do. 

Yucca: Yeah. So I think a really good place to start is thinking about what these holidays are for you. Right. And what is in an ideal world, what would you want it to be? Like, what is, what are you trying to achieve? What are the things that really, really matter to you? What are the things you value out of it?

And starting from there? Right. Not necessarily what everybody's expecting from me, but what is it that is really matters to you and the wellbeing and the wants and hopes of other people can be included in that, but it needs to start with what are you trying to achieve?

Mark: Right, right. For example Nemea, my partner, and I decided many years ago to dispense with presence. We're just not doing presence anymore because we already have plenty of stuff. And when we need something, we get it. And so instead of knocking ourselves dead, You know, running around, trying to acquire things. And instead we just take things that we value and put them under the tree and they remind us of that. We, we live well and. So to me, the part that's really important