Holiday Magic:Getting Rid of The Blues and Finding Joy When Family Traditions Change

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In fact, I went to my group on Facebook we have about 25,000 women on there and I asked them are you struggling with loneliness or unhappiness during the holidays because of traditions that aren't being observed anymore?

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And I could not believe the amount of people who responded.

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There were so many women who, even though they might have plans, some of them are getting together with their families.

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They're just feeling some kind of way because, let's face it, the holidays are different.

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Hi, I'm Linus Woods Mullins and I love to help women to vibe, to be more vibrant, intuitive, beautiful and empowered in their life.

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So, come on, let's vibe.

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You know, to be quite honest with you, I had to really practice all the things I talk about and all the things that I interview other people about when it came to this particular holiday season.

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This has been an unusual time.

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In fact, rarely do I come on the podcast and just talk without a guest, but I wanted to share with you some things I've been thinking about in terms of this particular holiday season, but also what the holidays are like for us as we begin to age.

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Now I'm 67.

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I have four daughters, six grandchildren, with one on the way and, for the first time since the first one has on the earth 40 years.

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I will be without any children and no grandchildren for the holidays.

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All of my daughters, except for one, live out of state and the one that lives here decided to go and visit one of her sisters for the holidays, and I applaud that, because they have their own lives and things that they need to be doing and I don't want to get in the way of that.

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But I got to tell you I was feeling some kind of way.

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The pity party, extraordinaire to optimum, was where I was at, so much to the point where in the middle of the day I just said screw it and went to bed.

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I just didn't want to be awake, I just wanted to go to sleep.

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And when I woke up, I wish I could tell you that I felt refreshed.

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I wish I could tell you that everything was okay after that.

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No, it wasn't.

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I was still upset.

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So I'm thinking to myself okay, I can't help my clients this way, I can't help myself this way.

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I definitely don't want to hear from my husband about this, because he's going to try to figure out how to fix it.

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And you know how that is when your husbands or your significant others, whatever they are.

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They want to just make you feel better, and lots of times what they do makes you feel worse.

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So I didn't want to go to him and I didn't feel comfortable calling any of my girlfriends either.

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They've got their own thing going on and I started thinking about you know what.

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I wonder if I'm the only one that feels like this, and I don't think so.

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In fact, I went to my group on Facebook we have about 25,000 women on there and I asked them are you struggling with loneliness or unhappiness during the holidays because of traditions that aren't being observed anymore?

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Because of traditions that aren't being observed anymore?

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And I could not believe the amount of people who responded.

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There were so many women who, even though they might have plans, some of them are getting together with their families.

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They're just feeling some kind of way because, let's face it, the holidays are different than they used to be, when we were all wide-eyed and bushy-tailed and naive.

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In so many ways before life started happening.

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It's changed, and I guess that's just a part of the circle of things.

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Oh, is it really?

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Is it an opportunity, maybe, for us to take a look at our mindset and see what we can do to begin to change it.

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Because, you know, sometimes we can get pretty stuck in a mindset and not necessarily think that the mindset is a problem, but sometimes it is, especially for certain times of the year.

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I think that in order to maintain a positive outlook or mindset, sometimes it takes a little work.

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It doesn't always come naturally.

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I think it's very human to focus on what's not working, you know, to focus on all the bad things that are happening.

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And that's what happened to me.

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I was just focusing on all the stuff.

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My kids aren't going to be here, maybe I shouldn't get a tree, no one to give gifts to.

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They've forgotten about me.

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All this, you know, pity party, negative mindset stuff, and what happens when you're like that?

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It just keeps spiraling down to this rabbit hole to the point where it's kind of hard to pull yourself out of it.

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But thank goodness I have some tools and the next day, after I went to bed early that day, I got determined to first take a look at my mindset.

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So first of all I want to talk about, you know, ok, what is the meaning of the season for me.

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What does it mean to me now?

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And you know Christmas has always meant because I'm a Christian.

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The birth of Jesus Christ has always meant that for me and always meant an opportunity for me to show love to my family and my friends and just to have a joyful time.

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So, okay, my kids aren't here with me, but I still have my husband that I can share wonderful times with, and there is Zoom, so I'll definitely see all of my babies over the holiday season, and it's also a peaceful time.

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I mean, you know, I'm going to go ahead and get a tree and decorate it and maybe put a few of the decorations up that I used to when the kids were here, but make it maybe more of a personal and romantic feel for my husband and I.

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I also decided as part of my mindset that I would start focusing on what I'm grateful for instead of focusing on all the things that aren't happening.

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I decided to, you know, shift my focus from being stressed out and sad to being abundant and grateful.

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So I started thinking in those veins and one of the affirmations I used was I am energized, joyful and fully present this holiday season.

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And I thought, well, that sounds kind of hokey, but I'm going to say it anyway, because what you focus on what you think about, what you ponder on, truly does come to pass.

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It really does.

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It starts happening.

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And so I started focusing on that.

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And then I said you know what, let me write out how I want my Christmas to be, even though my kids aren't going to be here and I'm just going to be, you know, hanging out with my husband and everything.

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And so I did.

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I wrote it out in detail, not just what I wanted to do, but how I wanted to feel.

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I wanted to feel joy.

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I wanted to feel love.

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I wanted to feel peace.

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I wanted to feel gratitude.

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I wanted to feel fun.

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I wanted to feel fun.

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My husband's probably watched him because he's fully retired, so he gets to do that kind of stuff during the day, but we're going to watch it together a shared experience.

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I'm going to begin to start setting up my home and office for 2025.

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It's just something that I normally do right after Christmas, but why not do it on Christmas Day?

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If the weather holds up?

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I'm definitely going on a nice walk with my husband.

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I'm going to probably get a chance to read some of the books I haven't been reading, you know, and as I'm writing these things out, what I would like to do and how I would like it to look, I began to feel like, wow, this is something I can look forward to.

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I also put down that you know I'm going to.

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I very rarely cook on Christmas day.

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We our big holiday dinner is always on Thanksgiving.

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On Christmas, we have Christmas breakfast, so I'm going to cook a special Christmas breakfast with the things that normally we do not cook when we have a large crowd.

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This is going to be my husband and I, so I'm going to probably cook crab and lobster, going to have champagne For dinner.

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I'm going to do something creative, I don't know what maybe a new recipe that my husband and I can cook together for our Christmas dinner and maybe have some intimate moments with my husband on Christmas, which never happens, you know really beginning to change things around and to look at things in a different way for my Christmas day.

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And then I started thinking about okay, what other things can I do to energize my spirit, to get myself thinking a little bit more positively?

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What other holistic things do I need to be taking a look at, and you'll be surprised at some of the things I came up with.

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First of all, I have increased my water.

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You know, drinking water during the winter months is harder for me, you know, because it is cold and I don't feel like drinking cold water.

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But what I'm doing now is and I've kind of added this to my morning routine now for the holidays I'm making some lemon water that's a little warm Maybe I'll put a little ginger in it and sipping on that during the course of the day, basically providing more hydration, because the more hydrated you are, the more clearly you think, and usually during the holidays we're not that hydrated, so it's easy for us to feel stressed out, it's easy for us to be more emotional, get upset, all of that because, believe it or not, we're not hydrated.

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And when we're not hydrated, we want to eat more of the other stuff.

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So I decided to put it on my mind to make sure I'm focusing on energy boosting foods like dark green leafy vegetables and nuts If you don't have any allergies and seeds, and maybe some seasonal produce like squash I love squash but eating things that are going to nourish me and plenty of protein.

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Now, you know, you don't have to eat a whole bunch of meat to get plenty of protein.

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I have a protein powder that I use.

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I try to do 90 grams a day of protein, so I want to make sure I don't miss it during the holidays.

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And I also want to make sure during the holidays that I take care of me when it comes to moving.

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You know, maybe changing my workout a little bit dancing to holiday music, going on a brisk walk, listening to holiday music, doing stretching and restorative yoga maybe in the evening to help relieve any holiday tension I might be feeling and definitely remembering that just 10 minutes of movement can definitely recharge your spirit.

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Just 10 minutes.

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So if you're feeling down and if you're feeling kind of tired or, you know, getting into that pity party mood, get up and start moving.

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You know, I was listening to Pharrell the other day and they were just recently in Paris to celebrate the Notre Dame Cathedral.

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Have you seen it?

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It's absolutely beautiful, it's brighter, it's just beautiful, and they were singing the song Joy, which they also sang in the Olympics.

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So now I put that on in the mornings and you know, watch the video, which is, you know, a lot of energy, bright colors and everything, and start moving to it.

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It's about eight minutes.

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So that's almost my 10 minutes right there, first thing in the morning I'm driving my cortisol levels down because sometimes I might wake up feeling a little anxious because of the holidays.

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My kids aren't with me, so I'm driving those cortisol levels down, getting those happy hormones going and feeling a little bit better about what's to come for the day.

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Another thing that I am going to do kind of spruce up my holiday spirit and keep me in the right mindset is that I love the smell of cinnamon.

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It reminds me of the holidays but it's also energizing.

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So I'm going to be doing some cinnamon oils around the house, cinnamon soy candles if I can find them, the pine cones that you get at the store with cinnamon.

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I know they might be treated with something, but what the heck?

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I'm going to get some anyway and put around the house because that cinnamon smell is energizing to me, it brings happy feelings and you know there is an energy trick that you can do that kind of help you if you do feel sad, and that is to go ahead and allow yourself to reflect on a time during the holidays where you felt a lot of joy, remember what was going on, remember what you felt, what you did, and then bring that feeling from the past into into the present.

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It really does work and you find yourself beginning to feel better.

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I cannot tell you how many times doing that kind of energetic you know, taking the energy from the past and pulling it to the present has really helped me, and I'm going to be counting on that to help get me through the holidays, especially Christmas Day.

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I also am working on my breath, making sure I'm breathing, maybe doing some box breathing whenever I start to feel a little anxious or sad.

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You know I breathe in eight counts, hold it for four counts, breathe out nine counts.

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Have you ever done that before?

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It's called box breathing and it does bring some relief to you.

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It does help you feel better.

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The other thing that I think I'm going to do and it's on my list for the holidays is something I've been wanting to do all year long, and that is to change my bedroom around to make it more of a sanctuary so I can have a deeper, restorative sleep.

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I can look forward to going in there because it smells good, it looks good, so that's my project for the holidays.

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I decided that I wanted to do something for myself that I could have fun doing.

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That would be creative, and so that's my project.

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I'm going to redo my room, redecorate it so that it looks more like how I want it to look like now that no kids are in the home.

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No kids have been in the home for 12 years, and my birthday looks exactly the same like they're still in the home for 12 years and my birthday looks exactly the same like they're still in the home.

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So I need to make some changes.

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I'm going to do that.

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And another thing, too, is that I'm going to spend more time during the holiday season outdoors.

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I know, right now it's raining and maybe in some areas it might be snowing, but that's what we have umbrellas and hoods for, right, and I'm in California, and when it's raining, the temperature has a tendency to go up a little bit.

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So it's really not that cold, but even if it is, I got plenty of snugglies that I can put on to go outside for a nice walk in the rain, just to get some fresh air, to look at the you know, the pretty decorations around the homes and just to, you know, get some fresh, new oxygen into my system and get that, you know, moving throughout my body, refreshing my brain, because you know when those red blood cells go up into the brain.

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It helps to refresh your way of thinking and it really does help to calm you down when it comes to your emotions.

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And the other thing I'm going to do is to focus on, you know, doing the things I want to do for the holidays.

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You know how sometimes back in the holidays, you would say yes to stuff but you didn't really want to do it because it might have been something your kids want to do, something your friends want to do, or whatever.

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Well, this holiday season, since I really do have the time, I am going to find the things that my husband and I want to do that we haven't done before, that we kind of put off doing because we're always doing other things during the holidays.

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I don't know what that is, but I'm going to figure it out and do it, because I am working on setting some new traditions, and I guess that's really what it's all about my being without my children.

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This is very new.

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Being out, we're not seeing my grandbabies, it's all new, but it doesn't have to be bad.

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It's an opportunity to make some changes and to find a way to cultivate joy in a different way.

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Some of the holiday traditions.

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I'll keep some of them, I'll enhance or change completely, and the main goal will be to find a way to embrace joy, to not slip down into that slippery slope of oh poor is me and I'm all pitiful in bed at three o'clock in the afternoon.

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Please, there's no time for that.

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We ain't got time for that.

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We still have our health.

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We still have the ability to move our limbs and to think and do all the things.

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So, while we are still healthy and moving and able to do things, why not take some of that energy and apply it to ourselves?

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In the past for the holidays, especially if we've had children and large families, so much of your energy is outer directed.

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Well, if you're going to be changing your holiday traditions and you're going to be spending more time by yourself, like I am with my husband, without the kids, some of that energy is going to be more interdirected, and that's okay.

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In fact, I think it's healthy.

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It's healthy to celebrate yourself during the holidays.

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Enter into more of your self-care, because now you have more time, because it's not split up as much as it would have been had you had a house full of kids and grandchildren around, like I would have had.

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Take time to be grateful for the fact that you're even here.

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I have many friends who are my age that didn't make it, that aren't here, and it just makes me realize how silly I was to have the initial reaction.

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Because, again, anytime there's change, even if it's change that you don't necessarily want to embrace, it's an opportunity to rise to the occasion and figure out how to make that change work for you.

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And I can tell you, in 2025, that is definitely a mindset I'm going to have to adapt because things are going to be different.

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But that doesn't mean that I can't still have joy.

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That doesn't mean that I can't still feel good about being alive and living a great midlife.

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That's all about the vibe being more vibrant, being more intuitive, being more beautiful inside and out and being empowered to live a great midlife journey.

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Thanks for listening.

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That's my holiday message.

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Have a fantastic day, everybody, and don't forget to vibe.

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Bye-bye everybody.

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Thanks for listening to the vibe living podcast and don't forget to subscribe, like and comment and share this podcast.

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Have a fantastic day and don't forget the vibe.

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Bye, bye, everybody.