Michele Christensen 0:12
Hi, Welcome to Sex. Love. Power. I'm your host, Michele Lisenbury Christensen. I'm a relationship and sex coach who's worked for 23 years with executives and business founders first as their executive coach, but by popular demand, as their intimacy coach. Over the last 12 years, the most high performance people in the world have given me a wealth of knowledge about how to create relationships. They're not just good, but great. This podcast is where I can be in the conversations about love and sex, that help every listener create those same world class results in their relationships.
Michele Christensen 0:49
Today, we're talking about holiday planning. My wish for you this season is that your events, your decor, your food, and your rituals are all imbued with meaning, and free from pressure and stress. This is supposed to be the happiest season of all. But so often, we're miserable inside of it; stressed out, feeling rushed, overwhelmed, feeling, there's too much to do, buying presents with some resentment attached to it, because, "Oh, shoot, there's another person I forgot." And we're just sort of fulfilling obligations, and not enjoying ourselves at all. And I find that kind of tragic, that amid so much abundance, we can create so much misery.
Michele Christensen 1:37
In a relationship, so often, what happens is that one person has a big vision for how the holidays are going to go. They put a lot of energy into planning and they're going to create the traditions that they're used to from the past that come down from one or both of their families. They're going to create particular memories for their children, they're going to make holiday magic dammit! They are really devoted to that, but in a way that can wind up being stressed out and controlling, and a way that winds up not feeling very collaborative. So their partner is just this accessory inside the vision of this holiday tableau. There's kind of no way to win. I know of what I speak here, because I've been that person in various ways, with various holidays in the past. I've learned a lot from both my own process and coaching clients through it.
Michele Christensen 2:33
I want to talk to you today about some of the mistakes that we need to look at that we might make in our holiday planning together and I want to give you some pointers for how to plan together effectively. Let's dive right in.
Michele Christensen 2:47
The mistakes we often make: There are four I really want to highlight.
Michele Christensen 2:51
First: thinking and planning in your head, but then dumping the whole vision and plan on your partner at once. So often you've been thinking about this since maybe October. Okay, these are what we're going to bake and these are some of the things that I know that people want... And I've got to start thinking about how we're going to decorate and what's going to happen, what are the different events that we need to get to. Oh, my gosh, COVID is happening. And so how does that change what's happening? And I want to create memories.
Michele Christensen 3:18
So we've got all this pressure on ourselves, and we're doing a ton of thinking about it. And then one day we say to our partner, "We need to talk about Christmas. We need to talk about the holidays." I'm sorry if my language sometimes leans toward Christmas. The cultural Christmas, and spiritually the solstice are both really important to me. I consider Christmas spiritually for me, it means the reawakening of the Christ within. It's that divine. Jesus said, "These things and even greater things than I have done show you do also". That's how I think of it, this is this dark time of turning within, and finding Divinity in ourselves, that we might be born again. Like that baby in the manger, we might have a birth of our own magnificent, miraculous, capacity as the children of the divine, right here on Earth.
Michele Christensen 4:18
This is a quick snapshot, my spiritual take on all this. I really want to be inclusive of everyone, regardless of your spiritual traditions or what time your holy days happen in the year. I'm talking about ALL of it. But from my vantage, there's Santa, there's the Elf on the Shelf. I rail against the cultural connotation, or the commercial connotations of that. My children really want that daily surprise and so we do an advent calendar and we do little surprises every day and it's A LOT! I just want you to know I'm in on the a lot and you're a lot may happen a different time or in a different way than mine might be. The different days of Hanukkah or it might not happen at this time of year at all.
Michele Christensen 5:05
With that said, we're looking at this big plan in our heads. If you're the planner, it's important not to make the mistake of dumping it all on your partner at once, because you're gonna have too much pent up energy behind that. And it's probably going to overwhelm them as it would YOU if the tables returned. So we want to make sure that we're having a series of titrated conversations. This is particularly salient for me, because I'm married to someone whose mind just works differently than mine does. I love all the details and talking fast and thinking fast and I have a huge capacity for lots of info. And he gets waterlogged pretty quickly, if I just open the fire hose at him. So I can't do that. And that may be the case in your family as well, where you'll need to say, "I want us to be able to talk about the holidays and plan them intentionally. And so I'd like us to have a series of conversations. Can I come to you? When would be a good time to do this, to talk about the different pieces of our holiday plans and see what your vision is and what matters most to you in it?"
Michele Christensen 6:15
That's another one of the mistakes that we make, is not being collaborative. I think this is a fifth one, I might have said four and here I go. I'm making up more. But so often, we get an idea in our head and with all these things that are important to us and we think, "Oh, my partner doesn't think about this stuff, or they don't have priorities." Don't think that. Even if you are the planner, even if it's kind of 80/20 in your couple, it doesn't mean they don't have preferences. It doesn't mean they don't have a vision or a way that they want to feel. So I think a beautiful question, I'll get into questions later with the keys, but a beautiful question to ask is, " How do you most want to feel through this season or at this event?"If both of you can ask yourselves that question and answer it for each other, you can collaborate on a gorgeous experience that does reflect how you really want to feel.
Michele Christensen 7:07
The next mistake is when you set the holidays up as this test. That might be a test of your partner's enthusiasm level. It might be how they engage, might be a test of their engagement in the holiday, or their performance of different duties might be a referendum on their love for you. Or it might be a referendum on their support for you. Or it might be a referendum on your value and how well you performed in your planning. So all of that is just a recipe for misery. Let's not make this mean anything, it doesn't actually mean! How about let's back it up a little bit and be intentional about how we create these things but let them be simply expressions of our love, our joy, our traditions, and the magic that WE want in this season. And if you collaborate in the way that I'm guiding you to do, it will be an expression of your partner as well. Not just you. But so often, we set things up and our expectations are so high. And we've worked so hard to create something, that if other people don't show up playing the part that we thought they were supposed to play in it, whether that's your three year old who got their little cutie pie outfit dirty before they got their photo taken, dang it, or your partner who isn't as stoked about the big event that you planned as you are, you can be really disappointed. And then that can turn you into the kind of holiday beast that you don't want to be. So really decoupling, meaning from the creation of the events, you know, assigning a meaning that goes beyond what the event is, is not appropriate.
Michele Christensen 8:57
On the other hand, the next mistake I want to talk about is the mistake of not being intentional. Of not infusing what you do with choice, and joy, and grace. So I want to go into each of those. We want to be intentional. All of this is optional. It might not feel like it so I want to grab you by the shoulders to say that slowly again. All of this is optional. You don't have to do any of it. You are at choice.Every piece of your plan is negotiable. So do it as if you had free will. And as if you were choosing it. And then you'll have a lot more room to be joyful, to be self expressed in it, to not be put upon and resentful.
Michele Christensen 9:49
Next, do it with joy. Think about a WAY of doing it. How can I bake this stuff to cook this stuff or wrap these things or whatever it is you need to do, in a way that is joyful for me? What do you need to bring along with you? What time of day or month or year do you need to do these things? So that it's joyful for you? What do you need to not do anymore? What do you need to delegate? Where's your joy in this? And which pieces of it are sticky or stinky for you? And how are you going to rewrite those, so that you can do the whole thing with joy?
Michele Christensen 10:24
And then finally, infuse it with grace. And by that, I mean, recognizing that even when it looks like things are going to hell in a handbasket, everything is working out for good. All things are working together for good. There is room for outrageous perfection, amid the very flawful experience you might be having. So when things don't go to plan, that doesn't mean they're not perfect. You're not perfect, or you're not flawless. your partner's not flawless. Mistakes happen, things get forgotten, messes happen. And all of it is part of the perfect grand design. And that grand design is bigger than your plan. So having grace means recognizing, "Oh yeah, that didn't work the way I wanted it to at all." And being able to laugh at that, "Oh, yeah, I wanted to be able to get that and I couldn't, there must be something better. So it's really trusting life. And for me, there's like a higher power, I think of the universe or God or the divine. Those are all words that work for me. You may have worked words that work for you that are different, but really trusting that, that there's something larger than you that is actually orchestrating all of this. And the plans, hmmm are not looking at all the way I intended it to, might be good news, actually.
Michele Christensen 11:48
Then the final mistake I wanted to talk about is that we don't want to put in perfectionism, consumerism, comparison or performance, those are all mistakes, and they all loom large. So the cultural deconstruction we have to do is to recognize so much of what this holiday season tends to mean, in our culture is built by companies. My little girl is so sad with me because I would not buy one of those Elf on the Shelf things. I was like, honey, that's a company and they sold the elf, because they want to make money. And it's adorable and everything but I am not doing that. We had an elf in our house already. I was like, This is elf, we don't need the brand name, Elf on the Shelf. I'm not going to train you that you have to have the brand name thing in everything. I'm not shaking my fist at every brand on the planet all the time. But that one kind of got to me because I think consumerism really poisons this holiday season if we're not careful with it.
Michele Christensen 12:56
The best things about the holidays are not the things that we buy. They're the moments that we share together. Now we can buy things that help and my son wanted a, were calling it his zoot suit, a one piece Santa themed pajama thing. You know, it's head to toe pajamas. It starts with these boots at the bottom and then it's red, got white cuffs and then red all the way up, big belt, the spangly buckle. But all of this is made of really fuzzy fleecy stuff. And so he's going around dressed like Santa's wearing it every single day. I think from Thanksgiving through Christmas. It's hilarious. And so buying that 20/ $25 pajama thing was a key to a bunch of mirth and joy for us. And now honestly, he's talked me into getting them for all of us. So we'll be all Santa family. But it's a lot of fun. And I hope that we don't totally wear them out this year, and that we'll be able to pull them back out next year, whatever, we'll find the right tradition. So I'm not I'm also not saying that you can't spend money to contribute to the fun, but don't let this season be about the things you buy.
Michele Christensen 14:08
Also, don't let it be about things having to be "just so". Now I come from a tradition of boy, my mom makes the most beautiful cookies in the world, really, She could sell them for six, eight bucks a piece, these gorgeous sugar cookies she makes. And she sends out dozens and dozens of cookies in, I'm not exaggerating dozens of flavors. She makes 1000s of cookies each holiday season and mails them all over the world. to friends and family. My parents have had more than 10 foreign exchange students. And I have a lot of friends and family in lots of places. And there are a lot of people in this world who love and look forward to Pat's cookies. And that's one of the way she shows love. And we have to both express ourselves in ways that feel good to us and not be perfectionistic about it. She wraps them up and trusts that they're going to be over Okay, you know, she's, she's got to, like, let them go. And I just, I tell that you know a little bit about my mom, because, you know, we grew up, she could make things so beautiful, you know, she's sort of the Martha Stewart of Alaska. And I know how to make things just right. And you can either make a lot of beauty that way or make yourself miserable.
Michele Christensen 15:22
And so in my own entertaining, and cooking and baking, I really endeavor to be present to a spirit of excellence but then also in that last 5%, kind of let it go. To be willing to show up human. And I can tell you stories about the wedding cake I made for our beloved nanny, where it was a lemon cake and something in the cake and the lemon and everything caused the cake to start melting and disintegrating at the back of it. I was so humiliated. But the cake was beautiful. And if you turn it just the right way, you couldn't even see that part. But we have to let our egos leave the picture, so that we can have joy in the holidays.
Michele Christensen 16:03
And then comparison is the other piece that we've got to pull out. So it's so easy to look at Instagram and see what other people are doing and how beautiful their houses and their tree is and how well groomed their children are. And whatever you might want to compare yourself to you can find something to compare, but don't do it. Because there's no joy in that direction. Everybody can find somebody who's doing something better, or who at least framed it up so that it looked better in that moment, or used a better filter and so no good can come from comparison, let it go.
Michele Christensen 16:37
Finally, performance. So performative holidays. Performative, you know, even like your, your family photos, there's so many ways that we can, and so insidious, it's so easy to show up for how it might look to others. To kind of start to live, maybe not our whole lives even but a given moment of like, "How's this?," "How am I doing?" Kind of trying to live up to our own image, even if it's not through others eyes, our own image of how we're supposed to be. And that really wrecks our satisfaction. There's nothing nourishing about performing your way through either baking cookies with your kids or caroling or sledding or a family meal, any of it. If we're trying to do things right there's no room left for us to be. To be present, to truly savor, to truly enjoy. So pull those things out.
Michele Christensen 17:41
Now let's jump into the keys to planning together for a beautiful season. Key number one is to set a good time. I mentioned this earlier. Ask your partner, "when would be a good time for us to talk?" And you might during this season, want to have a weekly time where you get together and go over the latest details. I just find that that might sound a little bit anal to try to set up an ongoing meeting like you were running a corporation. But truly the spontaneous meetings where you go, I got this out of my mind, I got that on my mind: Those can be jarring and overwhelming and stressful. And they're statistically quite likely to happen in the evening when everybody is at a low energy level and they tend not to go as well at that time. So I really encourage you to find a time, it might be calling each other at lunchtime, it might be keeping a shared Google Doc, so that it's kind of a running meeting and you're in conversation about it and sending emails back and forth. Whatever works for you just make sure that you're using good energy, not rung out of energy and that it's consensual on everyone's part that we're going to talk about this right now. So you're not springing a conversation on somebody, because no good can come from that.
Michele Christensen 18:54
Second, be intentional. The next key is to really be intentional about what you want to feel like I mentioned earlier, ask yourself and ask your partner how do we want this to feel either the whole season or a given event? A given evening? And I really want to have you thinking about what kinds of memories you want to create with your kids but also what kinds of little pockets, little vacations together, you and your partner want to have? And when I say vacation together, I mean like an hour or three. Can you make the time to be in the living room with the tree in the dark just savoring all of this that you've worked so hard for? What kinds of times do you want to craft for this season? And how do you want them to feel? Because if you want something to feel sexy, or if you want something to feel hilarious, those are two different things, right? And if you want a time with your kids, to be really fun and playful for them, then that's going to shape how you show up, it's going to shape what you wear what you dress them in. Versus on the other hand, if you want something to be a beautiful picture for later. The clothes are going to be different, your attitude is going to be different, the kids experience is definitely going to be different. So be intentional about what you're trying to create, and set yourself up to win. To create that, not something else. And don't try to pursue contradictory intentions simultaneously. That never works.
Michele Christensen 20:35
Third, put your plans in context. So you want to create certain things and you might have a vivid imagination like I do that goes 17 directions at once. What is there room for? What else is going on? Are you in the middle of a global pandemic? Because I am! How does that affect what you want to create? So putting your plans in context can help you go back to some of those mistakes and not make them, the perfectionism, the comparison.
Michele Christensen 21:05
If you put your plans in the context of what's actually going on in your life, what's actually going on in the world, what your budget is, what your energy is like, what work is like for you and your partner, you can create the just right season for you for now. And so this is a great thing to talk to your partner about, how much energy do we feel like we have? How much money do we have? Realistically in a healthy way in a sustainable way? What can we spend in terms of time, what can we sip spend in terms of energy, what can we spend in terms of money to create the feelings we want to create? Because those feelings, as you know, can be created with very little time, very little money, very little energy, or they can be created with a lot of all three of those, or anywhere in between.
Michele Christensen 21:47
So when you look at the resources that you have to put in, and the backdrop against which you're doing this planning, you can create something that actually works out as opposed to building a castle on sand, it's doomed to fail from the beginning without even realizing it.
Michele Christensen 22:04
The fourth key is to be collaborative. So we've been talking about this all along. But it's really important to remember. There's often a differential in how much training and energy each of you has been given around a particular theme. This is why it's so hard even in feminist households to get equity of labor on home family holiday stuff. It is just because, I know at my house, I'll just talk about us. I don't know, I don't make generalizations about everybody. But I was trained a lot more in how to think these things through, how to plan for them, I was trained to have them matter to me. And my husband was, like I think many men were, trained to show up for it. Go get a tree, strap it to the top of your vehicle, bring it home, haul it in, you know, there were certain things he was supposed to do, but masterminding the whole thing, not at all, that was not his job. And so we are a lot more egalitarian. And he's a lot more participatory, but I have a leg up. So to be collaborative, I have to clue him in. And I have to treat him like an equal. And I have to recognize the differential interests level or passion level, and what we both want out of the season. So we both have to bring all that to the table and have a frank conversation with some of that cultural intelligence about where we're coming from, to be able to do it in a way that doesn't have hostility or resentment baked in from the start.
Michele Christensen 23:39
And then the fifth key is to ask good questions. So I've been mentioning this my favorite one, how do you want to feel? What do we really want this to be about? What matters to you is a great question to ask your partner. What are you willing to do? And what are you not willing to do? How much energy do you have for this? What can I do to support you? Particularly if you're making a request of your partner, you know, I'd really love for you to be a full partner with me in cooking this particular dinner, or I really want us to all decorate the tree together. And whatever it is, if you have a vision that really matters to you, and you want them to participate in a certain way, you want to be explicit about that and then you want to be explicit in asking if I wanted you to show up that way and that was a really important ask from me. What could I do to support you in showing up that way? You know, what did they need in order to be able to do that? And what would they like you to do? How would they like you to be? What's something that would be really meaningful to them inside this season? And one of you might have like 80 things you want for the season, and the other might have three and that's okay. We want to be asking the good questions and then having just an intimate really present, really grounded grown up relationship with the reality of our partners desires and energy and attention and availability. And if we're at peace with them being a whole and complete person separate from us, we're not trying to control them, or make our holiday the way we need it to be. And that's why I wanted you to unplug from expectations and comparison and all those other pieces. Because that really helps you to respect your partner's limits. If you are unplugged from those things, you can go Oh, okay, given who I am, and given who they are, this is how it's going to be. All right, you can be at peace with that, there's room for grace. So looking at all of this, creating a collaborative, beautiful holiday season that reflect your values, your heart's desires and the backdrop of what you're both and all of you are dealing with right now, I know that you can have the season of your dreams, that you can plan it effectively together.
Michele Christensen 26:01
I'm glad we're talking about this now, because we're going to go into, later in the month, we're going to start talking about planning an amazing new year and doing larger scale planning together. So this gives you an introduction to some of that, we're going to go way more into it. But I'm really joyful about this season in my family, I love that we have more time together, frankly. And we are tremendously privileged that it's not a time of huge stress for us. Hopefully, God willing, we will stay healthy.
Michele Christensen 26:31
My heart goes out to all the families that are dealing with loss right now, that are dealing with financial pressure, that are dealing with fear. And my wish for you is that you feel the hope inside this season, that this time of shorter days and sometimes physical darkness, and sometimes energetic darkness can be a fertile place where the light of the future grows. So whatever you're cultivating this season, I wish abundance for you in that. And I know that we can cultivate in the dark and the cold, that which will come to fruition later, and so may all be bright for you inside if not outside, and merry, if possible.
Michele Christensen 27:29
So that's it for today. And my wish for you and for our community is that you will join our conversation over on the Conscious Couples’ Circle. That's at society.lisenbury.com. It's a great place to answer your questions and for you to share your experiences and join the conversation about creating the love and sex that we deeply desire in ways that evolve us both.
Michele Christensen 27:51
So it's all happening at Conscious Couples’ Circle. And that link is in the show notes atlisenbury.com/episode/017. If you enjoyed this episode or other episodes, you know what would help me in the podcast immensely if you would leave a review, particularly in Apple podcasts because those are a huge help in finding new listeners and growing the positive impact that these conversations can have. So please go leave a review right now. I'll just take a minute, just give us a few words about what the show gives you. I would so so appreciate it.
Michele Christensen 28:27
And Hey, have you subscribed to the podcast? You're gonna want to so you never miss an episode. So please go to Apple podcasts or wherever you listen, hit that subscribe button. And then you'll always get notifications of new episodes each week. Thank you so much for listening. I'm Michele Christensen. This has been sex love power. I'll be back here next Thursday with another holiday special episode. This time it's about gift giving and how to be successful at it. You know, I never want to point fingers at men. But this episode is inspired by one of the bonuses for my men's program, "Penetrate Her" because so many men asked me, “How doI win it gift giving? It feels like a losing proposition no matter what I do. So we're gonna hit that conversation heart next week. Until then, maybe the light within you illuminates the world around you.