Keep it simple Denise. Keep it simple Tell her what to focus on so she knows what really matters  Because you guys, there’s like all these amazing things and I get excited to share. Ooh, try this tool and try that tool. And so I just challenged myself to keep it really simple. I really challenged myself to keep myself focused on what really matters  so I can teach you  how to stay focused on what really matters. And that’s what I want to talk about today. What really matters? What will make a difference? How can things be different? So many women are getting stuck is because they’re feeling the dread and the heaviness because they think they are destined to repeat the past. 

 

They don’t believe that they have any choice, that things can be different.  You might be believing that the next two months  are just going to happen to you.  You have no choice.  And they’re just going to descend upon you and overtake your life and overtake your brain. And that just isn’t the truth.  See what I find happens is of course our brains are just really great at doing what they’ve always known.

 

And until we stop,  until we stop and look at, hey, what is sabotaging me?  Hey, what does feel heavy? Hey, what does feel burdensome? Until we actually stop in pinpoint what those things are,  we can’t solve for them.  And so the very first thing that I want to impart to you in this podcast is things don’t have to go the way they have in the past.

 

You can de sabotage your holidays.  And the very first thing is to recognize that the holidays aren’t happening to you. 

 

You get to choose everything that you’re doing.  And as we go through the work in the Celebrate Not Sabotage Challenge, one of the exercises I’m going to have every woman do is to actually de sabotage her calendar.  Go through each event and be able to say, yes, oh, I love this. I want to do this.  Or say, nope, not this year.

 

Doesn’t work for me this year.  And it’s not saying no, never, but in this season of your life, perhaps that event or that tradition or that task isn’t just part of the holidays that you want to have this year.  For example, I used to bake dozens of cookies.  And I would give them away as gifts.  And I would eat lots of the cookie dough.

 

I never was really into eating the cookies themselves. It was more of the dough. And when I came into food recovery, I just wanted a different way to show people that I loved them. I didn’t want to sabotage myself, the way I felt about me, my health, my food recovery, I didn’t want to bake. I had to come up with a new way.

 

And so that task  was not this year.  That doesn’t mean never.  But I will say one of the yes tasks that I’ve chosen in the yes traditions is I love baking cookies with my boys. Yes, my kids are in high school now. And yes, I just butter them up to spend 45 minutes with their mom making cookies so that I have the memory. 

 

I love using the rolling pin. It reminds me of my mom who’s still living, but I just love that sound. They’re just these  sugar cookies that we create different paint colors

 

With egg yolks and food coloring and we paint them and then we buy sprinkles and my kids enjoy eating them  And it’s great. I love the event. And so I choose to do it, but I also have a game plan when I do it and my game plan so that I enjoy it and I get everything I want out of it and nothing I want.

 

So it’s totally de sabotaged is I do it when I’m fresh. I don’t do it at night. I do it when I have energy. I usually have a cup of something to sip on, whether it might be a diet soda, it might be a coffee, it might be a decaf, it might be a special drink. Maybe we went to Starbucks that day. I don’t know.

 

It might be something special that I’ve chosen that I might be sipping on.  Another thing with my game plan, sometimes we call them protocols, but for this holiday season, I’m going to be calling them game plan because it sounds so good. So much more fun.  The other part of my game plan  is that I don’t pressure them.

 

Like if they’re done, I’m not like, Oh,  you have to stay.  Or, Oh, you didn’t finish your. Your cookies you didn’t do your whole tray And you guys and I also don’t even pressure myself like if there’s cookie dough left and I don’t feel like cutting them out And baking them Then I just say this is over. That was fun.

 

That was a great memory. We’re done. We can throw it away We don’t have to do it.  No, i’ve never done that, but I always tell myself listen, you don’t have to finish this If you’re done, you’re done.  And I’m not going to have any mind drama about quote, wasting the cookie dough. But usually I’m like, Oh, this is kind of fun.

 

I’m enjoying this. Like I had my time with them and now I want to paint them.  And if you’ve listened to me long enough, you know one of my safe eating rules is that I don’t stand eating. And so I wouldn’t eat the cookie dough unless I sat down and ate it and I planned it, which I totally could. And that might be part of my game plan.

 

But again, my point is, is that you can see that there’s some things for you this year That might not just be this year. It just might not be this year. Maybe you’ve  been listening to this podcast and you’ve been really focusing on your self care and choosing what you want and loving your reasons for choosing them.

 

And you just find that there’s some things you just don’t love your reasons right now.  And you can just say, no, not this year. So I wanted to give you that the holidays aren’t happening to you. You get to create your own experience. And if you can continue to tell yourself that, oh my gosh, life is going to get so much better.

 

I was talking to one of our team members and I said, I’m so excited to do this holiday program. And I said, one of the reasons I’m so excited is because I can’t wait to teach her how to create her own experience.  And you guys, I talk about each one of you like that. I’m like her. And I’m like, I know I’m thinking of you. 

 

You Debbie, you Jan, you Sarah, you Olivia, whoever you are.  I talk to the Lord about you guys all the time.  And you know what he said to me? But you know what he said to me?  I was talking to him and I was like, you know what, Lord, with this program, I am so committed to 

 

to teaching her how to create her own experience so that she’s a woman that knows that she can create her own experience no matter what in any situation even beyond the holidays.  And I said, I also want to teach her, which I already told you guys this, how to stay focused on what really matters. So she gets what she really wants because you guys know the holidays are pretty noisy and distracting and I just want to keep bringing you back.

 

Nope. Focus on this. Nope. Focus on this. Nope. Focus on this. And you know what he said to me. He said, uh, yeah, but, uh, ultimately, she just needs to talk to me.  That’s what he said, ultimately, she just needs to talk to me, Jesus, and surrender to me.  And once he said that, I was like, yeah, Lord, that’s exactly right.

 

Ultimately, that’s all she needs.  But what happens is that no one’s ever taught her how to quiet her mind.  Ultimately, no one’s ever taught her how to not be so distracted.  I thought that was so adorable. He’s like, yeah, but ultimately she just needs me. And I was like, I know that.  And that just really helped me simplify to be like, yeah, let’s just focus on what really matters, which is talking to the Lord.

 

And so this entire program  is designed to clear away.  All the things that get in the way of you talking to the Lord, all the distractions, all the things that lead you to sabotage. So we’re de sabotaging your calendar, which I just think is the most adorable way to say that. I came up with that. Oh, did I, or did the Holy Spirit give it to me?

 

And that’s just so cool. But you can do that whether or not you join this program. You just ask yourself, is this something I love? Is this something I want to do this year?  Or is it just not this year? It just doesn’t fit in the cards this year.  Totally fine. You have that permission.  I want you to also embrace  that you have the ability to create your own experience.

 

That is a real thing. That is a real thing. So let’s say for example, Oh, this is such a true example.  Okay. So  there’s this event that I go to and I don’t love it.  Now remember, I didn’t say that you have to love the event, but you have to love your reasons for including it on your calendar. So it is this event.

 

It’s in January. It’s for my husband’s work. It’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s a three hour drive, which is great with my husband. We stay in a hotel, which is great. And we go to this banquet hall, which is fine.  And I caught myself last year.  Sitting there after a couple hours, just saying, all right, I’m bored.

 

You know, I checked in with myself and I was being honest. I’m kind of bored. I’m kind of having many thoughts about the people who may have been over served and are now singing. And I’m thinking, oh my gosh, they have to go back to work on Monday. Like I’m feeling really kind of embarrassed for some people, but it doesn’t matter.

 

It’s a company party. I don’t work there.  It doesn’t matter,  but what I really love, you guys,  I love being the wife that can go with my husband.  And I think in the olden days,  isn’t that funny? I just said that.  I think that maybe some people would say, be that woman who can walk in on her husband’s arm and just mingle.

 

And be fine and part of it and support him and just be with him. And  I don’t think that that’s a sexist or chauvinist thing to say. I just found myself saying, you know what? This is the wife I want to be. I want to be the wife that my husband can say, yeah, my wife’s going to be there. And she’s going to talk to the other wives and she can even talk to the owners of the company and can talk and, you know, she gets along with everyone and she’s very pleasant. 

 

I don’t think he thinks that, but I think that’s funny that I just said that. And  I just caught myself saying, no, I really want to be this wife.  Would I really prefer to be at home  by myself in bed early? Yeah.  But I really love being that woman who can be that wife to him. So  you know, that’s where I can come to.

 

And during the event, I have a game plan. I don’t pressure myself to sit in that seat the whole time. I am okay walking around the hotel. I am okay going to the bathroom and just scrolling on my phone for a little bit if I need a break.  It’s part of my game plan. It’s part of the way that I prevent sabotage. 

 

Which I want you to start thinking of that. What are the things that have sabotaged me in the past, and how can I solve for that? 

 

In our Celebrate Not Sabotaged program, we’re going to be going through each event, and  Each event we get to look at all the things that sabotage you, and I say all the things which are probably like three, and we just create a game plan for them, a game plan that addresses your real needs. I can tell you one of the things that, um, I hear a lot from women is they’re bored or they’re bored sitting around and talking.

 

Well, friends. There’s a couple things you can do if you’re bored. How do you solve for being bored? Oh, finding things to do. Maybe you could bring a card game. Maybe you could be a craft. Maybe you could decide, I’m going to go hang out with kids for a little bit and play some fun games like would you rather.

 

Would you rather eat strawberries or oranges?  Would you rather swim in a pool or go to a park?  Would you rather, you could make, you could find a million fun games that require no board for you to  pack with you that you can just enjoy with kids. Kids are so fun. You could probably chat GPT some conversation starters. 

 

Just solve for the things that are sabotaging you.  Create your own game plan.  I love that.  I love that. 

 

It can be that darn simple. The holidays are not happening to you.  Now, one more thing about the holidays, like, like that word just  could be a circumstance itself because if I said, what are your thoughts of the holidays? You would have like,  and remember that your thoughts create your feelings. So every one of those thoughts is creating a feeling. 

 

And so I want to offer you just a little mindset hack if you want to try it. As you are making your plans  for the next two months, I want you to start saying that.  These are my plans for the next two months. I’ve got this event, and this event, and this event. And some of them will be related to the season.

 

Some of them will be related to the holiday, Thanksgiving. Some of them will be related to Advent. Some of them will be related to Christmas or New Year’s. Some of them  will have nothing to do  with the holidays, but will still be part of this season.  It might be things like  basketball games.  It might be things like

 

doing yard preparation or snow blowing. There’s going to be things that are just part of the normal life ish of the season of life that you’re in  that aren’t related to the holidays.  When I say season of life that you’re in, um, let me give you a couple examples of things not related to the holidays that are in the season of life that I’m in.

 

I have a freshman in high school who loves basketball. He will be part of the freshman team, I’m assuming, unless of course when he does the assessment or whatever they do to determine your skill level, he’s moved up to JV or whatever.  So depending on that, this kid will have practices that will be after school, I think, or they might be early morning.

 

I’m not exactly sure yet. And then he will have games. And the games, I don’t even know if there’s a bus system, if the kids take a, Oh, I think they do. They take a bus and then I’m going to go to some of the games, but I’m not going to pressure myself to go to All of the games,  so that’s one part of  the things that are in the season of life I’m in the other one is that I have a senior in high school, and so we’re going to start looking at college things and filling out college applications and filling out the FAFSA, which is like this financial aid thing,  not related to the holidays, but necessary for the next two months, the other things not related to the holidays, but you might think are are my children will be home for two weeks. 

 

That’s just the season of life I’m in. Now, you might not be in that season of life. You might be having college students come home that will be living with you for the next six to eight weeks.  You might be a total empty nester where no one is living with you.  You guys just see that the next two months  are just whatever season of life you’re in.

 

And so if we can just recognize that the stakes aren’t higher this time of year than any other year.  The stakes are not higher this time of year than any of the other times of year. Now, your brain doesn’t believe that, but I want to imagine, I want you to imagine this.  Let’s say  you were diagnosed with something  and the only way to treat it was to go into a medically induced coma  for two months  and then they would bring you out of the coma and you could resume normal life. 

 

Okay,  let’s say that happened.  Let’s say you fell asleep today  and you woke up and it was like February 1st.  The world continued.  You wouldn’t have a memory?  But you wouldn’t feel like you were lacking.  You didn’t screw up your life.  You didn’t miss out.  You wouldn’t even know. 

 

You guys, we just put so much pressure on the holidays, and I’m not sure that’s a hundred percent avoidable because we live in the culture that we live in and we come with all of our thoughts, and we come with all of our traditions that we do love. And we come with a lot of thoughts that put pressure on us,  but I just want you to consider that this year  you can lighten it up. 

 

This year, maybe you can  let go of 10 percent of the stuff you don’t like.  Maybe you can just put up the decorations that you love.  Did you guys know that the Jelineks do not put up Christmas decorations outside? When we first moved in our house 21 years ago, I think we did it for like two years, and we live on this property that was like a steal 21 years ago, and it’s three and a half acres, okay?

 

So it’s three and a half acres, and we have minimal landscaping in front of our house.  So the first year we put up decorations,  come home from night, you come home at night from  work. And I was like, Oh my gosh, we did all that work. And it looks like there’s nothing.

 

We do have minimal landscaping, but I was like, Oh my gosh, it barely looks like we put any lights up. So number one, I was like, all right, this is a lot of work to make it look like something.  But we did it for a few more years and we kept adding, and then they had like the net lights and we did that.

 

And I’m going to tell you guys, when it got to be like January, I’m in the Chicago burbs, when it got to be like January, whatever, 15th, 20th, and we were going to take the lights down, it was like below zero. And I’m like,  this, I did not get this much enjoyment out of these lights. Like it was so miserable taking the lights down.

 

And I just remember being like, Oh, I’m just going to cut them down a or B. I’m not taking these things down until I can not have frozen fingers.  Um, they, if that were the case and I live by myself, that’s what it would have been. My husband is one of these people who like makes up his mind and then like doesn’t finish it or  makes it makes up his mind.

 

And then he’s like, Oh, I’m totally doing it.  The point is, is that.  I don’t do outside lights. I think they’re gorgeous. I love looking at Christmas lights on other people’s homes.  I would probably like Christmas lights on my own house, but I don’t want to be the one that puts them up. I do not get that much enjoyment out of them. 

 

. No. So I don’t even do it. So I just want you to know, My kids still have memories about Christmas. There’s just no have twos.  I just want you to love your reasons for doing it. 

 

You don’t have to love doing it, but love your reasons for doing it. And it’s okay  to make it 10 percent lighter.  Maybe 20, maybe 25. I’m so excited to go through this whole process. I’ve never done this before for myself, where I’ve gone through every single event and listed it all during the holidays.

 

I’ve done this over summer events, but I’ve never done it for Christmas and just decide, do I want to do it? And do I not, and the whole concept of this, I know we’re talking about weight loss, but the whole concept of de sabotaging your calendar as one of the methods.  to help you prevent sabotage is because you guys, when we are  senselessly stressing ourselves out  because it’s optional stuff,  we’re setting ourselves up for sabotage. 

 

A stressed brain stress eats friends.  A calm brain that chooses wisely, that discerns, you know what, I might not love this, but I do love my reason for doing this.  It feels calm, feels in control, feels like they have the power, they’ve chosen,  and that brain doesn’t stress eat.  So the simple fact of being able, the simple task of de sabotaging your calendar will put you way ahead on having a sabotage free holidays. 

 

And if you say, Denise, that’s not even possible. I have to do everything on my calendar. That’s totally fine. The other thing that I told you I really want to make sure that you do is you stay focused on what really matters. So I give you a daily discipline. Follow these three things. It’s going to keep you focused on what really matters.

 

We’ve got a very short weekly practice where we review the week, what worked and what do I need to work on this week? How can I support myself this week? Use the resources that are available to me this week.  And even if you only do that, daily disciplines and weekly review, daily disciplines and weekly review, daily disciplines and weekly review, you can even set that up for yourself right now.

 

What are the top three things that you could do every single day  during the holidays that support you? And then at the end of the week, you just say, what worked? What needs work? How can I do it better next week?  Finally,  I want to teach you what to do in a crisis.  And a crisis is simply, I’m feeling stressed, my brain is freaking out. 

 

I’ll get, I’ll tell you one of the things.  Calm your brain down.  You guys, I’m gonna teach you how to calm yourself down, and a couple other techniques that involve,  uh, not resisting food.  Remember what I told you?  that I wanted to do was to not only teach you how to create the experience you want, but also teach you what to focus on for what really matters.

 

And what happens so often is we get into crisis mode and we haven’t I’ve been taught what to focus our brain on during that time. And so if you don’t tell your brain what to focus on, it’s going to tell you what to focus on. And our brains are so good at doing what they’ve always done, which is usually, and it was for me, peanut butter with chocolate chips or fudge. 

 

And so I want to show you what to focus your brain on. Some other simple things that aren’t resisting food. It’s just simply refocusing your brain. What your brain can do instead. 

 

 And so for you, my friends,  you can de sabotage your holidays  by the simple things that I told you.  De sabotage your calendar, love your reasons for what you’re doing, and be okay saying me, not this year, doesn’t mean forever, just not this year.  Know that when you’re planning, you’re only planning for two months. 

 

Two months of your life.  Just two months? You guys, the stakes aren’t high. When you start to feel something heavy or pressure, just check in with yourself. What feels heavy or pressuring about this? 

 

And you can solve for that. Start looking for ways to solve for that.  Listen, I want to help you through the holidays. I want you to go to weightlosswithaholyspirit. com, get signed up for our celebrate not sabotage holiday challenge.

 

We start next Monday gang, but if you get signed up right now, you can get the workbook and start watching some of my videos ahead of time and start hearing even more of the amazing tools that you will have that will make this feel so much lighter.  We’re working on this challenges for eight weeks. 

 

We start the next Monday  teaching you how to plan your entire Thanksgiving in a way that prevents weight gain, in a way that prevents exhaustion, in a way that creates the experience that you want.  And guess what? You don’t need anyone else to change. We’re gonna make game plans that don’t require any other players. 

 

You’re the only player necessary.  The only player necessary to create the experience that you want.  Isn’t that incredible that you can go to an event that you went to last year and it will be exactly the way you want to experience it. I  just think that’s amazing. I think it’s so amazing.  The Lord has given us these brains that we can train.

 

The Lord has given us these  tools that we can experience our life  in a way that isn’t heavy and burdensome. 

 

And so if that sounds amazing to you,  go to  weightlosswithaholyspirit. com and just click on celebrate, not sabotage challenge. It’s an eight week challenge. It’s 99. We even have payment plans available.  There is no reason for you to not do this.  We’re here to help you.  I am wishing you a very blessed holiday season full of peace and joy and lightness and that you show up for you  and learn a few simple things so that you can de sabotage your holidays. 

All right everybody, have a blessed day.