027: Seasonal Adjustments

As the seasons change and we are faced with different challenges, circumstances and life events - it’s no secret that we have to make adjustments.
You have to take note of yourself each season and evaluate your capacity, your values, and most importantly, learn to take care of yourself!
In this episode, I talk about the seasonal adjustments that we have to make and how you can better take care of yourself no matter what season of life you’re in right now.
What you’ll find in this episode:
A segment on what’s over in the shop
How the seasons are different depending on your location
How you go through different challenges in different seasons of your life
Why you need to engage in basic self-care
Why you have to pay attention to the messages around you
Read the transcript of the episode below:
 Episode 27 - Seasonal Adjustments

The truth is that seasons in nature change, seasons in our life change, sometimes we have a hard time making adjustments to those seasons. This is Episode 27: Seasonal Adjustments.

Welcome to the Committed to Create Podcast. I'm Lisa Funk and I am so excited to hang out with you here as we talk about the power of creating with our hands and our minds. I like to keep it real, remind you that you are not alone and share specific ways that creativity and mindfulness can help us live even more meaningful and joyful lives. I am so glad that you're here.

Hello my friend, and welcome back to the podcast. I'm excited today to talk about seasons, but before we do that, I wanted to have a segment called over in the shop.

As you might guess this is a very busy season for our shop and we love it. We love being able to offer really fun lettering supplies that you can use as gifts for yourself or for those that you love. It is such an amazing gift to be able to offer, especially during this season, this difficult year that so many have struggled through and having something that is a fun, creative outlet that's meaningful, that's relaxing, might be just what you or your loved one needs.

So if you are interested in getting some of those supplies, I just want to encourage you to get them as soon as you can. If you order any time this week, you will probably get it in time for Christmas, but why not just order it today? Get it crossed off your list. And then, you know, it's done and taken care of.

I know that with 2020 and so many people ordering things online, some of the mail carriers are experiencing extended shipping times. And so I just wanted to remind you the sooner, the better get that order in today and enjoy that beautiful feeling that happens once you have crossed that off your list.

We are so grateful to all of you who have supported our small little family business this year. It means so much to us. And we love being able to offer these lettering supplies that we know you will love. And that is our segment for this week.

All right. So the main topic for the podcast episode this week is Seasonal Adjustments. And I just wanted to talk about how seasons change, in so many different ways. The seasons in nature obviously change. We have winter spring, summer, and fall. Now, depending on where you live, you may have different experiences with the seasons.

For example, living in Arizona, my experience with the changing seasons is different from someone living in Minnesota. But we experienced changing seasons nonetheless here, I am just experiencing a blazing hot summer where you either find a body of water to be in, or you're probably going to want to find some air conditioning to be in because it's so stinking hot, or you can move into fall and winter, which is a really lovely season here, in my opinion, where we can be outside quite a bit. And those seasons are different if you live somewhere else, like Minnesota, where it's really cold. But either way, wherever you live, you probably experience a change in the weather related to the season and some other things as well, maybe how long the sun is up and when the sunset is and what is growing around you.

Nature has a beautiful way of working through the seasons of having time when things are planting, having times when things are dormant, other times when everything is blooming or when it's time to harvest. I marvel at the way that nature works in seasons. Every season has a purpose and they all look different, but they're all important.

So for us, when we are experiencing the change in our seasons of nature, we might be changing things like our wardrobe. For example, when you live in Arizona, in the summertime, you pretty much, you live in your swimsuit, you get ready in your swimsuit for the day. Pretty much every day. We have a bunch of hooks in our laundry room, and it's really funny to see throughout the seasons, what is hanging on the hooks and how that changes.

So in the summertime on those hooks, we have towels and goggles and a bag full of sunscreen and swim diapers. And then in the winter time we have coats and scarves and hats and jackets.

And you might be thinking you don't really need the hats and scarves in Arizona in the winter, but it is the desert, and we do get a few days that, for us, feel really cold. And so we do change our wardrobe based on the seasons.

Now in the winter time, that might mean that we're mostly just wearing a light sweatshirt, but the sweatshirts replaced the goggles on the hooks in our laundry room. I'm guessing that wherever you live, you probably have a wardrobe that changes a little bit as well.

We also change our activities. Like I said, in the summer here, you're either trying to find a splash pad or a pool or a river, or you might be trying to find an indoor activity, like a movie theater or something where you can be in the air conditioning. If you live somewhere that has a really snowy winter, you might find that you adjust your activities to go skiing or sledding or building snowman or having snowball fights.

But we often change our activities based on the season. I often find that even what I'm carrying in my bag changes, whether I've got some sunscreen in there for the summer, or maybe a little beanie or some chapstick in the winter time. I adjust for the seasons. I adjust my wardrobe. I adjust my activities. I adjust what's hanging on the hooks.

We also have seasons of holidays. So of course we have Halloween and then we have Thanksgiving and Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever you might celebrate in the winter time. We have those seasons of holidays. And then we also have activities that can kind of become a season like school, the school year or the summertime or school breaks.

Those are different seasons when we change what we're doing like in the summer, when we have maybe a lot of free time. And then during the school year, when we may have a lot of structure and maybe you're someone who has a lot of structure either way, but I think if you've been on the podcast long enough, you learned that I am not a naturally super structured person.

So even though I think it's so awesome, it doesn't come super naturally to me. So there is a big difference in my life when it's summertime and we're just kind of going with the flow. And when it's during the school year, we have a lot more structure.

And then we also have the seasons of our lives. Periods of time that change based on, maybe the ages of our children or what we're doing in our careers or with schooling, or where we live, or the challenges that we're facing. I think we can agree that there are many different seasons of our lives as well.

For me, I've gone through many seasons, obviously, in my life; of being young, growing up, then being an adult, a single adult than getting married, but even in my life as a mom, I've gone through many seasons. Of having babies and then a bunch of toddlers and preschoolers all at once. And now having my kids get a little bit older, but I still have a two year old. And with those different seasons, things change their needs, change how I interact with them changes. And also, as I mentioned before, there are challenges that come up in our lives that really can be a season of their own.

For me, there have been seasons of depression. There have been seasons of anxiety. There was a season of grieving my brother after he passed away. And of course I continue to grieve and mourn and miss him, but there was definitely a really intense season of grief after he passed away.

There are many seasons where we are affected by challenges that come up in our lives. And sometimes I don't know that we give ourselves enough credit for the capacity that we may have or not have because we are facing these hard challenges.

Some of these challenges may involve our children and their needs and the challenges that they're facing.

My goal with this podcast today is to help us to be aware of the seasons that we're in and what those seasons are requiring of us. And then what we are trying to require of ourselves on top of that, because I think that sometimes we believe that we should be just as capable of doing X amount of things in one season as we are in the next. That our capacity should be the same, no matter what. That we should be able to accomplish the same amount of things in the day. That every year at Christmas time, we should be able to do all of the same activities that we do every year that we should be able to check them all off.

And sometimes that just doesn't happen because seasons change and we can adjust along with them.

Now, like I said before, the seasons change with the holidays and that is a shift in and of itself, but each year, our season in life is changing as well. And we may have those additional challenges, which has a different season too.

So we need to really be aware of all of the seasons that we're in and what we can require of ourselves. And I have a few things that I want to focus on today as we do that.

The first is to examine your capacity.

So you may not feel that you're able to do as much as you have in the past, and you may not even be able to necessarily identify why.

You might, because you might know that you've had some hard things. Maybe you struggle with your mental health, like I do, maybe your children are struggling or some other things have happened in your life. And so you aren't feeling up to the same things that you've done before. Maybe your energy is lower or you just don't have the motivation.

And one thing that I don't want you to do is to judge your worth based on your capacity: your capacity to achieve or to accomplish, or to be productive. But with the changing seasons, whether it's the seasons of nature, the holiday seasons, the seasons of our activities, or the seasons of life and different challenges we can adjust, we can adjust to what our capacity is, and we can allow ourselves to do less or more based on that capacity.

The second thing that I want us to focus on are our values. What matters to us. And those values are going to be different for you than they are for your neighbor. They're going to be different for you than they are for your sister or your mom. Some of us want to believe that we should all care about the same things, because when I'm talking about what your values are, I'm talking about what you value. What is important to you.

So when I say that you might have different values than your friend, it doesn't mean that you don't have as high of standards or that you aren't caring about the right things. It's just that all of us have different things that we really care about that we value.

And some of those values might seem really big and important to us like family time or education. And some of those things might be small things like, I really care about doing gingerbread houses with my kids every year. Which I'm not saying that I do, but like at Christmas time, like I talked about last week, it's okay to look at the things that you really enjoy and not just do things because they're on a list or because your friend is doing all of those things, but doing them because you care about them and you value them or someone in your family really does. And it matters to you that they have that experience that's super important to them.

So based on your season and your capacity, you want to make sure that you're spending that energy, that time, that ability on things that you care about on things that matter to you.

And the third thing is to take care of yourself the best that you can. This often gets left out because people think it's selfish, people think it's frivolous, and I am not talking about going and getting pedicures and massages and your hair done and all of that. Although, I think all of those things are super fun. I am talking about basic self care, basic soul care, doing what you need to do so that you don't become overwhelmed, burnt out, stressed out and exhausted and get to the point where you can't function well, where you're not enjoying your life, where you're not able to give and to serve in the ways that you want to because you haven't taken care of your own needs.

So the first thing that I talked about is being aware of your capacity. And I think that this is really key during different seasons, because you are going to be drawn to different messages depending on the capacity that you have.

If your capacity is really small and you're feeling really burnt out, then you are going to be drawn to messages that say, you don't have to do everything. Whatever you do is enough. You are okay. And that is the right message for you because of the season that you're in and the capacity that you have.

If you have a lot of capacity right now, then you might be drawn to messages of, push harder. You can do more. Let's do this other fun thing. Why not do all this stuff for your kids if you can? And those messages might really stand out to you because you're open and you have the energy and the ability right now to do more.

And neither way is right or wrong. It is what it is. Your capacity doesn't make you a really good person or a really bad person. And I say this because this is something that I've struggled with throughout my life.

I would always look at people that seem to have more capacity than me to get things done, to accomplish things. And I would think, man, they're so amazing. And I'm not. Because I'm tired or I don't seem to be able to get all of those things done. I'm not very productive.

And so I know what that feels like to think that way. And it's simply not true. Whatever your capacity is, focus on that and be aware of the messages that are encouraging you to embrace that capacity.

So if you're feeling really depleted, really tired, really overwhelmed, then you focus on the messages or give yourself the messages of slow down, do whatever you can focus on what matters.

And I'm going to say that even if you have a lot of capacity and you want to give yourself the messages of let's do more and let's look for other ways to serve and more people to help, I still want you to focus on what matters to you, because that is number two, which is you still want to make sure that your values match up with your actions, even if you have a lot of capacity.

Because if you all have a lot of time and energy and motivation, but you spend it on things that you don't really care about, and I'm going to give you a little clue that you might be doing that because it's what other people want you to do, I say this as a lifelong people, pleaser, who wants to make people happy and I totally get it. It was really hard for me to learn how to say no. Also life-changing, we'll do another episode about that at some point.

But even if you have a lot of time and you're not super busy, or you have a lot of energy, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't still focus on making sure that your time and your energy is aligned with your values, things that you care about that are important to you, that fuel you and fill you up. Because if you don't, then you still might end up not feeling great. You might feel a little down or off because you're spending your time on things that you don't value.

And of course, taking care of yourself can also get put by the wayside. Even if you have a lot of time and energy, even if you have a lot of capacity, you can spend all of that time doing things that the other people want you to do, and you're still left, not feeling great because you haven't taken care of yourself.

We cannot pour from an empty well. We have to take care of ourselves in order to take care of everybody around us that needs us. And I'm talking about getting enough sleep, nourishing your body, nourishing your mind, nourishing your soul, doing the basic things that are going to help you.

Sometimes we forget that no matter what season we're in, this is not a race. This is not a competition. We are not trying to figure out who can do more and who can do it faster.

I just want to encourage us today to look at the seasons that we're in and to allow them to be different, to release expectations that might be bringing disappointment for us.

And also to ask ourselves the question, what is our goal? What is our goal? What is our purpose? Why are we doing the things that we're doing? Is it to fill our lives with meaning to have fun, or is it to achieve, to check things off lists to keep up?

And why, why do we feel the need to achieve? Why do we feel the need to check things off of these lists? Is it because it's something that we've always done? Is it because it's something that the people around us tend to do?

I just want this podcast to be an encouragement for you to just take stock and think about why we're doing the things we're doing to recognize what might be distracting us from filling our days with things that we love that matter to us.

And remember that we really do get to choose what we do, and that all seasons are different that we don't need to require the same things of ourselves in every single season. We have different challenges. Our kids have different needs. Things change.

And I love thinking about nature and how, the leaves fall and the trees are barren for a while, and then they grow new leaves, and it's such a beautiful process that I don't think we always give ourselves the chance to rest, to pull back from something. To allow ourselves to be still. And often after we give ourselves that permission, we will find new growth.

We will find new paths. If we're not too busy trying to check things off of the list or fulfill the same requirements we've always expected of ourselves, we can find that through the seasons we can adjust, we can change and we can grow.

So first, work to be aware of your capacity and make sure that you're paying attention to the messages, whether they're outside messages or messages that you give yourself.

And I encourage you to do more of the latter so that you can be giving yourself the messages that you need, because only you know whether you need to be focused on more rest, or if you're ready to have more activity or more productivity.

And remember that neither way is right or wrong, but that our seasons change.

For me, I get really excited when I'm in a season where my capacity has increased. And I think this is great. This is best! But I've learned that, for me, I am going to have another season that's going to come where I need some more rest. And I need to take it easy. And I have to remember that that doesn't change my worth. It doesn't change how important I am or valuable I am. It just means that I need to adjust for that season.

So I hope that you will evaluate your capacity, that you will evaluate your values and focus on them, and that you will make sure to take care of yourself, because even if you have a lot of time and energy, that can get lost.

So my friend, I hope that this podcast has helped you. I hope that you're having a wonderful season and that you can allow it to be what it is. To not compare it to other past seasons, to not compare it to other people, but to enjoy it and love it and embrace it for what it is.

Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. If you are looking to give me a gift this Christmas, I want to give you a little hint, which is I would love a review of the podcast. If you would go to the reviews and add one for me, I would love that. I love knowing what is resonating with you. And it really encourages me to continue and know that there really are people out there listening.

So thank you again for being here. If you are interested in getting some lettering supplies, Especially if you want them in time for Christmas, I wanted to, again, encourage you to head over to hand lettered design.com. I'm going to leave that link in the show notes, and we also can really help you figure out if you're a beginner, which bundle you should get if you are intermediate, or if you want to do the flourishing bundle. If you have any questions, you'll find a bunch of explanations over on the website, or you can contact us there as well to ask us your personal question, because we want to make sure that you get the perfect thing for you or for somebody that you love.

Thank you so much again for being here. And I look forward to talking to you again soon.
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027: Seasonal Adjustments

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