We're kicking off our Honest Holidays Series! Let's be real, the holidays aren't always so merry and bright, so why pretend? We want to approach this holiday season with honesty and truth, and we welcome you to join us. Also, be sure to sign up for our Self Care Sunday Newsletter, Inner Workout is doing a promotion all month long. Don't miss out!
Mentioned In The Episode
Newsletter: innerworkout.co/self-care-sundays
Welcome back to Inner Warmup for where your inner work begins. My name is Taylor Elyse Morrison, I'm the founder of Inner Workout and you, as always, are our expert guest. Thanks for being here today. So, you know we kick things off with a short exercise. Today, I want to do something really simple and I just want you to check in with yourself really quick. Find one way that you can make yourself a little bit more comfortable in this moment. So for me, before I started recording, I warmed up my hands. It's getting really chilly in Chicago and I realized oh, I'm a little cold right now, and so I warmed up my hands, and then was ready to hit record and engage in this conversation with you. So do whatever it is that you need to do to get a little bit more comfortable and then we'll get into the episode.
So this is the first in our Honest Holidays series. If you didn't catch that announcement, I really wanted us to approach the holidays with transparency and realness. I feel like it is a time of the year where there can be a lot of pressure to show up in a certain way, a lot of pressure to be cheerful too. If you watch romantic Christmas movies, do you have like this romanticized idealized time of the year that is full of family and magic? It totally can be those things but I know that isn't my experience every single year. And so the goal of the Honest Holidays series is to allow you to have some honest conversations with yourself, about your relationships to the holidays, about how you're feeling in this particular holiday season. And for it to be a no pressure 10 minutes or so where you can just have some real talk with yourself. On the other side of that, we also called it Honest Holidays because we want to be really honest in our marketing over the holiday season. So we are doing a promotion all month and we're sharing that with our newsletter subscribers. If you don't get our self care Sunday newsletter, you can head to the show notes and make sure you're signed up.
We want this to be really easy and honest, from our part as well. So let's get into the first question. The interview question that I've got on the docket today is what are your holidays? What are your holidays? And this is something I've been thinking about, I would say, for over a year at this point. I had another podcast before this one and I had an adjacent episode of that podcast that was really exploring what holidays are. So there are a few definitions, a few ways that you can think of holidays. Holidays can be a day that you celebrate, often related to honoring a person, so think of like MLK Day. And these are a US centric so Martin Luther King Day, President's Day, Abraham Lincoln's birthday. I'm in Chicago, we have Casimir Pulaski day. It also can be related to a religion that you practice. So we have Christmas off, you might have Easter, I'm recording this now but by the time you hear it, it'll be the end of Diwali. So those can be types of holidays, generally like religious or commemorative in some nature. There's also holiday in the sense of taking a vacation. And a lot of times and I'd love to get other people's feedback on this but when I think of going on a holiday, it doesn't really feel like a little quick trip somewhere. It feels like I am spending some time on holiday and I picture like wearing a really nice brimmed hat, often sitting on the beach...you can holiday anywhere...but this long, rich vacation. And then there's the etymology, the root of the word holiday, which means holy day. A day that is set apart, definitely has that more explicit, religious, or spiritual side to it. And I like coming back to this definition of holiday as holy day because you can then create holidays of your own and decide what days are sacred and special to you. So as I was preparing for this episode, I thought about what some of my holidays are, what some of my holy sacred days are.
And some of them are related to relationships that I have in my life. Others are more fun and lighthearted. So in no particular order, these are some of the holidays, my holidays that came to mind. My birthday and I say this because November is my birthday month. And even though I would not identify as a birthday person, I'm not a person who celebrates my birthday all month long, I really value and view as sacred the time near my birthday as a time to reflect on my personal New Year. And so it's a beautiful sacred time of reflection for me. Other holidays are my anniversary, and it's interesting because I've been with my husband since high school. So we have our dating anniversary and we have our wedding anniversary. I actually think that our dating anniversary feels a little bit more sacred to me because it's when it all began, it was the first time that we said yes to each other. Family birthdays feel like holidays and again, for me, it's less about gift giving my family and a lot more on experiences and time together than giving gifts. But the birthdays give me a chance to celebrate someone and surprise and delight them and I value birthdays for that. Now, I will also say that my family, especially my mom's side of my family, is really good at just, I thought of you, so I got you this, all year long, or I thought of you so I'm going to send you this sweet note. But it's just amplified a little bit further on birthdays and I appreciate that.
Some other holidays that come to mind, some holy days, some celebrations in my life are being based in Chicago. So the first day that I don't have to wear a coat, there is just a feeling of oh my gosh, I can be outside, I don't have to have a huge extra layer. The earth is like coming alive again. I'm alive again. And it's just a really beautiful moment. I never thought about it like that until I started reflecting for this episode. Another one that's a little bit more lighthearted...so if you know Earth, Wind and Fire, "do you remember the 21st night in September?" I love that song. There's also a December version of the song that you can stream all month long. It's basically September, they just change a couple words in it. But my college roommate, we used to sing that song and play it often and so now we'll just text each other it on the 21st and it's just a fun celebration of our friendship. And even though we live across the country now, September 21, I always know that we're gonna text each other and that we're both probably listening to the song. So that's a really sweet holiday.
And I was just thinking of some other examples. I have a friend who their friend group comes together every year for...it's almost like this Olympics that they've created amongst themselves. And they come back every year to compete in these fun games that they've created. I have a friend, and actually multiple friends who will celebrate the anniversary of their move to a new city.
It might also be like it's a holiday when there's a shift in your lunar cycle or your menstrual cycle. Or a holiday when you remember, this is the day that I passed the bar or this is the day that I said yes to something or said no to something. There's so many directions you could take this question, but I think it's worthwhile to sit and to explore what your holidays are so that you can be intentionally celebrating them. We so often just accept the holidays that we get time off of work for, which is great. I like taking days off of work too but what if you could decide okay, I'm going to celebrate. I'm going to really celebrate the first time that I don't have to wear a coat. Or I'm going to really celebrate the fact that I get to play this song with my friend or the fact that I've lived in Chicago for six years or whatever it is for you. Once you put it down on paper, you can think about how to intentionally celebrate it in a way that feels energizing and feels exciting for you. You don't just have to passively celebrate the Hallmark holidays, you get to create your own. So I want to give you some time to think about your own holy and sacred days and fun days and celebratory days and how you want to engage with them.
Thanks for taking the time to reflect and to kick off this Honest Holidays series with me. I would love to chat in real time. We've got our Inner Co-Working session next Sunday at 7pm Central. That is November 14 2021 at 7pm Central and it is free. It's a way for you to do that self care thing that you keep meaning to do but get distracted. So, if you want to come hang out with us in our secret audio space, we'd love to have you. Okay, thank you for your time. Thank you for your expertise and take care!
