How to Plan For a Peaceful Holi-Daze with Valerie Peterson

Welcome to Inspiring People and Places, where we interview national leaders in the architectural, engineering, construction, and development industry in an effort to educate, innovate, and inspire industry professionals to disrupt the status quo, improve their project teams, and steward public and private investments more effectively. I'm your host, BJ Kramer, President and CEO of MCFA. Allow me to introduce today's guest. All right, inspiring people and places. Welcome back to another fun, educational, informative episode.

We have a repeat guest today. Her name is Valerie Peterson, LMHC, which stands for licensed mental health counselor. As many conversations go, we'll see where this one meanders. But it started out with the idea, well, first it started out that despite being an industry podcast and we have interviews of all kinds of interesting leaders, the mental health episodes tend to get a lot of attention. And you start asking yourself why, and it's because everybody's dealing with mental health issues, stress, anxiety, as we've talked about in the construction industry, suicide epidemic, as we've talked about in the veteran population, PTSD and suicide.

So we had the idea because the holidays are coming up that, you know, we might have Valerie back and just talk about in general, the stress that comes with the holidays. So I want to welcome Valerie back to the show. How are you, ma'am?

I am great. How are you, Vijay?

Never better.

Awesome.

Everything is great. I'm excited for this and I get most excited about the topics that I personally find helpful. Last time we talked, we talked about some action steps. I believe we touched on the fact that leadership is a people business. And when you're in the people business, you have to understand what people deal with.

You have books on marriage health and parenting and the like. And I literally just ran into a client partner who is talking to me about dealing with his daughter getting bullied. So the people business, people bring everything that they are and everything that they're dealing with to work. So I'm excited for today's topic. As we talked before the show, who knows where we'll go, but we'll start with the general premise that the holidays tend to be a more stressful period for everybody.

They sure do. They are, I should say. They're stressed, they sure do. They are. They're stressful.

I hear it all the time, you know, especially in private practice, you know, it just, you know, being with family, you know, it it it may be difficult. If I could say anything to our listening audience, pace yourself through the holidays. Pace yourself. Look at home and peace in your home. What flow...

What goes from the home out, like you're saying, BJ, we can bring that to work. So how can you pace yourself? How can you pick your battles? Don't make everything a battle, especially if you have teenage kids. Right?

Just let some things go during the holidays. You I love the saying that they say in AA, let go and let God. We cannot control everything. We don't need to be perfect. Can you allow yourself to be imperfect during the holidays?

Right?

It's hard. So let's talk about the pace, right? Everybody, one, it's an increased time of social gatherings and parties and celebrations. Everything you read is you spend more money, you eat and drink more than you usually do, you sleep less than you usually do, and you're on, if you will, you're on stage more than you usually are because you're engaging in a lot more interpersonal. So everything I just said is a recipe for being worn out.

And if you're worn out and then you're dealing with stress while or the regular stresses that go on in life while you're worn out, you're you're setting yourself up for failure. Yeah. What are some tips?

Short fuse?

Yes. Yeah. So go... I don't wanna... I don't want you to short fuse.

Go there.

You know, if I could say anything, you know, like you're describing, we we can be doing way too much during the holiday season, and and and people get more stressed out. They're tired. I love the saying HALT. And I think we talked about it possibly last time. HALT standing for hungry, angry, lonely, or tired.

If you're any of those four things, stop. Assess what your body's saying to you, what your mind is saying to you, and take a nap. Take a walk. No one is gonna take care of you but you. I don't care if you're married, your spouse can't take care of you.

You've gotta take care of you. Just like that analogy on an airplane when the air mask goes down, first put it over your face before the neighbor beside you or the child on your lap. You know, your your attitude during the holidays is gonna influence your children, your spouse, your work associates. So why not come from a pit... Place of peace and rest?

So I I hear what you're saying, hungry, angry, lonely, tired. Take care of yourself. I think what you started out was pace yourself. And I think in order to do that, we need to plan. What are some tips for being...

Because I don't want to remove myself from the Holly Jolly season, if you will. I want to be present and in it. I know that I have a tendency to over commit and try to do too much. How not do try to survive or avoid, but actually enhance the holiday experience. So, I don't want to be...

We'll talk about the halt if people are feeling that way, how do you remove yourself and acknowledge whatever the trigger is or the event is, or the feeling is that you have to remove yourself. We can talk about that when you're in it. But in order to prepare, we're recording in October, we're probably releasing in October based on our production release schedule right now. Talk to us about planning.

Yeah. I love it. You know, what is your vision for the holidays? You know, what what what would you love to accomplish? What would you like to happen?

And to write down that vision and even talk it over with your family. What is the holidays gonna look like? What do we want it to look like this Christmas, this Hanukkah, this New Year season?

I have so many like instant reactions. Like you want to create memories, you want to do all... Everybody has traditions. When you're married, you blend your traditions. You still maintain your traditions with your, you know, in my case, our extended families.

So you want it to be joyous, you want it to be peaceful, you want it to be memorable, you want it to be fun and exciting. And I think all of those things, I'll use gifting as you know, all of those feelings get pent up and then you overdo it. What are the tips for not overdoing it? An example is kind of easy setting a budget, right? A financial budget so you don't overextend yourself and you'd be very intentional about, okay, we want to have the maximum presence, but within our budget.

That's an example.

Right.

What other tips do you have?

Keep communication with your family, with your spouse. What once again do you want the holidays to look like this year? Just remember going back to the word pace, when we pace ourselves, our children, especially if you have real young children, will do much better. No one does real well when we're rushed. And there's sometimes, BJ, that obligation that we've gotta be at, like we're saying in every event.

And it's hard when families are in the same town and there's an expectation to go here and to go there. It's okay. I love the book Boundaries by Townsend MacLeod. It's okay to say no. And I know you're like, Val, that's not my personality.

I wanna be and do all these fun things and I hear you. You know, just a suggestion, let's say there's a bunch of different work parties that somebody has to be at or feels they have to be at. Drive separately. So if your your friends wanna stay really, really late, you can leave. So my encourage...

I encourage people to be creative. And so you can back out maybe a little bit earlier if you're really, really tired and you need a good night's rest. What do you think in there?

I think I resemble everything you've said. And I'm the coworker that's trying to stay late because I want everybody to feel that their event is important or whatever. You bring that up and whether it's family, work, friend, otherwise, we, I, have a tendency to feel what you said, which is not only an obligation, but a desire to be a part of all of these celebrations. It's not... You're trying to be two places at once in many ways.

That's an internal tension I'm creating. You kind of come up with a schedule solution and people are still disappointed. My job is not their happiness, I get that. Their happiness is their job and my happiness is my job. But talk to us about how you communicate that to somebody and set the boundary in a way that still shows love care.

This is important to me, but I also am doing a lot of things.

Yeah. And and really, it's our job, BJ, to be honest with somebody or to speak truth to them and love that, you know, I feel overextended. Therefore, I'm only gonna be staying until nine tonight at this gathering. It's not our responsibility to fix how they're feeling with what we've just said. Our job is to be assertive, and the definition of assertive is sharing our thoughts and feelings without infringing on the rights of others.

We cannot control how they receive it. And it's really as hard as it is, it isn't... It shouldn't be our problem. I mean, as as we get healthier, we can allow people to have their own feelings and let them process, but we can't fix situations. Does that make sense?

We've got to look at what is in the best interest of ourselves and our families. You know, I'll never forget a psychologist. I was at a seminar and he said it's so interesting to me how we make it so important to be kind in the community, at at the workplace, and we often take our frustrations and anger and being overly tired out at home. Right. Again,

I resemble that remark. And and our kids do too. Right? Our kids have to be on all day in school and then they come, you know, I I don't go anywhere where people don't tell me my kids are great. And I'm like, thank God you're saying that.

But are you sure you're talking about my kid? Because at home, they're animals.

I love it. Because why? It's a safe place for them to take out maybe what happened to them in school that day. But for us as adults, how can we, what this psychologist was saying was, really it should be the opposite. We should treat our spouse and our children in such a special way, and instead we're doing that out in the community at work, at church, wherever, but we're not at home is what his point was.

I know.

How make can home a place of peace and, yeah, especially during the holidays.

So slowing down, pacing ourselves, not overextending ourselves, ensuring we're maintaining healthy habits, including spending

Saying no.

Saying no.

Saying I cannot be there. Thank you so much for the invite, but I cannot be there on. You're like, oh, Val, I don't like that.

There's there's a tension there for sure. I believe it, but you also wanna be everywhere. So I get saying no is just a habit that we have to be able to get good at and accept.

There's a book called The Best Yes by Lisa Turckurst. Okay. And she is communicating in there. You know, we need to pick what is the thing that would be the best yes. Does that make sense?

It does.

And that's where it's gonna take some wisdom and discernment. What is the best yes during this holiday season? What really do I need to be at and maybe what do I not need to be at?

To all my family listening, I won't be around for the holidays. I'm just being funny.

Oh my gosh.

I'm taking notes while we're talking. Everybody listening, I'm learning as we go here. Alright, the best yes. Who was that by?

Lisa Terkurst.

Alright, so that's for us owning our own schedule, our own habits as leaders, as we try to understand that in addition to what we have going on individually, we have our employees and their schedules and their stressors. How do we be more human as employers or as leaders on project teams more understanding? What are some tips for employers for kinda setting the same peace in our our workplace as we're talking about in our homes during the holidays?

You know, I really believe what starts at the top flows down to the rest of the crew or the rest of the workplace. So if the leader, I'm now talking to you, BJ, come in in a place of, you know, peace and rest and come in and caring for people, that's gonna flow down to everyone else in your organization, I hope.

Yeah.

Where the person that leads, the rest of the people tend to follow. So if I could say anything to leaders, be the example. Don't be don't allow yourself. You may get stressed out. So much going on.

Then retreat. Rest. Enjoy your weekends off. And and, you know, I love the book, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff by, I think his last name is Johnson. You know, he says, give yourself permission to take a Sunday afternoon nap.

Can we give ourself permission to rest, especially during the holidays? Can we give ourself permission to exercise and to cut out time to take care of ourselves. Exercise and and, you know, maybe just sitting out and reading a good book. Can we do those things that we enjoy during the year? Can we also try to do them during the holidays?

Those things that make us feel good about who we are.

Yeah. And maybe that's part of the pacing and planning is putting those things on the schedule so that you don't over, know, essentially time block and schedule the exercise or with the yourself. I'm gonna During try

the holidays, yes. Because what happens, you know what I hear all the time? Is, you know, people come in in the New Year and go, I put on 20 pounds, I drank way too much, I feel lousy about myself, I overspend during the holidays, and now I have, you know, these credit cards I'm gonna have to pay off. That in the new year can be very stressful.

Yeah.

What would it be like to instead of say diet during the holidays, say food plan. You know, do things in moderation. What would that be like for some of our people that are listening today?

My my wife loves to tell me moderation. I'm I'm not a moderate person.

But

it's a it's a good point. I mean, I'm I'm usually... Let's let's start with Halloween. Right? Moderate candy.

I just saw something about trading some of your kids candy out for a gift of sorts or something that they can, you know, to avoid that. So Halloween's our first test, everybody. Don't try to steal all your kids candy and find a way to creatively convert their candy into... People have... I've seen people have replaced it with gifts.

People have replaced it with gift cards. And you, you know, you pick, if you have a 100 pieces of candy, you pick your 10 and then the other 90 get converted to something.

Yeah. Creative.

It is. I liked it.

You know, I would like to address right here when we're talking about habits and food and diet and exercises. You know, we can think, BJ, in such black and white terms. Either I'm doing it right or I'm doing it wrong. I'm exercising really well or wee, I'm just not doing it at all or I'm on that great diet. Wee, I had that donut so I'm gonna eat the whole box.

You know, going, trying to find during the holidays the middle ground. No, you're not gonna be perfect and no, you may feel some things are a setback, but you don't have to go the rest of the holiday season and just blow it, spend too much money, eat way too much. Wake up the next day, try to find the middle ground. Watch what you're thinking about as we talked last time. Are you thinking about what you think about?

Because your thoughts are affecting the way you feel. The way you feel affects the way you see yourself and the world around you. So what are you saying to yourself about Christmas, about New Year's? Just be aware of it. You can always...

We call it in the mental health field, you can always stop the thought and replace it with something else.

So that's that's a good point. If you think the holidays are gonna be stressful, the holidays are gonna be stressful. Right?

Exactly.

I mean, that's what's on your mind. And if you approach every party as like, I don't wanna be here with my whatever.

We will probably respond in that way. Does that make sense?

It totally makes sense. I'm trying to think of what go ahead.

I would love to share a personal experience, About six years ago, for the first time, my special in laws were... We were not gonna be with them for Christmas. And we had been with them for twenty plus years, you know, with my kids and and them, they would come down from New York and be with us. And because of health reasons, they couldn't. And I was walking around and driving the beginning of that December season, and I just felt anxiety and sadness.

And so one day I pulled over on the side of the road, I grabbed one of my sheets that I give my clients that says, what's the number one thought that would hold you back from being all that you can be? And then the the second question is what is the replacement thought that will help you to move forward? I pulled it out and I sat there and I thought, what is the number one thought I'm thinking right now? And my number one thought was Christmas is not gonna be the same without my in laws there. So I sat and I thought, what can be my replacement thought?

And it be... It was Christmas is gonna be special. We are gonna create new traditions this Christmas season, something like that. And interesting enough, BJ, we really did have a wonderful Christmas. I...

You know, yes, they were so missed, but, we started new traditions, and a lot of it was from my mindset. Does that make sense?

It does.

Because I could have brought in just grief and sadness that they were not there, if that make... And and I didn't because I chose to recognize what I was saying to myself about my situation.

And then you set the stage for the family to follow.

Exactly.

Great leadership tip. Alright. So it's what is the number one thought that what? What is the question?

That would... That could hold you back from being all that you could be. And the second question is, what is your replacement thought so that you can move forward? Something like that. Okay.

I like it.

Inspiring people in places is brought to you by MCFA. MCFA is a CVE verified service disabled veteran owned small business. At MCFA, our why is to inspire people in places through project leadership. We provide planning, strategy, program management and construction management support services to a wide variety of public and private sector clients. Good action step for anybody that's already dreading some part of the holiday season.

I kind of want to wrap up with this whole idea that all of this may lead to not doing this combined with a lot of people who have either lost loved ones and this is the first holiday celebrating without them, if somebody's really... I wanna get back to the halt and the thought of suicide rates go up around the holidays from what I understand.

Yes.

So on the extreme end, we're talking about the proactive approach to the holidays and me being a happy go lucky guy that just has a busy family and a busy life. All right, I'm gonna plan. But talk to us about those that may be on the opposite end of the spectrum. This is the first year, this is the saddest season of life because all of those memories are tied to a family member or some... Something that's not a part of their life anymore, and and now they're dealing with that stress.

Is... What's our recommendation for for listeners that may be dealing with that scenario? Yeah.

You know, first off, the first of everything, when someone has passed, is the most difficult. So the first Thanksgiving, the first Christmas, the first New Year's, acknowledging the word acknowledge that it's not gonna be easy is so important. Having your support system in place, having those accountability people when you really are down that you need someone to talk to have them in place. It's okay to talk to a counselor. If someone today is listening and looking at, oh, talking to a counselor would be a sign of weakness.

I'm gonna share with you. No. No. No. No.

It's a sign of strength because it's easier for all of us to go in on our same old patterns of living. To talk to somebody objective, someone that doesn't know you personally and they're bound by law, they can't talk to other people. It can be a safe place to get your grief out. Mhmm. Because grieving is a process, not an event.

I would encourage you to look at with your family with the loss of a loved one. What are some new traditions that you can start in honoring them? Bring them, let them be a part of your gatherings. Talk about them. Don't try to deny that the loss happened.

Bring them into the conversation. You know, I know this is hard to hear, but I really feel as a therapist, it's hard to heal if you do not feel. So the holidays can be a place to gather with other loved ones and feel together the pain and and grieve together over the loss. You know, BJ, we... There's such an expectation to move on after a loss.

And I I think we were wired to grieve. And I don't think there's a timetable on it. That make sense?

It does. Absolutely. That

allowing yourself, I call it prescribed times to grieve, where, you know, life goes on and let's say the person has had to go back to work and has to be at holiday events. It's okay to just sit and look at pictures or listen to music that your loved one loved and just to cry. You know, there's a chemical release when we cry. So often we can, you know, learn big boys and big girls don't cry, but I don't know if God says in his Bible that he collects our tears in heaven, they must be important to him. So let us let people cry and feel comfortable with someone that may be crying.

Yeah. If I can say anything is what do you know, what do you want in your home during Christmas? What what do you want the atmosphere to be? And then really be intentional about providing that atmosphere for your spouse and your family. Do you want an atmosphere of peace?

Do you want an atmosphere of love and joy? How do you bring that? Do you watch Christmas movies together? Do you turn on Christmas music? Do you, eat certain foods during the holiday?

You know, I came from a Swedish heritage. So sure enough, all the Swedish foods came out, you know, during Christmas. So doing those things that bring comfort to you and your family.

Yeah. Peace, love and joy. Want all of those in my house. So I really appreciate this conversation, Valerie, and I hope our audience does too.

I hope so too.

So thank you so much for taking the time. And even though it's early, I wish you a very happy holiday season, full of peace, love and joy, and not too much food, drink, or spending, but just the right amount of celebration and the right amount of rest.

Exactly. That that moderate middle ground for you also. Yeah. Have a wonderful holiday season.

Awesome. Thanks, Valerie.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

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