Coffee With Hilary and Les from State of Mind Hypnosis and Training Centre
An almost-daily podcast for the State of Mind Community.
Offering ideas and answering questions on how to use your mind for growth, happiness and ultimately peace.
Send us your questions: info@somhypnosis.com
Coffee With Hilary and Les from State of Mind Hypnosis and Training Centre
Thanksgiving and Holiday Expectations, Reframed - A Guide to Better Holidays
Ask us a Question or Leave a Comment!
We explore how holiday expectations shape our mood, why past experiences script our reactions, and how to reframe family dynamics with compassion. We share practical tools to redirect conversations, lower anxiety, and choose connection over judgment.
• reframing holiday expectations and mental rehearsal
• how past experiences and roles shape behavior
• actions versus intentions and kinder interpretations
• seeing the inner child and reducing triggers
• practical redirects for tense conversations
• choosing what you want different this year
• simple, repeatable mindset tools to prepare
If you want to reach out, all the information's in the description wherever you're joining us from, whether it's a streaming platform, like a podcast streaming platform or YouTube, it's all in the show notes
We hope this helps a little as you go through your day.
We would love to hear your feedback or questions.
We will respond to both in future episodes.
Check us out at
www.somhypnosis.com
Join our online Community!
https://www.skool.com/infinite-mind-school/about
Email us at
info@somhypnosis.com
We are on the line.
SPEAKER_01:On the line. Snow's coming today.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, I just got snow squall watch.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Yes. And that means you gotta drive in the snow. No, you're not going anywhere.
SPEAKER_00:No. We're going to the gym after this, but we'll be home before the snow.
SPEAKER_01:Hilario asked me to start. I said no, you start, and now she's still waiting for me to start. So I gotta start. I'm sleepy today. I am sleepy today. I don't know what's been uh it's the snow.
SPEAKER_00:Probably the lower pressure system.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. There's a million excuses. I'll take any one of them. Just low in energy, but gonna get centered and do my best to be helpful. That's the uh the approach. Just we're gonna talk about approaches today. We're gonna talk about holiday season and we're gonna talk about how we all have preconceived expectations for holiday events, some good, some bad. And it really is about preparation in a lot of ways. I think for a lot of us, we go expecting that old Uncle Bob is gonna be a pain in the neck and mom is gonna be a nag, and all these things are gonna happen, and we're gonna get all upset. So, first of all, hey, happy Thanksgiving to our friends in the U.S. We've been sitting like side by side, Siamese twins now for hundreds of years, and we wish you a day filled with gratitude, day filled with love, connection, family, whatever form that takes for you. And we're just gonna talk about what that means. Do you ever I'm asking you now, um do you ever think about a family event or something you're going to and go, oh my god, I don't want to go.
SPEAKER_00:No, no, no, but I obsess over the weather to get there. I'm excited to go, yes, there's dysfunction, you know, there there's all there is dysfunction to get there. Unless I'm having some sort of panic attack. There, because you know, we've had over the years, we've had a few events where I had to drop out last second because I had a panic attack of some sort. But usually it's the weather. It's the weather. So, you know, I I think I imagine myself going to my sister's sometime in December, and my dad sometimes in sometime in December, and and then I just immediately start freaking out about the weather. The weather hasn't even happened yet, and I'm freaking out. Chat says yes. Yes.
SPEAKER_01:It's it's a form of preparation. Here's the thing, I whether we think so or not, we are always preparing our mind for these events. Whether you're thinking about, you know, pain in the neck, Uncle Bob, or you're thinking about seeing somebody you haven't seen in a long time, big hugs, time spent talking. Or we used to, you know, at Christmas time, we used to have a road hockey game. And we'd be excited about the road hockey game. No matter what you're thinking about, you're really preparing to be there. And what happens often is our experience causes us to prepare for the worst, or experience of the past. You know, Christmas, Thanksgiving, these are these are holidays that people anticipate, that people put a lot of effort into sometimes, that people hang on to the memories of. Right. And this is all experience. And, you know, if as we think about that simple, simple idea that things happen, then we put meaning on them, then we have emotions about them, and then we categorize them, catalog them, pack them into our psyche with a kind of an experience label on it. And that experience is what we use to anticipate future experiences, interpret future experiences. These these things stack up, these things pile up, these things aggregate, they come together and they get bigger. And so these kinds of events are filled with memories, they're filled with ideas, they're filled with interpretations and meanings, they're filled with people, usually, which, you know, then I guess stacks on top of the experience itself, all of the individual interpretations of all these people. And so it's just a really loaded time. It's it's filled with the potential of emotions.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:In the chat, there's too much to do. Rush, rush, rush. And then when you finally get there, it's hard to wind down and settle into the day.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Just the event itself can be can be filled with importance to us and our role in it, right? You know, it's often the same person hosts in your family. It's often the same person takes on responsibilities, you know, people talk about, you know, baking their particular pumpkin pie, and everybody's excited and happy, and people talk about, you know, the kinds of things that go on during the day. There's just so much that we attach to these events in terms of anticipation, in terms of past experience. So we come into this holiday season, I think, with a whole lot of passive thoughts, thoughts that just come to us, and often repetitive thoughts from years past. They might have started last week, as soon as you said, yeah, there's Thanksgiving next week. Yeah, we're gonna have to start getting ready for that. And then all of those thoughts start coming to you, some of which are about the event, some of which are about the people, some of which are about the obligations that you have as a person. These are all things that the event is still days away, and we are already in turmoil about it. Now, for some people, it's it's positive, and uh I pat them on the back saying, that's great. For some people, it's really negative. And I pat them on the back and I tell them, way to be self-aware. Um, but no matter what, I believe that the secret to making things different is to see how you think about it and ask yourself, can I think about this differently?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So any thoughts I have about it is practicing it. It's it's getting it ready, it's bringing it into my mind and getting me emotionally and mentally ready to engage it in possibly the ways I've always engaged it, which possibly is mixed with good and bad. What if being aware of that, you start practicing other things to get yourself prepared for it, to anticipate it. How else do we change our experience except by changing the way we think about it and interpret it?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. When I've worked with clients, and I I suppose I feel a bit of this myself, especially this year, there's a feeling of there's usually a feeling of not being good enough and judgment. When they're anxious about going to a party or providing for a party, gift giving, highly high anxiety for people that they're not providing enough, or that it's that maybe they don't have enough money to buy gifts, right? But yeah, there's there's so much, so much surrounding it. There's also I've worked with clients where something has happened in the last year that makes this Christmas or this Thanksgiving very different, right? Maybe there's a loss or or something new, someone new or something, and there's anxiety about that. What do they do when maybe someone's not there this Christmas that they're used to and and the emotion around that? There's so many, and I I say all these things just to sort of give you a little list to maybe think about, oh yeah, maybe that is me. Maybe I do have a little something, little feelings about this. I think it's easy, not I I think it's easy to think, oh yeah, no, I don't I'm not sure I feel that way about Christmas, but then or Thanksgiving or any holiday. Uh but there might be something little that is might be easy to work on.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, step one, just being aware. Just saying to yourself, well, what does this Thanksgiving mean to me? What does my plan for this Thanksgiving mean? What does what does it make me feel? What are my emotions around it? Looking at this Thanksgiving, what am I anticipating? Right? Just being aware of the ups and the downs, the good and the bad, the positive expectations, the negative expectations, and just sitting with it for a minute, you know, maybe 20 minutes.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, just one minute.
SPEAKER_01:The point is you sit with it and you become a little more self-aware. And at some point, you ask yourself, is this good enough for me? Is this the way I want it to be? Is this the experience I want to have? Past experiences will shape future experiences unless we decide to do something different. We can't expect a different experience approaching it with the same mindset that we've approached it in the past. And I know that sounds like a simple, almost trite idea, but it's a meaningful idea if you want change. And that's our business, right? Our business is change. And change never happens until the mind changes. Change cannot happen because if the mind has expectations, the mind will find those things, right? The mind looks for what it wants to look for. And if you're going to this event and anticipating that so-and-so and so-and-so are going to have a political argument, or so-and-so and so-and-so are going to disappear off on their own and not socialize with everybody else, or this person and this person are going to be all that expectations that all those expectations that you bring forward are going to come to life because they're your expectations. Anyway, being aware of that and then deciding whether or not you want things to be different. And maybe you don't. And then God bless you. You know, Thanksgiving is a wonderful event and everything is great. And if you want something different, then ask yourself, what do I want that's different? What is it that I want to experience differently this year? Right? What is it that I want to have this year? You know, we have our in families, we have our roles, and we find it really easy to drop back into our role, into our place. This is there's a whole lot on this, if you're ever interested in learning about, you know, family systems and family systems therapy and sort of the new way of thinking that so much of how we behave is in response to really well-learned programs within the system of our family. Now, if you want things to be different, you're going to have to start thinking differently. Here's a good one. Here's a good one. We judge others by their actions. People do things. It's a trigger for us. You know, some family member brings up that same old sore topic, or some family member, and this person is always reserved and pulled back and shows up late and leaves early. And these are all things that we look at as behaviors, and we are tempted to judge. We're tempted to call it good or bad. I like it, I don't like it. It's good or it's bad. It's a pain, it's fun. There's there's ways of judging it, right? But we do that based on people's actions, and we don't spend a lot of time looking at their intentions behind it. In fact, what we do is we imply intentions. We actually put what we think are their intentions on them without really understanding what they're about. We judge ourselves by our actions, or sorry, by our intentions, and others see our actions and they don't know our intentions, but we decide what I'm doing is good because my intention is good, not thinking about how my behavior might be for somebody else, that classic annual trigger that gets the whole thing off the rails. So it's I think it's good to be aware of that. We judge others by their actions and imply intentions upon them. We judge ourselves by our intentions, even when the outcome turns out negative. Try to reverse that.
SPEAKER_00:Like see other people with their intentions.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Try to try to anticipate what the intentions must be, right? What would be the intentions behind somebody who you know always makes a particular kind of food and brings it and wants people to like it, right? What would be what would be their intentions? Their intentions to do something good for people, their intentions are uh wanting to fit in, have a place in the whole thing. Their intentions are wanting to give a gift, like a truffle tree. You can tell that story in a minute. Yeah. The point is that but that really plays right into my point. Sometimes their intentions are that they have feelings of insecurity and anxiety, and they don't know what to do to contribute. So they contribute the same thing because it's the thing they think they do well, and they're really fearful, actually. There's a lot of fear and anxiety behind the creation of that thing that they bring. Their intentions might not be to be the loudest, most obnoxious uncle you ever had. Maybe their intentions are: I want to matter. I want people to like me. I want people to laugh at my bad jokes. I'm trying to be a fun guy. These kinds of things really flip the script in a lot of ways, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Instead of looking at somebody and judging them based on their actions, try to not just imply intentions, try to be open to what their intentions might be on a personal level and what it is they're seeking, what it is they're hoping for. Go ahead, tell the truffle story.
SPEAKER_00:Oh god. So I don't know how many years ago now, maybe three or three, ten. It was my first Christmas with you guys or something. Yeah, it must have been the first. And it was the first that you were inviting me to, basically.
SPEAKER_01:You were in.
SPEAKER_00:I was in after three years. So I decided to like I wanted to be accepted. And I wanted, I guess, to uh show my you know skills. I don't even know what I was thinking. But yeah, I guess I want I wanted to provide something fun. And me, I always when I when I do do things, I always go for the hardest thing that I can do. My teachers always told me that. Like, why are you picking the hardest thing that you could possibly do?
SPEAKER_01:So I hired you, and you were you were an unpleasant boss. I could tell the anxiety level behind it all.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And I was in some ways, you know, I was trying to be supportive because I know what it means to feel accepted and not feel accepted, and I knew that that was the goal. It appeared that the goal was to make a truffle tree, but the goal was really about acceptance.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. So I brought the tree, and I was I was accepted. I would have been accepted anyway, I think. But uh I was accepted, but in a funny way. So it was like, Hillary, that what it's show-aw. That's show-a-bitch. But not but not in a bad way. Like the the the words were not like malicious or anything like that. It was just jokey or bad humor. So yeah, it it set me up for a few years there. It was like, what's Hillary bringing? Oh god. But it was a nice treat.
SPEAKER_03:It was good, yummy.
SPEAKER_00:But that was fun. So it was it was a time of yeah, wanting to be accepted, wanting to, I guess, show maybe who I am, maybe creative. I don't know. It was so long ago. Chat says, but the trevels definitely secured your spot. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And probably built expectations for future years. Isn't it interesting how experience works?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So, you know, sometimes when we're anticipating a negative emotion, when we're anticipating some kind of negative reaction, good preparation for that family event is to try to look behind the behaviors of people and see them as human beings seeking acceptance, seeking belonging, wanting to say and do things that are meaningful, trying to imply the kindest intention to whatever that person's actions are, putting that into your mind before you get interactive with people, right? You know, when when mom calls you three days in a row before the event, telling you all the things she wants you to do, this is not mom being an egg. This is mom really caring about the outcome and believe it or not, really relying on you, seeing you as an important part of their success.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And then that can shift that experience from oh, it's Thanksgiving, and mom's lost her mind again, to, you know, mom really wants to create something really wonderful for us.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And how can I help her do that? Because she obviously is relying on me. Yeah. And then when you can see the other as just, you know, a kind child wanting something good, when you can change and shift your view of them that way, not how they impact you, but what they might be trying to accomplish and their emotional state behind it. That can be a really powerful shift going into that circumstance with that shift in your view of people.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, see them for their inner childs.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, talk about that.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah. So I I guess as you're speaking, I'm thinking, oh, you know, maybe people are asking questions, like, oh, what does he mean by a kind child, right? So that's their inner child, wanting acceptance, wanting for people to have a good time, wanting to feel like they are enough. Mom or dad asking, like, I'll use my an example for me. Usually dad will call while I'm on the way. Can you pick up dessert or ice cream or a pie or something? It's like every time. So to see that as I should say, for me, to try to see that, you know, as his inner child, just wanting for it to work out for people to have a good time, for people to enjoy the experience of having dessert. And it's not, and and try to pull away from, oh my god, dad, again, this year, like, why didn't he pick up dessert? All you know, he yeah, he wants people to have a good time. And yeah, it all comes back down to the inner child. I mean, we're always I think we're always working from that perspective, that set point of our inner child, right? If we haven't done some serious work, and it doesn't always have to be work, but if we haven't done work, then we're we're really pulling from emotions that that inner child felt at that time in their life. Or it could be a habit. Maybe dad, maybe my grandparents were like that, and dad's picking it up like as like this is normal, right? I don't know, but it's something to think about.
SPEAKER_01:When we're dealing with our family, we spend so much time interacting with them that we start to get into habits, and the habits are seldom including appreciation and love. The love is implied, and when we love somebody, we think, okay, well, and I'm allowed to criticize them. If I love somebody, you know, I'm allowed to I'm allowed to object, I'm allowed to say no. And and we've gotten, I think many of us have gotten good at that. Some of us haven't gotten good at that, but many of us have gotten good at that. And what what becomes hard then is letting the love come. And that's, I think the value in seeing everyone is just sort of grown children, each trying to be loved and accepted. And when that becomes the first thought instead of the thought that never comes, but it becomes the first thought. This is just someone asking for love. That's that shifts everything. And even if it's just for that day, and to think of it just for that day, this you're going to practice this just on Thanksgiving, just on today. I'm going to try to let the love come first. There's one of my favorite parts of the Course in Miracles philosophy is everything is either an expression of love, like you know, you making your very special mashed potatoes or your you and your truffles, right? It's either an expression of love. I'm trying to give something, or it's a request for love.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's a call for love. When someone's suffering, really the only thing they want and need is an expression of love. They want to receive love. They need love, they need appreciation, they need acceptance, they need inclusion, they need to be told they're okay, they need to be told they're great, they need to be patted on the back, they need love. And so when you when you shift that and you see everybody in this big house full of people as adult children seeking love, seeking acceptance, and you walk into the scenario that way, yeah, you walk into it and say, I'm prepared to deal with a whole bunch of adult children who are all just yearning to be loved and accepted. And I am smart enough and strong enough and capable of giving them that love and that acceptance, no matter what they give me. Right. Which to me is the second, it's one of the most powerful reframes. It comes up all the time. It's just so effective in changing the way we respond to others. It's understanding that their behavior never is about you. When we think of our experience equation, it's always we interpret something that happens as meaning something about us, and that generates an emotion, often a negative emotion, if we interpret it in a negative way. And that's really easy with family, because we know family knows how to push each other's buttons. And we know family is really predictable because we know how they're going to behave. And we know that family is, you know, we walk into the scene saying, oh, Uncle Bob's gonna do this. He's such a jerk, and he's gonna, and now we're anticipating, we're looking for it, we're waiting for the moment that it happens. If we walk in and we say, Uncle Bob, well, Uncle Bob is just another adult child who really actually wants to be accepted. And when he makes his bad jokes or he gets all political, or he does the things that get people riled up, he's really just trying to feel good about himself. He's really just trying to find a way into other people's hearts. He might be doing it really badly. You might wonder why, you know, he does it that way. But when you anticipate that, and then you you remind yourself that whatever Uncle Bob does, it's not about me. It's not about me, it's not targeted at me. And even if he targets it at me, it's really about his state of mind. It's really about his emotional state, it's not really about my emotional state. As much as he might try to be projecting out onto you something, you don't have to bite because it's not about you, right?
SPEAKER_00:And if you're wondering, well, why is everyone reaching out for love? It's because they chances are didn't receive the type of love that they were hoping for as a child.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and we all yearn for it every day. I don't think of anybody who says, Oh, I've been loved enough, you can stop loving me. Yeah. I've been loved enough. I'm I'm fully loved. You go ahead and move on to something else. Nobody ever says that. Nobody ever thinks that. Everybody wants as much love as they can get. And when we're all in that state of trying to give and receive love, things shift. And that's the kind of preparation I'm talking about. Recently I saw someone I love, a cousin, who he's lately in the last few years gotten really political. And I was anticipating that. And as soon as it came out of his mouth, when because we hadn't seen each other in months, as soon as it came out of his mouth, I said, No, let's not get political today. Let's talk about something important like your grandchildren. And his face changed and he paused. And at first he was, I could tell at first he was like a little bit frustrated. And then he just moved on to the new topic and started telling me about his grandchildren. And of course, the joy that came into his face and the stories that started to flow made the conversation really good. So as you go into these circumstances and people are doing the things you predicted and they're acting in the ways they have in the past, but your mindset is different because you're interpreting it differently. And you're remembering that none of this is about me. It's always about them. And I can show them love rather than show them judgment. You can get prepared, right? You can see what's coming, you can anticipate it and say, no, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to. Change it. I'm going to try to shape it in another direction. And I just, yeah, I just use that line. Let's talk about something important. Your grandchildren. Or it could be anything. Let's talk about something important. Your career. Let's talk about something important. Your new baby. Let's talk about something important. And anticipate shifting the conversation. And yeah, it's an it's an old technique. I learned it years ago in business. If you can get somebody talking about themselves, then they're going to really like you.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So it's it's a great little tool that when you walk into this Thanksgiving overwhelming experience to shift the meaning of it all into something softer, something with anticipated outcomes that are other than what's happened in the past.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I think, yeah, I don't want to say it's simple because I certainly struggle with it, but it's it's definitely a little bit of a tweak in our thoughts, right? Our thinking. And do you think do you think it might be an interesting thought experiment to think about well, how am I asking for love going into these scenarios?
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely it is. Absolutely it is.
SPEAKER_00:Instead of worrying about everybody else and how they're asking for love.
SPEAKER_01:Well, it's it's not so much uh I would say that it's it's about shifting your mindset, shifting your expectations, shifting the way you think about it. Nothing's gonna change until your thoughts change. Nothing's ever gonna change until your thoughts change. And so it's about knowing and being aware of the thoughts you have, maybe being aware of where they come from, but being much more assertive, much more intentional, yeah, of saying this is what I want to have happen. This is the experience I want to have this year. Don't anticipate what seems to happen every year. Ask yourself, what do I want to have happen?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And then you're aware of your thoughts, your emotions that are interfering with that. And then you take control of you. You know, uh, nobody controls my thoughts except me. And if I don't bother to try to control my thoughts, well, then a lot of stuff's gonna go through my mind. But if I decide I'm going to control my thoughts, I am not my thoughts, I am the thinker, I can choose what I think, and then pick some of these nice little philosophical themes like inner child or calls for love or no judgment, uh, interpreting intentions. All these themes are just useful tools to allow you to change the experience of that moment.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I like I like ya. I think it's a great reframe. Are there any questions today? Nope, not today.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I'll just reiterate. Happy Thanksgiving to our American friends.
SPEAKER_00:Christmas is coming up.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Do your best to avoid Black Friday, but it's kind of uh the kickoff of a whole season. Enjoy your football, enjoy your parades, enjoy your family time. And family can be anything. So go grab your tribe, go grab your your family, whatever they be, and share some love and some gratitude. Yeah, life is good.
SPEAKER_00:All right, thanks for joining us. Um, if you want to reach out, all the information's in the description wherever you're joining us from, whether it's a streaming platform, like a podcast streaming platform or YouTube, it's all in the show notes. All right, have a good day. See you later.
