Working Towards Our Purpose

Welcome to episode 77 of Working towards our

purpose. In today's episode, we are going to talk about

self acceptance around the holidays. But before we get into

that, we're going to take just a moment to check in with ourselves and

to see how we're feeling today.

All right? So for me. I did

quick check in. I'm not feeling that great.

I kind of just came out of a bit of a spiral,

which I was not planning on doing before the episode.

But, you know, you can't really control these things sometimes, so.

So, yeah, I was feeling good and went for a R this morning. It was

really cold outside. Icicles on the beard and everything.

Very cold. So I felt good after that because I was like, that was really

hard and I did it. So I was thinking of all

these different ideas and stuff, and then I came to my

computer and I was like, kind of finishing the planning of this

episode and I looked at the stats. For some reason,

not. Not a good move looking back.

Definitely, definitely don't do that before you record an episode.

And just immediately thought to myself, like, oh, I don't have enough

downloads. Oh, I must have been doing. I'm doing something

wrong. That whole spiral

podcast isn't good enough. You're not good enough as a person.

The familiar spiral of just like, you're not doing good enough.

So I meditated and sort of

just pushed myself through and realized I was in a spiral, so

got a little perspective from it, which was helpful because it makes me not in

it anymore. But, yeah, feeling a bit

underprepared for this episode, maybe, but.

Maybe not. So we'll see.

I do have a topic that I do want to talk about. So we

will get into the episode now and. Yeah, just self acceptance around

the holidays. I think holidays can be hard for people.

Um, you know, they're not always joyous, but

they're sort of. At least for me, there's always been, like, an expectation of. It's

supposed to be, like, fun and joyful and all that

stuff, but they're hard. You know, sometimes they're hard and,

you know, they're stressful. There's. There's, like, lots of obligations.

You're usually seeing people that you don't really see too often. So

for me, this brings up the

idea of people thinking, especially

family, seeing you as a younger version of yourself.

For me, I feel like I've changed a lot, and

that's not special. I think we all change. But

for me, I think about.

When I used to have an engineering job, and that was Something that

I guess was acceptable to certain people, family members.

And now I'm sort of like not doing that. So

in my mind it's easy to make up a story of like, oh, they don't

accept me now because of what I'm doing.

And then I almost like, try to.

It brings up like older versions of myself. So like remembering that person

of working in that job and like not being themselves and

hiding themselves. So it kind of brings up like that memory

of, oh, you have to do that again. Because I haven't

seen some of these people in a while. And yeah,

just surrounded in your family environment, you kind of just like, for me it makes

me feel like I gotta like, fit some sort of

expectation of, you know, purpose. So.

It brings up. Sort of me like

being like an older version of myself that I don't really enjoy that

much and that being somebody who

isn't authentic to themselves. So to say

it simply, when I go to like these

sort of, you know, family events, it makes me feel like I can't be

my authentic self as much. And, you know, that's not to say

most of it is sort of like stories that I make up in my head.

It's not like direct people telling me this, but

it doesn't make it any less hard. And

I think a lot of people can resonate with that. Like,

can feel that you feel like you have to be an inauthentic version

of yourself around certain people, whether it be family or,

you know, maybe in a job. Job setting. So.

So yeah, I just want to talk about, like, how we can have.

How we can accept ourself and how we can be authentic versions of

ourselves through the holidays. Because for me that's like a hard

time to do that. So. So yeah, so

I got sort of a couple steps here of

how you can practice self acceptance through the holidays.

Because this is a, again, a more challenging time to be able

to be yourself. At least it is for me. So the first

thing was this. This thought kind of.

Came about during Thanksgiving. So I will

try to remember this and go into Christmas, which is what I

celebrate, you know, with this idea. So

I was thinking about how spending time around

family sort of triggers my older

unauthentic self. It makes him more

present and more upfront and how I

don't like that feeling. And then I thought about, like, well, why

don't I like, you know, falling back into like an

unauthentic version of myself. And it's like, oh, I don't like

that person. I didn't really like that version of

myself, you know, I didn't really accept that version of myself.

I sort of look at it as like, oh, that was bad me,

and now like, I'm better me. And just

that thought process alone is not self acceptance. Right? Like,

it's hard to accept yourself now if you can't accept yourself

how you were back then. It's like, I don't know, thinking

about, like. How.

You'Re doing the best that you can. And like, maybe you, you

weren't as. You weren't allowing

yourself to be who you wanted to be back then, but there was reasons for

that, you know, and, and instead of looking at it as like,

oh, I don't like that person, I don't want to be remembered of that person,

we can look at it with some empathy and say like,

okay, well, that person must have been struggling a little bit in order

to feel like they couldn't be themselves in their

own skin. Have a little compassion for that

person instead of looking at it as like, oh, that's a

bad version of myself. I don't like it. So

to think of how we can accept older versions of ourself

I think is helpful going through these times of holidays

because they come up, the older versions of ourselves come up. And if we look

at it and sort of get scared away and shy

away from it and try to hide it and be like, oh, yeah, that was

me back then, but I didn't like it then. You're not accepting that

version of yourself. So for me, I'm going to try

to accept those older versions of me when

I feel them start to bubble up

going into the holidays to try to look at it and

accept it versus thinking like, that was a bad

person or that was, you know, how could I not

be my authentic self? Like, shame on me for that? Like,

so I don't know if that makes sense, but trying to articulate it the best

that I can, but I sort of had like a light bulb moment of like,

oh, I'm not accepting this version of myself

who's not 100% authentic, you know, and if I

can't do that, then how am I going to accept present day myself?

So accepting older versions of yourself is step one

for trying to get through the holidays with some self acceptance.

And then I feel, like I said acceptance a lot, but hopefully

my point comes across there. And then the second thing would be.

To focus on what you're excited about. So I think

another feeling that can come up during holidays is

like I said, you see Family members you haven't seen in a long time. And

usually the first question is like, hey, what's going on?

What are you up to? A lot of

questions are surrounded around work. How's work? What are you doing for work?

And maybe if you don't feel good about what you do for work,

maybe it could be an embarrassing thing and you don't want that question to come

up. Maybe you hate your job and you don't want to talk about it.

Um, maybe like, you know, you're working on something

creative. Like, so. So number two would be to focus on what you're

excited about. So, you know, maybe you're working on something creative, or maybe you

read a book that you just, like, really liked. And it doesn't have to.

The thing that you talk about doesn't have to be your job. Because I think

that that's been always, like a

source of pressure since I left my corporate job. Because when you have

a nice mechanical engineering job, it's easy to be like, oh, I have a

mechanical engineering job. How's it going? Oh, it's fine.

That's acceptable. But if you say.

Something else that's maybe not as socially acceptable, then there could

be a little bit of embarrassment behind that. And especially

for me, going from one to the other,

people are. And again, I'm saying people are

confused, but this is my idea of how they're thinking. It's

sort of a second level thinking. I'm

imagining what they're thinking. So I think that they

think that that's not acceptable. But so what can you do? You can focus on

something that you're excited about. So for me, what that looks like is

I've read a ton of good books recently. I've been really focused on my

YouTube channel. Um, that's been something that I've been able to

grow in the past six months and something that I'm looking forward to

continue to do. Um, I'm

planning some things that. That. Well,

I guess I could talk about them. I'm planning a podcast slash

YouTube meetup with one of my friends who

is a podcaster, and we're shooting for January for that

for to be in the New Haven area. So more details to come on that.

But that's something that I'm excited about. Creating community

in that. And, you know, music is something that I'm

excited about. I'm doing a song with a friend right now that is going to

be released in December and that's new for

me, so that's really cool. Getting really excited about music. So

I have so many things to be excited about. And

you know, they don't really surround a job and that's

okay. So going into these holidays, if you're

not totally pumped about talking about a job you hate, or maybe a job

that you feel like isn't going to be a long term

thing, then focus on things that you are excited about. And.

I think people will surprise you and meet you where you're at. And

if they see that you're excited about something, then you can sort of

shift the conversation. You can control the conversation.

And it doesn't have to be just because if the question was asked,

what are you doing for work? That doesn't have to be the

conversation. It can be an answering of that question and then

a redirection of the conversation to something that you're actually excited about. And

hopefully that creates a deeper, more meaningful conversation also,

instead of just trying to avoid it or trying to end it.

Um, so I think, I think that happens a lot of times for me if

like somebody's asking a question and they,

you know, ask a specific question and I'm like, I don't really want to talk

about that. I'm just going to end it as soon as possible. Um, so I

think, you know, thinking about that instead of doing that, because that

can make the other person also feel like, well, they might not want to talk

to me, you know, trying to redirect it to something that you want to talk

about. So that could be, that could be a really good resource and

strategy, I think, for conversations over the

holidays. And then number three

is going to be finding some gratitude

somewhere. And just as I was talking about all those things that I

was excited about or am excited about,

I felt gratitude there. And I think.

Regardless of what the situation is, like how

bad or.

You

know,

just

trying

to

find

a

purpose

of

gratitude.

And then.

You may find, you know, older versions of

yourself coming up and not liking how that feels,

but know that this is the time of year where it's a little bit

more difficult. It's the end of the year, so it's an

ending and a beginning. Those transitions can be difficult.

Like I said, spending time with people that you haven't seen in a long time

can be difficult. Trying to feel like you have it all together

when seeing your family who you haven't seen in a long time,

that could feel like a lot of pressure, that could feel stressful.

But you know, to try to have a little bit of

compassion for yourself and to try to

be easier on yourself and. And you know,

we talked about slowing down recently, so that that's part of it

too, I think. And yeah,

so hopefully.

Hopefully these steps can help you going into the holidays. And

um. And yeah, just again, to, to

sort of wrap up the self acceptance

conversation. I think that it can be harder to accept

yourself during these times because you

have.

The

third is to try to find some gratitude, at least one

thing that you're grateful for during the holidays. And then

the fourth one is going to be to have a little bit of. To have

extra compassion for yourself because, you know, this

is the time of year where different stressors and, you

know, anxiety and, you know,

sadness, you know, this is the time of year for all that to come

up. So to have a little bit more grace and patience with yourself.

So yeah, I think that's what I want to say about

having some more self acceptance during the holidays and

a little bit of housekeeping before we end the episode.

I have been going at a rapid pace of two episodes a week

for pretty much, I think the last like five months

that will be coming to an end. And I'm

excited about that. I'm excited to slow down a little bit more. I'm gonna have

one episode come out this week, which is this one, obviously, and then one episode

coming out next week and then I'm gonna take a break

until maybe like the first full week of January,

I guess to be determined on that. But yeah, Podcast is going to

take a short break and come back in January. And

yeah, I'm thinking I'll probably go

in 2026, go at a pace of one episode a week

and try to restructure some stuff, try to tighten some stuff

up. I'm going to do sort of an

in depth analysis of what happened in the last

six months and what went well, what didn't go well, how I can

sort of do more of what went well and.

Improve. So yeah, that's what's to come

here. So one more episode for the rest of 2025

will come out next week, next Wednesday.

And yeah, that'll pretty much do it for me for 2025.

So thank you for listening. Be here next

week for the last episode and I will see you on an episode

real soon. Thank you for listening. I appreciate you.

Take care.