This episode Chris talks with both Adam and Neil about what the holidays mean for your mental health. They look at all the different areas of the holidays that can cause a strain. Everything from family get togethers, family traditions, expectations parents put on themselves, and the need to try to accommodate everyone one. As a wrap up to 2021 they emphasize one last time the cornerstone to mental health: self-care.
Tune in to see the Holidays Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Listen for the following takeaways from the show:
- Current Event: Some cities are creating safe spaces for people to use illegal drugs under supervision. What do you think about this?
- Youtube comment from The Elder Law Practice in Arkansas on Episode 143 – How to Cope with Aging Parents for anyone that needs legal advice for their elder relatives.
- Mind.org has a great article on the affect of the holidays on your mental health.
- What does the Holidays mean to you?
- This time can be joyful or it could be hard, especially if dealing with a recent loss.
- SPOILER: We discuss how to handle discussing Santa with your children.
- You need to make sure that you manage expectations and enjoy the time.
- If traditions become too stressful, you should adapt them.
- How you reflect around the New year? Reflection of the previous year or Anticipation of the upcoming year?
- Make sure that no matter what you decide to do, you follow the cornerstone of mental health but taking care of your self when you need to.
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Episode #169 Transcription
[00:00:00] Neil Robinson: Hi, this is a producer Neil, and I’m here to give you a disclaimer about this episode, the holidays and your mental health. If you’re listening to this show with young children around, be aware that we will be talking about how as a parent, you can handle talking to your kids about Santa. This may not seem like a big deal to you, but there are a lot of kids that this means the world to them.
So we wanted to give you a warning. Thanks and enjoy the show.
[00:00:35] Chris Gazdik: Hello, happy holidays, 2021 Merry Christmas happy new year. We should say happy Hanukkah. Happy. I’m not as Muslim familiar, but the we’re going to talk about Ramadan and what they call. Aid L fitr. I embarrassingly, I don’t even know how to pronounce it, but this is the holidays and mental health. And we’re excited to bring the end of the year 2021 to you guys.
We’ve enjoyed the ride. Really, really looking forward to 2022. We’ve got some cool, cool things with, through a therapist eyes that we’re thinking about partnering with and doing. So it’s going to be, it’s going to be a fun year to come. So we, we got this festive environment. We, we got the, this is the lobby at Metroland psychotherapy associates where I do, you know, my work as a therapist through the day.
And so we’ve got the Christmas tree and I’m going to give props to Casey. Morgan y’all know her as the co host. And she set this up, man. She, I came in on a Monday and dude, she like had a whole Christmas tree, right? Pictures in the presence on the wall and she kicked it. She’s killed it. It’s cool. Yeah. It’s more than cool.
So thank you, Casey. If you’re doing this and we’re gonna, we’re going to talk about mental health tonight and different things about the holidays, and we’ve got the whole group here, so Neil’s going to be on the mics and, and Adams last week. Co-hosting with us before we transitioned to actually Casey, next week we did we did a switch, so it’s going to be Casey instead of Matthew for the start of
[00:01:58] Adam Cloninger: the yearso you can ug and ahhh next week.
Well, no, the week after next, the week
[00:02:02] Chris Gazdik: after next, we talk to you producer. We are going to be taking a week off brother. I’m going to be on a abeach. Okay,
[00:02:09] Neil Robinson: so we get it. Okay, good to know.
[00:02:12] Chris Gazdik: That’s good to know. Sorry about that.
[00:02:15] Adam Cloninger: You didn’t know me and Neil are doing the show next week. Oh, Hey. No, I’m joking. I’m joking. I’m all over, man.
[00:02:21] Chris Gazdik: That’s cool. So this is through a therapist eyes where we invite you to get personal insights in your own car and time at your house re understanding emotions and becoming your best self as the book. We endeavor to see the world through the lens of a therapist, but being aware is not to deliver your therapy services in any way.
We, I really thank you for being a part of us this year. I, I, I feel like we’ve grown. We’ve done some new things. We were truly an international podcast now. I don’t know if you notice Neil, but do. You know, Japan’s hit it up now. Did you, you know did you see that?
[00:02:58] Neil Robinson: I haven’t looked at the stats lately, but that’s awesome.
[00:03:01] Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Popping into Japan and China and, and around the world. And I think you around the world, you guys make what we do worth it and make the show what it is. So follow us on apple Spotify, get those ratings going, do some reviews for us. It definitely helps us grow and we get a lot more growing to do in 20, 22 soon guys, this is the human emotional experience.
And I propose that we endeavor to figure this thing out together. Shall we all together? Not one, not two but three.
[00:03:34] Neil Robinson: Yeah, let’s
[00:03:35] Chris Gazdik: do it. You guys are like, okay. So listen, what I want to just kind of have a conversation today, a little bit about the holidays and what they mean to you, what they think of. What you think about it?
So this is kind of a fun conversation about, you know, all the ins and outs that mental health gets created when, when we’re in such a stressful time of the year, because, you know, I’ve, I’ve learned by doing what I do is, is Holly and jolly is it can be man. It can be a huge stressor and a huge downer for, for a lot of people.
So we’re going to get into that. But first I got a couple of current events and some housekeeping, housekeeping to cover. So first thing is a huge current event. I really just want to know what you guys think about this, right? So have you seen in the news that there are and how do they. Supervise drug injection sites.
So we were talking about substance abuse and families and stuff. Do you know that they have been talking about this for a while? And very recently it has been kicked off into the New York, I think has one and maybe another one in the country, maybe in California or it’s starting, it’s, it’s very, very new, but like with the doctor and everything heard these of this at all, you’ve not heard of this at all.
[00:04:52] Neil Robinson: No, I’ve never heard of that one really.
[00:04:54] Chris Gazdik: Okay. Well maybe I’m a geeky weird mental health, substance abuse professional and I pay attention to stuff and other people haven’t by the way, kick over to Facebook, you’ll see the video and what I was talking about, if you are listening to this on the, on the audio version, you know, we’re growing the Facebook and the YouTube video sites up.
So we are all video. So yeah, what this is is they have designed a safe injection site. And particularly in New York, it’s all show on it or, or on a show, but a, a news hit on it. And the idea is that for it’s even heard of this at all street heroin addicts, I
[00:05:32] Adam Cloninger: asked her SOS like illegal drugs, but they’re gonna have a supervise illegal drug use.
[00:05:38] Chris Gazdik: Yes, it is. It is nothing more than street drugs. Instead of being injected on the street, they’re inviting people to come in to these, these units. Of course, it’s against federal law to use these drugs, but they are saying, you can come here. You can be safer. We’re going to allow you to use these. We want to supervise this with you.
Yeah. There’s people onsite and on scene.
[00:06:01] Adam Cloninger: What would kind of prevent the. Police from arresting
[00:06:06] Chris Gazdik: everyone in the world. They have an agreement with the city to, to be able to say, yeah, we’re not going to fight this. We’re not going to do anything with it.
[00:06:14] Neil Robinson: It’s the law illegal to use it, or is it illegal to distribute it?
Yes.
[00:06:18] Chris Gazdik: all of it. Heroine, make sure what we’re talking about. Shooting fentanyl, shooting, heroin, safe injection sites. Instead of doing this on the street, you come to us.
Hmm.
[00:06:30] Neil Robinson: I feel like if they’re going to do that, they need therapy services to go with it while they’re shooting up. Try to try to tackle the the mental side of why they’re shooting up to go with the physical side of the addiction.
I know my wife taught did some research, but I think in Argentina or something where they actually do a lot of like therapy to help people. Fill the void of the, the physical substance stuff. So I feel like if they’re going to do this things where, Hey, you can come shoot up here. Well, why are you here?
Let’s, let’s start addressing some of these problems to try and see if we can get you off.
[00:06:59] Chris Gazdik: That’s part of the thinking, there is a social work, basic adage that particularly in my field of discipline, social work, that we want to meet the client where they are. And you know, that just means like, Hey, if you’re in my office, I’m not in a nonjudgmental, I’m going to just go with where you’re at.
You know, come to the level that you’re at, wherever you’re, you know, if you’re depressed, if you’re man, whatever, I’m not going to judge you. And we’re just going to meet you at your level. Well, this is going to their level in the sense of their real world and saying, we’re here on the street, come do this safely with us.
So there will be therapists. There will be doctors.
[00:07:36] Adam Cloninger: Is that like like a city in America? Or is this overseas or
[00:07:40] Chris Gazdik: New York? New York?
Does this sound kind of
[00:07:46] Adam Cloninger: crazy? It does. I just thought it’d be like a west coast thing, but
[00:07:50] Neil Robinson: new York’s pretty much as bad as the west coast. Oh,
[00:07:52] Adam Cloninger: wow. I didn’t say I didn’t say bad and lost everybody. I didn’t say buy it.
[00:07:59] Neil Robinson: New York. New York’s has progressive as California
[00:08:01] Adam Cloninger: now. Okay. Well, I was thinking like Portland or something, but yeah,
[00:08:05] Neil Robinson: get
[00:08:08] Chris Gazdik: a lot more liberal.
And this is a, this is a strategy that they’re trying to look at doing. Does this sound crazy? Cause some people were like, dude, this is insantity,
[00:08:16] Neil Robinson: I think. Adding the safe zone is actually better overall because especially if they can monitor like what they’re putting in their system or some way to do that too.
Cause you look at all the accidental overdose especially with fentanyl involved. If there’s ways to try to help that too and avoid those unnecessary deaths or, you know, make it where they’re not sneaking, you know, using dirty needles in the back of an ally, the infections that come with it, not going to the doctor because now they have infections.
I mean that really, I think it could be a positive. You just have to be careful of the abuse of it. And how do you track how often they come in and that kind of stuff, do they have
[00:08:52] Adam Cloninger: to bring their own? Yes,
[00:08:54] Chris Gazdik: it’s their own stuff. It’s their own illegal streets that just like they would buy out on the street and use it on the street instead they’re using it here.
And here’s the thing like the, the, the news story kind of shot numbers up pun, not intended, sorry for that shock numbers. Sorry. Anyway, you know, listen, there’s been 17 overdoses that they were there in the safe site and they saved their life. So you can argue like that. Really arguably lifesaving strategies involved here, but here’s the other side of it.
Listen to my substance abuse. Knowledge is kind of like, you know, I went onto this and I’m like, this is, I don’t know. I can’t, I don’t know that I can be on board. We’re just going to go ahead and get these people to do their collectivity and total drug activity. And it’s not going to change their life and whatever.
So I’m really mixed about it. It’s like this, this w what impact is this going to make? I was talking to a, to an, a, an actual an addict in my office this week in prep for this in thinking. And it was funny because he gave me the reaction of what the hell people are going to be sitting here, shooting up the link, listening to this and, and like saying great.
I could use the really good stuff, and you’re going to bring me back. You’re going to save my life. So doesn’t matter what I use this.
[00:10:06] Adam Cloninger: Think about that. Yeah.
[00:10:08] Chris Gazdik: Addicts do not tend in active addiction to think, like we typically think. And I think that’s what some of the proponents of these things are missing.
However I can’t get away from, you know, I’d, I believe these principles like meet the client where they’re at, you have an opportunity to interact with people in a real way, in a real live real life, real time. You know, you just overdosed, you checked out, you just punched your last ticket, but we brought you back influence into like into recovery.
[00:10:42] Adam Cloninger: Who’s up for round two.
[00:10:44] Chris Gazdik: Well, that’s what an addict might come up with it. So my thing is I have a lean towards, Hey, this is kind of a cool thing. That guy was talking to you. How to lean towards a, this is crazy. You shouldn’t be doing it. Just cause it’s curious to see what your all’s raw
thoughts. I’m not
sure what we got to move on a little bit.
Cause we had a lot of them want to get to and stuff, but it’s a fascinating question that you’re going to see a lot more going on in in the world because this is, this is going to continue. People are going to continue doing it. And it won’t be just two sites across the country. It’ll be, it’ll be several.
We going to listen to the question on I, just a little bit of quick time on wrap up the year. Cheri emailed him. She says, my son has been diagnosed with add this year. We’ve been working to figure out how to best help him, but I’ve been wondering how, if in any ways I may have caused this problem for him caused right.
Do parents clause add in any way through parenting? This is what Sherry’s asking. Let’s says y’all test. How much have you learned about genetic realities and stuff?
[00:11:50] Adam Cloninger: I think, I mean, I’ve heard all kinds of things about, cause I don’t really know if I, I don’t really know exactly what does cause it so really?
Yeah. I’m sure.
[00:11:59] Chris Gazdik: Okay. Tell us near,
[00:12:01] Neil Robinson: what do you say? Well, yes and no genetics. There’s the predisposition to have those types of things. Plus depends on the environment that they’re in. Are they processed food sugars? Is it causes some issues with different things that could alleviate the extreme add, you know, how have they dealt with coping up to this point?
You know, add is something you have to, to me address. So there’s a good chance that if they don’t address it soon enough, it might’ve gotten to an extreme, but. No, I don’t think parents cause add just like autism parents don’t cause autism, it’s just it’s you just have to know how to handle them and address it.
You know, if they start seeing things, you have to learn, help them deal with add and how to, how to best suit it for their life. But yeah, parents can’t parents don’t cause it, like I said, genetics is the closest thing you get with it and that’s a roll of the dice. You know, it
[00:12:50] Chris Gazdik: makes me sad a little bit Sherry, to be honest with you to, to, to get this question and think about this thought, like we talked about parent guilt on the show as a topic this year and shame recently as a show, like people feel like I have done something wrong and parents feel like I have failed my kid.
I am. So in panic about being the best parent I can be. And my thing is like, look, you, you cannot cause. Genetic biologically based brain conditions. I don’t know why we think, well, why, how did I, cause my kids add versus how, how did I, cause my kids call high cholesterol problem. Like, would you, would it, would we ever feel the question?
Can parents cause high cholesterol? Well, we all know like, no they can’t. Cause that what Neil’s talking about is absolutely. So you can, you need to learn so Sherry you’re doing what you need to do to get this kid help. You need to learn nutrition. You need to learn parenting with add that’s there’s some specific things like you don’t put a kid with add in timeout that, that that’s ill-advised it’s absolutely not helpful.
The kid can feel stupid and lazy and punished. Like, I feel terrible if I get trouble angry with my child who has anxiety, like I don’t want to yell at them when they’re going through an anxiety
[00:14:15] Adam Cloninger: reaction. So if they did put them in timeout, would that make it worse or causing another condition or it’s ill-advised
[00:14:20] Chris Gazdik: because the kid can’t sit kid, can’t sit a hyper ADD kid.
Can’t do that. Well, so it’s ill-advised and that causes turmoil, but you’re not going to cause ADD. Yeah. It’s
[00:14:31] Neil Robinson: an extreme punishment. It’s just like, you know, you have more than one kid. Right? Right. So, you know, that will work for one kid. Usually doesn’t work for them. So that’s the same thing with the ADD kid, a timeout wouldn’t work for them because of.
It doesn’t help them because for them it’s an extreme punishment, you know, for my kids, we had the same thing, one punish to work with the other, but I, them, so you have done, like you said, that a parent has to figure out what works best for their kid with add. And there are several guidelines that, you know, you have to follow.
So, and we’ve covered
[00:15:02] Chris Gazdik: some shows on that Sherry, actually, that I think that you’ll enjoy, add, and, and love and logic and how to apply to that specifically, another quick housekeeping thing, and we’ll get to Christmas. We had a YouTube call me and we were mentioned about this. So I thought, Neil, what I’d do with it is just bring it on to this little quick current event, wrapping up the year and, and let you know that the good folks at elder law care practice in Arkansas, how do you say Arkansas?
It’s spelled a R K a N S a S. Why can we not say our Kansas? Right. Do you ever, this is what my brain does. Sometimes
[00:15:36] Adam Cloninger: stuff like that
[00:15:37] Chris Gazdik: to have you, can we not pronounce the S at the end of this state? why do we not
You got nothing.
[00:15:46] Neil Robinson: It’s English language. There’s no, there’s no rhyme or reason to the English language are Kansas.
[00:15:51] Adam Cloninger: Anyway. Well, I told you like about theater is to me, it’s already not, ER, it just, is it just, is it just,
[00:15:57] Chris Gazdik: is it just is. Hmm. So they want to make themselves available for any legal questions that you have about elder law.
I accomplishing elder care there paid nursing home care and elder care and any legal questions. So if you have questions about that, we did an older care show based on the caretaking role. And email is contacted through a therapist, eyes.com. We’ll get you hooked up with those guys and thank you y’all for, for being willing to, to help our folks out with that and, and be available.
I think that’s a super coolest, the third therapist sized trtribe coming together. Right. Yeah, so Christmas let’s get to the holidays. What, so the here’s, I just want to pose some questions for us to talk about and think about guys. And first of all, we talk about the holidays and I want to kind of highlight, you know, Christmas Hanukkah.
I think most of us kind of know what Hanukkah is, is the, the Jewish celebration for the holiday season. And then Ram Ramadan, you know, is, is the most Lonza Kwanzaa. What is Kwanzaa? I’m not even sure. Do you know?
[00:17:04] Adam Cloninger: I wish I could talk intelligently about it, but I don’t know. I don’t know anything about it.
[00:17:08] Chris Gazdik: Yeah. And I learned that Ramadan is followed by and I’m going to butcher the pronunciation. I apologize. And I’ll own my ignorance too, to a certain extent. But it’s Eid, F I T Z. Right? And that evidently is the Muslim celebration representing the time of giving. As we approach the end of the month, of Ramadan.
Muslims look forward to a three-day celebration called it. A little fuzzier were asked about this event. Muslims will American Muslims will often kind of describe it as you know, it’s like our Christmas. This is, this is, this is, this is what it means to us. It’s our, it’s our Christmas. So whether we’re talking about Christmas Ramadan, you know, Hanukkah, whatnot, what does the holidays mean to you?
This is an important sets up all mental health questions, right? We’ve we’ve done this a few times on the show. So Nia, what do you think, man? What does holidays mean to you, Adam? What do you, what do you take when you start really thinking about the holidays,
[00:18:07] Adam Cloninger: for me, it’s time off work, right? I mean, it is, you know, not everybody’s off during the holidays, but I am so it’s great.
It’s like mini vacation or holiday. I mean like retirement or something like that.
[00:18:22] Chris Gazdik: I’m not
[00:18:22] Adam Cloninger: so much about rest, but a break from the, the work thing and maybe take care of some other stuff that you been putting off. If it was only like the middle of summer, be great, but you know, it’s no middle of winter, so it’s cold and everything.
So you can’t do all the things you need to do around the house, but it gives you a good
[00:18:39] Chris Gazdik: break. I’m going to, I’m going to go with, for me, when I think about this, what it, what it really means to me when I’m thinking of holidays, really, whether it’s Easter or Christmas or whatnot, I, I really do kind of get a reflection with, with my, my religious belief structures, you know, my religion and God, and, you know, Jesus and his birth to me, I really get kind of reflective on I don’t know, as they say, you know, the reason for the season, you know, those, those types of thoughts that, that, that to me is particularly Easter, man.
I get real reflective on, on Easter time. But, but other than that, I mean, you know, family is what comes to my mind, family and, and, and religion. And beliefs. So it w what do you got so far? What are you thinking?
[00:19:23] Neil Robinson: Usually the holidays are this it’s family. You make, you finally make that effort to get together with the rest of your family.
You finally, that’s how, you know, life is busy and that’s fine. You know, the holidays give you that reason to, you know, I wouldn’t go to this person’s house or over to this person’s house. And so, you know, that’s what it is to me. I don’t get too, too theological or anything too in depth. It’s just, oh, look, kids are out of school.
We can go see some family. We can get rid of the kids for a little bit, spend some time with the wife, you know, it’s like, that’s, that’s the holidays for me.
[00:19:55] Chris Gazdik: Yeah. That’s cool. That’s absolutely, you know, it’s funny because, you know, you say families only get together at a funerals and weddings. Right. Well, I think that’s, that’s probably needs to be a regular cultural addition to that joke that people really are kind of saying it almost.
Yeah. Yeah. So I, you know, I think that if you think about what the holidays mean to you, it really sets up your mental health. And interestingly and I, I planned this and anticipated and, and, and had a chance to think about it myself though. You know, I anticipated positive lives, positive responses to exploring what this means to you.
But if you really get to thinking about how people often times feel during the holidays, let me play around with that question. I didn’t play in that one, but how do people generally feel during the holidays? What do you think about that? What comes to your that’s going to, it’s
[00:20:46] Adam Cloninger: going to vary person to person.
Like, for me, I’m a great cause I’m off work. Yeah. I mean, I’m sure some people were stressed out about it. He did that show not too long ago, the one on addiction. So, and then you know, shame sucks. So yeah.
[00:21:01] Chris Gazdik: I always thing of stress. That’s what I hear people talking about all the time. And that’s, that’s the emotion that comes to my mind quicker.
It isn’t peace. You know, it isn’t joy. I mean, that’s there, but you could stress the heck out. Totally. Well.
[00:21:15] Neil Robinson: I have, I have a close family member relative whose whose brother committed suicide on Thanksgiving? The numbers
[00:21:21] Adam Cloninger: are up now. Thanksgiving is
[00:21:23] Neil Robinson: like a real, so the first few years they was rough and that’s, that’s that side of it.
That, yeah. You know, well, even like right now, my my wife’s grandmother is in a hospital in Winston. Cause she had a stroke yesterday. Oh my gosh, Neil, I’m sorry. We don’t know what’s happening. I mean, she seems she’s coherent and they took care of, but we don’t. So what is that going to mean for next year?
You know? Cause he already lost her grandfather about two years ago and this was like the last piece of that. So if this happens, what does next year’s Christmas going to be like with. You
[00:21:54] Chris Gazdik: know that, that loss, well, it’s a certain segment that we were going to touch on. We’ll do it now. You know, people do re-experience losses during holidays.
So if you’re following this concept and listening to the show, you might be kind of wondering, why am I so stressed out? You might not even kind of fully pull together in your logic part of your brain. You know, what’s upsetting, but people very much re-experienced losses. You know, my sister, this is like, you know, she’s not here with us anymore.
You know, she, she died just now. It’s been a couple of years ago. Like holy cows is the, actually the second Christmas without her. It’s your brain kind of takes a little while to realize like, well, what are the normal routines now? You know, used to be, mom would go grab Becky, Becky, come over to our house and we’d hang out.
And that’s what we do. And it’s different. And so when you’re divorced, What were all the routines that we had, you, you read experience losses and that creates great distress in part of what you’re reflecting on and whatnot. Right. So yeah, I’m glad we covered that a little bit. Neil, thank you for sharing.
And say some prayers. I really hope for your grandmother in law, I guess,
[00:23:09] Neil Robinson: right? Yeah. That’d be my grandmother. Yeah. Grandmother-in-law
[00:23:13] Chris Gazdik: all right. Yeah. Not a fun time to be in hospitals. Weird. We just had sirens roll by like outside. That’s kind of weird. That’ll give you the heebie-jeebies next question to ponder a little bit, you know, what is hard about the holidays?
Wait, I think what’s hard. First thing that comes to my mind is money. Finances. How do we manage. Now we’re, you know, don’t have enough that we need or, you know, what happened. So to me, finances popped into my brain. I think
[00:23:48] Adam Cloninger: time too, for some people I mean, you know, I’m going to be off, but other people who’s not going to be off.
And, you know, you got to go over to grandma’s house and the step family’s house and cousin’s house, you know, I mean, you know, some people are going like five and six houses, and then you have people where they’re like, we’re going to go over there, Christmas Eve, we’re going here Christmas day. We’re going to hear today after Christmas and the, you
[00:24:14] Chris Gazdik: know, taking me back right now.
Yeah.
[00:24:18] Adam Cloninger: And then I can imagine if people are still working that time, which, like I said, most people are, well, not a lot of people are still working in holidays.
[00:24:25] Chris Gazdik: So you know where you took me just now. To understand one of the big things that, that is on my brainstorming. How do you cope at this time of year?
Dude? You, you gotta be really careful about managing other people’s expectations because yeah, time was a major issue. We were newlyweds and I’ll never forget this year where we, we drove, you know, I mean, I’m glad we got to see all of my family and, and, but man, but dude, we lived in chapel hill. At the time we drove all the way down to Florida in Tampa spent whatever time there drove all the way back to chapel hill, where as we’re rolling into town, an ice storm had just taken over.
And so there was no power in our apartment. We ended up having to go to a hotel, true story, honest to God that my next door neighbor at power at their house. But we didn’t, whatever the irony of that is drove all the way up to wheeling, which is another. Basically 10 hour drive to spend time with my family back yet all told was something like 2,400 miles.
And I, we would, we agreed clear. We’re never doing
[00:25:36] Neil Robinson: that again. It sounds like he should have like, like flipped a coin, you know, Florida, Florida, or West Virginia. Right.
[00:25:44] Chris Gazdik: Well, we didn’t know. And we were, we were worried. I mean, you didn’t want to disappoint the family. We’re going to break up the norms, you know, how do you get these new expectations bill?
Well, we learned our lesson that year, you know, people’s expectations aren’t going to be met. So tip number one for dang, I’m sure is be careful about trying to meet everybody. Else’s expectations of you during the holidays, because it’s impossible. You just can’t, you just can’t. So that the pain that comes from trying is, is a whole, whole nother thing.
What about fun? What what’s fun about the holidays?
[00:26:16] Neil Robinson: Nothing. I mean, yeah, Scrooge, no. I mean, honestly it goes back to me spending time with your family. Like I said, I it’s, I said it was hard to make that time, but when you do it, it’s actually nice to catch up and see how things are going. You see those younger relatives that now, you know, by Lord, how did cousin so-and-so grow a foot this year?
Geez. You know, so it’s, it’s that establishing connections. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, you talked about that expectations, but if you think about, of, you know, reestablishing connections as opposed to, oh no. Are they. You know, look down on me because I didn’t get that promotion, this job, or I don’t do as much stuff.
There is an expectation of your other family that I think is hard on the high holidays too. You talked about that, you know, that, that can be very stressful. If, if you have siblings, you know, my sister is doing a lot better than I am and I, I, I’m not married yet or blah, blah
[00:27:09] Chris Gazdik: comparisons. Don’t they? Holy crap.
You’re right. Comparing this and comparing that and totally keeping up with the Joneses that leads to we’ll probably cover all our tips, right? Like, don’t try to keep up is a bad idea this time of year. Why are we going to spend $7,500 on X-Box three or whatever’s out now? Yeah. That’s nuts.
[00:27:33] Adam Cloninger: Is that the numbers?
It is what I’m wondering. I don’t, I don’t know what it is.
[00:27:36] Neil Robinson: Cause there was X-Box one that just came late. I don’t know. Cause I know it was PlayStation five. That’s easy. Cause that’s easy. They went and locked out. Now it looks like a spaceship, like a space console or something. It’s
[00:27:48] Chris Gazdik: crazy. You got one. I need one.
You need
[00:27:51] Neil Robinson: one? Yeah. You got to write a letter to Santa.
[00:27:54] Chris Gazdik: Yeah. You got the beard. Yeah,
[00:27:56] Neil Robinson: but I think it goes back to like when you go in those moments, like you said, it’s very enjoyable and I think you have to be present. Yeah. When you’re in those moments with your family, you need to enjoy your time with them. Don’t let those insecurities, don’t let all those doubts come in, because if you, if you don’t, you’re going to miss out on that time, you know?
And like I said, when you get older relatives, you always have that risk of is this the last holiday? So
[00:28:18] Chris Gazdik: we are sprinkling in the, how do you cope here? Right? As we go through the show I love what you just said, because one of the things that’s on the list, there is like you’ve got to be mindful and just be in the moment.
It’s, it’s really important to take that time and just let it, just let it set in is let it be, you don’t have to go running around. I mean, people trying to keep up. Running around all over the place, trying to accomplish, you know, grocery store and food and cooking and buying and rapping and gifting.
And I, I know we need to do those things. I am a parent said, please, don’t send the hate mail into me about like, you know, you’re so insensitive and that’s unrealistic. I am a realist, but you’ve gotta be able to tune it down to and be in the moment with what’s happening and really just, you know, settle in.
Matter of fact, that’s one of the things I love about Christmas. It occurs to me when I will invariably, probably this, well, no, not this year. I’m going to be on a beach. I’ve got to be on a beach for Christmas. There’s going to be awesome. So we’re doing some different things. More on that I guess in a minute.
I love just getting in my car and driving and just being quiet and peaceful in my car, driving around, looking at everything that’s close. Is that weird, Adam, am I, is that
[00:29:37] Adam Cloninger: no, I mean, I can say, oh, that’s weird that there’s no cars in that parking lot. I
[00:29:42] Chris Gazdik: have done that more than once and I love it.
Love it seriously. When’s the last time you’ve been to like the grocery store and there’s just zero. No, I’m not talking about three o’clock in the morning either. That’s a little different, right. But there’s nothing there. There’s nothing open. It’s calm. It’s quiet. Life slows down. I think that’s going to be in
[00:30:04] Adam Cloninger: the beach on this common, quiet.
I am. I’m not going to be calm. Awesome.
[00:30:08] Chris Gazdik: I’m going to be deep sea fishing. You know, that’s what, that’s what we got set up. Looking forward to this. How do you manage gift giving during Christmas receiving gifts, giving gifts? Is this a stressful thing? This is a reality thing. How’s this work and an interesting thing that I was talking to Casey today.
So Santa’s presents, are they wrapped or nonwrapped. In your home, we think gift giving it’s a big part of at least the American tradition and holidays and stuff. Cookies.
[00:30:40] Neil Robinson: Yeah. We can get some milk. Yeah. We always love cookies because, you know,
[00:30:44] Adam Cloninger: Santa Anita
[00:30:45] Neil Robinson: cookies. Yeah. That’s what that ends. Ours
[00:30:48] Chris Gazdik: were always wrapped is the point there.
I always had our map Santa presents
[00:30:52] Neil Robinson: for us. We don’t, which is kind of weird because growing up I did, but we would do kind of like family gifts the night before, and then we’d have Santa gifts, like their tradition too, as well. So that was one of those that’s that’s one of those cool things. Talk about that.
The blending of traditions
[00:31:08] Chris Gazdik: of families, it’s on the list where it all hitting all the natural things.
[00:31:13] Neil Robinson: I think while going back, I think the hard part for parents. When do you, when do you tell your kids about Santa? That that’s a struggle. Yeah, because, cause I know with us, both of our kids, we, we love the idea of the joy.
Of of the idea of Santa. Like it wasn’t the whole thing about the lie or blah it’s like they enjoyed it. And so until they either didn’t enjoy it, or of course, if a friend spilled the beans, you kind of, well, yeah. And so our common thing was as they got older was, or do you still want to believe, do we need a spoiler alert on here in case I said anything?
[00:31:49] Chris Gazdik: I was, I was wondering that actually, if you have kids in the car, maybe we should do that as a matter of fact, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll add in the beginning of the show, we’ll actually go back when you’re, when you’re clipping the front end, like you were going to let’s go ahead and do a spoiler alert for kids, because I want to, because I want to go into this, I want to go into this.
And I’m glad you brought it up and I’ve got a lot of thoughts about it. And I think it’s a, it’s a really good thing that we can kind of create a segment here for it. Right. Cause cause I, from a mental health perspective, this can be traumatic. I have actually had in therapy sessions. More than once I wouldn’t say, excuse me, excuse me.
I wouldn’t say I wouldn’t say a lot, but definitely more than once a few times, I’m going to say a few times people have dealt with this sort of in therapy and part of their family and not exactly like coming to therapy because they were traumatized when they found out Santa Claus is not real. That’s not the point.
But one guy I remember very vividly said, well, I had this talk and it was really quick and it was great. I lost the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny, Santa Claus and everything else right there. Boom. And I was not, you know, and actually he was from an alcoholic, dysfunctional family and it wasn’t very supportive and environment and there’s a lot of other things that was going on with his sort of emotional psychology.
But dude, this crushed him. You can
[00:33:10] Adam Cloninger: always tell them they’re still big foot and Loch ness monster
[00:33:12] Chris Gazdik: though. I’d say there’s Loch ness monster. Sure. I guess we’ll do a repair there. No, I think Neil, well, Adam, do you have any thoughts about it? And then, cause I got some thoughts. I want to sum this up on it, but how do you deal with this with your kids?
[00:33:27] Adam Cloninger: I kind of, I kind of dealt with it by not dealing with it at all. Just kinda that they just kind of figured it out.
[00:33:33] Chris Gazdik: Eventually you might actually be in the majority. How
[00:33:36] Adam Cloninger: many? I don’t know if I want to suggest that it’s a good idea to just go ahead and flat out saying, you know, this doesn’t
[00:33:45] Chris Gazdik: exist. Okay. I don’t think it’s bad.
I mean, kids will figure out and sometimes they’ll find out from their peers and this type of thing. Nia, what do you, what do you say or suggest or think?
[00:33:58] Neil Robinson: I think. One kids are smarter than we probably think they are. So I, like I said, our kids started thinking like, something’s not right. Something’s kind of off.
And, and, but I think it, I think an open dialogue and open relationship about it. I think that that’s kind of key. Like I said, with us, it was that kind of ask it, my wife would raise, he said, do you want to believe or not? What was yes. Then they kind of just dropped it. And I start asking questions. How did
[00:34:21] Adam Cloninger: Santa Claus?
That’s
[00:34:22] Chris Gazdik: the key right? There is honestly my clinical key because you will get questions. Oh no. Casey’s tree just turned off on, on, on us. I didn’t know there was on time or turns off now. Yeah, that’s a bummer on the Facebook and all the YouTube, the tree just turned off. The kids are going to ask questions and they’re going to begin expressing some confusion.
And so. I like what your response was, Adam, in the sense that kids aren’t going to be traumatized by this, they’re going to figure it out. It’s almost kind of one of those things that you kind of can’t screw it up, let them be an
[00:34:56] Adam Cloninger: investigator. I’ll start asking questions,
[00:35:00] Chris Gazdik: but I’m saying it’s going to be okay, because you can actually bother a kid or hurt their psyche a little bit by lying to them.
And, and they they’ve got doubts and curiosities and they can get annoyed by like, why aren’t you telling me the truth? I don’t get it. This is not true. Why, what is going on? Or you can crush them when they’re not ready. You know, they’re four years old and you’re trying to say, well, we want to have the spirit of Christmas, be giving and understand.
You don’t have to just receive presence. And we don’t buy into this Santa thing. There’s a lot of people, you know, that won’t even do the Santa things with their kids. There’s, there’s a large contingency of that. Did you even know.
[00:35:42] Adam Cloninger: Yeah, William. Yeah. It’s not all being, that’s not worldwide or anything. So I mean, there’s going to be, you know, people who don’t do that at all.
Well, I’m saying in our neighborhoods, well, there’s
[00:35:50] Neil Robinson: people who don’t let their kids go trick or treating. Absolutely.
[00:35:53] Chris Gazdik: There’s that too. Yeah. So, so here’s, here’s what I want to really kind of sum us up on here and we’ll move on. It’s really important to answer questions and you have an opportunity here to be able to on a big scale for a kid’s life.
Like this is a big deal when they’re wondering about the truth and what this means. So your cue here, I want to suggest is listen to the questions and listen to what they are thinking. Okay. And when you deem, because that’s a rule with, with divorce, by the way, that’s a rule with like finances. Kids will tell you what level emotionally they’re on by the questions they ask you.
But they’ve got to know that you can ask questions. So this is an opportunity to teach your kid. You can ask me questions. You can ask me anything you want to ask me. I want to be the best I can and get know Santa Claus. I am. Okay. So when you begin getting direct questions like that, you go into talking about the reality of it.
And this is one of the things I think I really did well with my son, particularly my older son. I don’t want my younger son even found out. Interesting. I really am probably
[00:36:59] Adam Cloninger: the older
[00:37:00] Neil Robinson: brother it’s possible. You know, there’s no such thing as it’s
[00:37:02] Adam Cloninger: fine. It’s very, very
[00:37:03] Chris Gazdik: possible. Remember as much maybe. Cause it just wasn’t new twisting his arm or something like that.
And him down close doesn’t exist. Yeah. That was some of the banging Christmas Eve night that year. I didn’t know. Now I know, no, I sat him down and I just talked to him about the giving spirit and what Santa clause means. And what Christmas is. We talked about religion and the piece with Jesus’s birthday and, and I, and I, but I set this all up by saying, okay, listen, I’m going to share some stuff with you.
And I want you to understand this is because you’re older. Like you’re kind of graduating into a new level of maturity and I really, really, really want you to treat your brother with respect cause he’s younger. So he doesn’t need to know this stuff yet. But when we went on then and talked about, you know, how mommy and daddy care about you and we, you know, do this and we, we invited him to participate in, in it.
So he set out the cookies for Santa and we, you know, he was a big kid guy. He didn’t lose as much as he gained by going through and having to
[00:38:05] Adam Cloninger: hone in on the
[00:38:06] Chris Gazdik: secret now. Absolutely. And it was, it was cool. It was a cold growing maturity moment for him and connecting between, between he and us. That doesn’t mean it’s a right way.
It’s just a way. And you know, you actually remember
[00:38:19] Adam Cloninger: when you like figured it out or was told, I mean, I can’t say that. I don’t remember. Do you remember exactly?
[00:38:25] Neil Robinson: I don’t. I know, I remember at one point I remember my, my mom and stepdad, like in the middle of the night putting presence out and then that kind of cued me in, but that was around third grade or maybe second grade, try to think of what house we were at.
So that was, that was probably my cue, but I don’t think I was one that really like, like believed it wholeheartedly.
[00:38:44] Adam Cloninger: I remember one time you know, of course I had already figured it out, but I had got up to go and give a card. The ad made from a parent.
[00:38:55] Chris Gazdik: Okay. And like at school
[00:38:57] Adam Cloninger: or something like that.
And I’m probably at school, I don’t remember, but it was Christmas Eve and I didn’t think about it until I’m already in bed, so I wouldn’t bed that long. So I got up and walked into the living room there in the kitchen, you know, doing whatever drinking egg or I don’t know, what are they doing? Right. So I walked in in there and they’d already put the presence out and I saw it and I’m like, oh, I gotta get back in here.
I can’t let them know that I know now. And then I like started to sneak back and I went, yeah, You know what? No, let’s have fun with this. So I walked on into the kitchen. Hey mom, dad here. I got this card here. And then they’re like, oh, Hey, Hey. Yeah. And then I remember my mom she’s like covered my eyes up and walking back to the way she dealt with it or whatever.
And I was thinking, you know, I don’t know what they were thinking about is yeah. Yeah.
[00:39:51] Chris Gazdik: Do you know it’s it’s thank you for sharing that story. I think that happens all around the world in so many ways. I mean, you know, it’s, it’s a very common thing for, you know, and, and I love that you asked the question, you know, what do you do with this?
I think that you want to have some dialogue about it because otherwise you just create this mystery and people, people need to know that they can come to their parents, have questions and, and, and say things. And I’m glad you went back into the room and
[00:40:16] Adam Cloninger: did that. I wanna point out that in my. To me that tells me my mom wasn’t ready for me to, for her to like, except that I didn’t believe Santa Claus exists.
Exactly. Which I’m fine with that. I mean, yes. Right.
[00:40:30] Chris Gazdik: This is I don’t want to ruin that for either, you know, that’s how I was going to end this segment, this little piece that we’re doing here, the fact of the matter is a lot of the times it’s about the parents not wanting to give up the youngness and funess of their little child, right?
It’s not about the kit. And of course you got to put that in check because you don’t want that to be what’s driving your decisions and your dialogue and your actions and stuff. You do want to make it about the kid, you know, and deal with your loss. But again, you you’re, you’re going through a loss with this.
Like parents have struggled with this. I don’t want to tell them parents have fought about this.
[00:41:16] Adam Cloninger: They shouldn’t be stressed though, because you got to think too, this also means that the following year they can go to gift cards.
[00:41:22] Chris Gazdik: Absolutely. Right. All
[00:41:24] Neil Robinson: gift cards. Now we didn’t have that one.
[00:41:27] Adam Cloninger: Right. It’s true.
In the give money
[00:41:29] Chris Gazdik: in the eighties, there weren’t as many gift cards, 20 of them in different places. Yeah, I, I had, I had thought, I think I lost it. I lost it, so I’ll just move on. But yeah, it, it, it’s, it’s really a lot of sadness, you know, when you’re kind of dealing with parents and grief and loss, and this is part of the, you know, what what do you deal with in the holidays?
I mean, there’s, there’s high stakes in these games that we, that we play. So let me just kick through you know, some another quick, a few honorable mentions about, I was thinking about the holidays, right? So honorable mentioned, number one is the holidays and lonliness. Okay, this is a, a huge time that people are struggling with feeling lonely.
Eh, I would imagine you’re tuning into the show maybe on Christmas Eve kind of saying, well, how do I get through this and stuff? Because loneliness is a huge, huge factor. And the fact of the matter is you’re not alone feeling lonely. To me, there’s so many people on Facebook and so many social media apps that we’ve gotten out.
And we’ve talked about how that actually creates loneliness and creates anxiety. And we talked about that in some prior shows on social media is, seemed an interesting carry over there when I was thinking about it. And also there’s so many scenarios that you find yourself in this time of the year. You know, I suspect around the world, we have a lot of military bases that are listening to us.
Military. I have three. Kids. I’m so proud of, to know that have become young men and joined the Marines three, literally this year, right? They are away from their families for their first time at the holidays. This is, it’s a lot of emotion out there on military bases and at post divorce. And, you know, maybe you just moved to the east coast.
I have a brother-in-law that moved all the way out to Colorado. Now he’s moved back actually, but there’s, there’s, there’s reasons for this and you’re going to find yourself in circumstances and we have to deal with the loneliness factor. Another one is just holiday and stress. I don’t, I don’t have time to go with through that a whole lot, but, but we’ve talked a little bit about it.
There’s a lot of things that get stressful. Sorry. I got. Airplane mode this time, not me. Yeah. We have technology interruptions all the time. Gosh, how do I, how do I carry about stress? I mean, what would you guys say, you know, about your experiences with holidays in distress? I mean, there are so many things, the finances, the gift giving the expectations.
I literally had a, a person in, in my, in my office the last few days that, you know, it was literally kind of trying to process through, you know, my, my, my mother-in-law didn’t want me to get gifts. My dad tells me don’t buy her gifts because this and that. And he’s like, well, I already bought the gift. What do I tell them?
How do I manage this? You know, it’s stressful situations like that. Right? Like what, what do you think about holidays and stress? Generally speaking.
[00:44:29] Neil Robinson: Well for us that don’t get all the holidays off, like Adam, you know, it’s so
[00:44:33] Adam Cloninger: awesome. Did you see
[00:44:36] Chris Gazdik: his face? And he carries like
[00:44:38] Adam Cloninger: stress,
[00:44:39] Neil Robinson: stress. I think a lot of it is self-induced I think when you think about what people get stressed, like your situation about the gifts. Yeah. To me, I’d be like, okay, you don’t want to buy it, but I already bought you something just be straight and true.
I think there’s a lot of people that the anxiety, they, they build up this anxiety. You can talk about the expectations of the siblings or the cousins, or, you know, all this stuff. Or they it’s, they really work themselves up so much because of, for whatever reason, you know, keeping up with the Joneses, keeping up with the brothers, you know?
Yeah. And I, and I think really just taking that deep breath and just being like, okay, why am I really getting. Stress
[00:45:17] Chris Gazdik: again, it comes up, be careful about managing everyone. Else’s expectations of you. If you manage your expectations of yourself first, not exclusively by the way, but that, that that’s something that needs to be ingrained.
Well,
[00:45:33] Adam Cloninger: I think a discussion would actually help that too. An example I can think of is like at one time, every Christmas, me and my sister and her family and my family would get together Christmas. And the thing was, is, you know, you’re trying to get presents for everybody. And then finally one year, my sister’s like, you know what?
We’re not doing. We’re not doing presence. Yeah. I mean,
[00:45:53] Neil Robinson: yeah, well, yeah. We with Alicia’s family, we did, we switched to a dirty Santa and this year is
[00:45:59] Adam Cloninger: like, oh, dirty Santa or a secret Senator. You know what that is? I’ve never heard the term dirty Santa. I mean, not what I talk about. Anyway.
[00:46:07] Neil Robinson: no that’s where Everyone brings one gift and then you, you count them up.
And then everyone draws numbers and then basically number one, picks their gift. The next person, number two can either pick a different gift or take that person’s gift. I love that game. Hey,
[00:46:22] Adam Cloninger: how do you go about getting the gifts in the first place? Everybody just brings something.
[00:46:27] Chris Gazdik: Yeah,
[00:46:28] Neil Robinson: so there’s like 15 people there.
Everyone brings like one get like, you know, $5, $10 limit and they share, you know, for various reasons, like we kind of don’t want to do it. You know? It’s like whether it’s expenses or the fact that every time someone buys like, well, do we really need this? It’s fun, but do you really need it? And so. Like you said, we talked about it.
Well, we texted about it, you know, what’s going on with us. And so we just came to a collusion. Okay. Well, if everyone, if they wants to buy presents for the kids, they can, but we’re not going to do the dirty Santa this year. And it’s just like, okay, 30 Santa.
[00:47:01] Chris Gazdik: Yeah. So here here’s a piece and it is, and it is on my list of how do you cope with the holidays?
Look, there are no hard and fast rules that you absolutely have to subscribe to when it comes to the holidays and stuff. I mean, but you’re right. It, and that’s what you mean by self-induced I think, right? Like you feel this pressure for what reason? And I’m telling you, people feel hard, hard, hard pressure with that.
I didn’t ask the question in earlier, but we just, because we didn’t have time and I decided to move on before I said, what about holidays and traditions? What does that do in your mind and your hearts? Well, this is. You know? Nope. We’ve always done it that way. We can’t change now. Like that’s not okay.
Sure. You can. Right. That’s the suggestion. That you had, there’s nothing that locks this stuff in, but yet again, we feel that that has to be,
[00:48:00] Neil Robinson: and I think there’s, you have to be okay with change, but you also have to be steadfast and something you believe in because I’m not a big tradition person, but for some reason, I’ve got this thing that I make Boden waffles on Christmas day.
That’s something my dad did. And that was part of our tradition. That’s something that I just feel as the dad. I feel like I always want to do that. I don’t know why. So I’d get myself stressed out because I’m like, oh, I got to make the Belgian waffle, let it rise. And then it takes time to do it and got to get the pecans of the chocolate chips and
[00:48:28] Adam Cloninger: absolutely what time are me.
[00:48:30] Neil Robinson: And CHris supposed to be there. You can be there. I think they’ll be ready by 10 or 11 where Chris is at the beach, but you’re more than welcome.
[00:48:35] Adam Cloninger: I’m
[00:48:35] Chris Gazdik: at the beach, but when we’ll come back, I’ll be, I’ll be having a little piece of that, but we’re going to have an upside down pineapple cake. Oh, nice. Yeah.
[00:48:43] Neil Robinson: At least
[00:48:43] Chris Gazdik: it makes us listen your direction.
My father-in-law Jarrel Thayer. Thanks so much, brother. You have taught me an amazing thing. Like that’s a tradition for me. Like I love, I don’t do it every year, but dude, and it’s funny. I always say like upside down cherry turnover pie cake, because I always rename it. It’s another funny thing that I do, but go ahead.
A
[00:49:03] Adam Cloninger: plug here this weekend. I get a sour cream cinnamon pound cake. I
[00:49:07] Chris Gazdik: don’t know where that’s coming from.
[00:49:09] Neil Robinson: When are you bringing that over? I’ll tell you that I can probably bring some back, but I think the key, when it comes to traditions, if they’re enjoyable, you should keep doing them, right. It becomes a negative and overly stressful.
And the tradition is dated for the sake of a tradition and the tradition is not there to enjoy it. And to actually enjoy the reason why you’re having the tradition you need to really think about is it time to change it or it
[00:49:36] Chris Gazdik: there’s an absolute balance here. And you’re absolutely on point with mental health Neal, whether you realize it or not.
But I think what I’m trying to say is, look, change is scary and people are resistant to that. We’ve done a show on change. And how do you cope with change? Right. Well, traditions are very grounding as. So if I was sounding for a moment, like no rules, do whatever you want this and that. No, like traditions give you footing their family traditions for a reason.
It grounds societies, all polled like the national tradition of the Christmas tree in national traditions. As much as familial traditions play a role in holding people together. And togetherness is security. Your emotional wellbeing depends upon, you know, a certain amount of traditions. So there’s a, but there’s a balance.
And I think I like the way, how did you put it? If, if a tradition is what then what? Then if it becomes
[00:50:34] Neil Robinson: too stressful, then you should look at adapting it.
[00:50:37] Chris Gazdik: Yeah. I think that’s a dude. Write that down for the little quote that you like to put out there, man. Rocking it. Neil rocket.
[00:50:44] Adam Cloninger: There might be a show like for that somehow,
[00:50:46] Chris Gazdik: actually that would be a whole group.
I think. I agree. I think I agree. Just do it on today. Holidays and stress. I want to touch back again with losses. Another honorable mention spot here. Losses are re-experienced during the holidays guys. That’s a, that’s a reality. This, this, this can be as big as losing your childhood. You know, I I’ve had people in therapy that are rumbling.
Well, you know what? I’ll make that personal to me. I didn’t lose my childhood, but I remember very clearly as I got married to my wife and. My in-laws like, we didn’t have a lot. I think I’ve shared, we grew up kind of rough in single mom and you know, but don’t be rude. Don’t feel bad for me. I mean, we had great presence in, oh my God.
Public. Thank you. I forgot to do the pub.
[00:51:40] Adam Cloninger: He was thinking the same thing. Forgot the
[00:51:41] Chris Gazdik: public. Thank you. This boy came and got me a gift this year, man.
[00:51:46] Adam Cloninger: They gave him a little old. You remember you remember his story
[00:51:49] Neil Robinson: about did, did you get him the Falcon?
[00:51:52] Adam Cloninger: I did got him on the morning. Christmas ornament?
Yeah. It’s got a proud spot
[00:51:55] Neil Robinson: and I mentioned it to you. You already know, but I pay attention to the show. Okay.
[00:52:01] Adam Cloninger: Yeah.
[00:52:02] Chris Gazdik: Yeah. He heard the whole show transcribed. The whole show did all the things the whole time. I’m thinking he’s
[00:52:06] Adam Cloninger: millennium. Falcon.
[00:52:07] Chris Gazdik: He’s got to have one. I forgot to, I forgot to put that on the front end, man.
My apologies. Thank you. Your one was a very thoughtful, very nice. And, and I need to give you a picture of, of, of the front of the tree. It’s a proud spot right in the front and it’ll be there every year. Cool. Love that. That was, that was awesome. That’s absolutely awesome. I appreciate it. Yeah. The millennium
[00:52:24] Neil Robinson: Falcon may have it like hovering over the manger.
You know,
[00:52:28] Chris Gazdik: I might do something cool with that. Absolutely. It, it, it, it’s too cool to be
[00:52:32] Adam Cloninger: on a Christmas tree that addiction we talked about not as money that was money
[00:52:38] Chris Gazdik: was stressing about money and everything, because I’m going to the same direction, you know? I didn’t lose my childhood. I was saying, but we did have some tough times and whatever, and I had many great Christmases and I’m grateful for all of them, but as well, you know, we we’ve turned to those struggle points, particularly in my teenage years.
And dude, when I met my in-laws and, and all that they’ve done for me, they are very gracious Merry Christmas and happy new year Gerald and Vicki. I appreciate it. And I’m talking about it with this now, because I had to learn how to say thank you with these people. And it was very like, that was hard to figure out like how to do.
I know it sounds weird, but. Gift-giving and all these traditions, you see how many emotions are flying around with all these other things that we talk about? I mean, it’s crazy, isn’t it? So, okay. Deaths that occurred when I mentioned that with my sister big emotional facts, you know, for divorce and, you know, family transitions and, you know, the losses that we have in our, you know, this is touching me personally right now, you know, moving into empty nesting and, and, and the kid’s like, holy crap, like for 20 years, one of the traditions, if you will, Neil, that I was kind of like, look, Christmas tree.
Our house kids are coming down the stairs. We are staying home. I I’m, I know that I frustrated some people probably. Man I’ve said that
[00:54:07] Adam Cloninger: so many times for to pass it almost never happened.
[00:54:10] Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Well, we, I was one of the few things I really like, dude, like, you know but that’s going away. I don’t know how many more years we’ve got to that we’ll actually leave by our own cost.
We’ve kind of changed some of those because they’re older now. I mean, we were at snow shoe on Christmas day once recently, but the celebration of new traditions begins to take hold because now we’re having like these vacations a little bit and yeah, now we’re going to be deep sea fishing and on the beach.
So it’s, it’s the loss though. It’s the, re-experiencing your, dad’s no longer here. You know, the, the transitions of my, I used to have a family now I’m single this is normal y’all to, to re-experience this at this time of year, because there are so many family connections and personal relationships that.
Formed and formed around these, these big times a year. So again, if you’re listening to this, you’re not, you’re not alone in, in dealing with all of these types of things. And
[00:55:08] Neil Robinson: I think you hit on the head that, that goes back to the key, why relationships are so important to human nature and the loss of a relationship, whether it’s as simple as even assemble loses a pet, you know, they’d have that person of that dog.
They put the horns on and now you don’t have needle Skippy anymore. Magnums. Not that that can be heartbreaking, but like you said, like these are times to reconnect to rebuild those relationships. And if you don’t have those connections anymore, you lost it. It’s so important. I think to have defined connections some way, or somehow, I don’t know what it is.
Connections, new connections.
[00:55:46] Chris Gazdik: Yeah. You celebrate the old, you create the new year where you’re at and mindful and you plan. You know, as you would like things to be based on your expectations, boy, that pulls a few of these, you know, themes together. I think real nicely. Let me just wrap with you guys on a question.
I’m curious, covering new year’s and then I’m just going to hit the list of what I brainstormed do. I think, I think we got several of them is new year’s Eve or new year’s holiday celebration all around the world. Is it a time for reflection or anticipation? Yes. Ah, I’m not going to let you get away with it.
Yeah. What do you think for me? I’ll answer this first. I had the advantage of thinking about it. Hands down, all told no doubt about it. New year’s Eve. I’m a reflecter. I am a total reform. Not surprised. Why am I getting that reaction? Explain yourself. Well, he started chuckling, right? Why, why are you not surprised you were a reflector?
Cause you know me, I guess you’ve gotten to know me. I
[00:56:52] Neil Robinson: I’m sad. Cause I’m like anticipation, like what move forward, you know, keep going forward, what you can do next. So which goes back really to show that you and I are so different, like listen to the show
[00:57:08] Chris Gazdik: because I’m
[00:57:08] Neil Robinson: thinking I’m like, it’s about anticipation. It’s those resolutions. That’s what can you do better this next year? What can, what can you do this next year? And then another student do I think that he’s like, it’s about reflection. So I’m like, yeah, for me, that’s what that’s when abandoned and abandoned,
[00:57:24] Chris Gazdik: you know, actually it’s funny.
I didn’t even think about that in that, in that setting and Goldman abandonment, how that kind of works out. But you know, it, it stands to me to make a point there, you know, Are the differences in us. Okay. Of course for you and me and Chris and Neil. Yes. How about husband and wife and you know, different family, one family to the next, your, your in-laws, you know, I really had to kind of deal with this too, in a way in my head.
My in-laws listening to this. They may, they would not know this, but they’ll know it now. I guess this was shot around the world. I was one of the things I really, really loved about Christmas and it was very, very different from the way that they did things was we did like you, you know, we do family presence beforehand.
And to me that was really special. Cause I really, really liked the giving of the present. I couldn’t wait for my, my dad to open up the present or my brother to see what I picked out at the store. You know, I was able to come out. Yeah, it’s me. That was really, really cool. And so we did that really quiet and really slow.
That’s another thing we, we, one person is opening up a gift. So I could, so I could see what we could see, you know, and that was, that was really special to me. I really, really enjoyed that around how we did things do I went to my in-laws and it was like the I’m sure many people just, boom, here’s the presents.
Everyone’s opening them up at the same time and things are going on and it’s rappers all around and it was all family gifts mixed up with Santee gifts and all of that. And I was like, whoa, this is different, you know, is that okay? Sure. Yeah, it really is. But everybody needs to be okay with the differences.
What are you doing?
[00:59:05] Neil Robinson: You explained my childhood. Well, cause I was my parents divorced when I was like four or five and they, both, my parents got remarried shortly after that. And literally my mom’s house with my stepdad was like your in-laws. It was basically the presidents are there and everyone just tried to find your present.
With my dad and my step-mom, you know, with the Belgium wall stuff, it was basically okay, here’s our stockings in the Saturday, Christmas morning. Here’s our stockings. All right, everyone go through all this docking gifts. And my step-mom were basically each, each one, each stocking gift was wrapped. You would go through.
Yeah, exactly. So we had round one stockings and then we’d do waffles round two was the presence and it was one at a time. And so, and maybe that’s why I’m more adaptable now because I’ve been doing this since I was like six or seven or something. Literally I grew up with two completely different households.
You know, my, my grandma or my step-mom was buying Christmas on December 26 for next year. Of course my dad was buying it on December 24th for this year, which was funny when those relations, but yeah. I’ve seen both sides of the traditions and are both sides of the different ways to do things. And each one was enjoyable and there, cause I actually kind of liked, I started enjoying like I liked watching people open their gifts versus being, if you’re a moment and doing it, of course, she was like, we’d have to cut the tape, like save the wrapping paper.
And so that kind of scarred us too. So like every time I opened her gifts, I’m like trying to very
[01:00:34] Chris Gazdik: careful we can reuse that paper. Yes. There’s a lot of things like that that, you know, you get these annoyances, you get these things that bother you to get under your skin. So let me kind of just look at what I had for my list.
It’s not a complete list, but it’s a little bit of an idea to kind of help you think about, you know, how do you cope with all these annoyances and all this stress and the loneliness and the changes and the losses that you re-experienced and whatnot. Right? So let me just hit these down, give yourself permission to make new traditions and meet only those that feel comfortable.
Yeah, which is exactly kind of what, what you said in the all right. You know, permission to make new traditions meet only those that you feel comfortable with. Don’t try the impossible meet everyone’s expectations. I’ve I actually had a TV interview years ago. I was lucky enough to do that. You know, the holiday blues, how do you manage the holiday blues?
And that’s what I was kind of pinging that issue in mental health dang near 15, 20 years ago when I was on that. I mean, that’s, that is probably the biggest thing that comes to my mind by the way, is that expectations thing that we brought up a few times just be aware of simple things like, you know, one of the things I learned we would get.
So during Thanksgiving and holiday meals, you need, even when it starts getting really, really crabby and irritable, you’ve been around family and you know, it’s about two o’clock in the afternoon. Well, Adam, why do you think everybody’s irritated. At two at two o’clock, three o’clock in the afternoon, probably
[01:02:02] Adam Cloninger: cause we’ve been up.
So like all day and got up early and the kids are like,
[01:02:06] Chris Gazdik: absolutely. You’ve been running around it’s way past lunch and it’s before dinner. So what do you think you haven’t done?
[01:02:17] Neil Robinson: Okay, well, not in his house because
[01:02:19] Adam Cloninger: his waffles.
[01:02:21] Neil Robinson: Right. But what is up with holiday dinners being at two or three o’clock because my wife never understood that. Cause my, my aunt Thanksgiving, it’s like two or three. It’s like, ah, you know,
[01:02:33] Chris Gazdik: it’s still, no, it’s the fact that it’s a huge meal and you can’t eat like four meals.
And so you’re not going to eat dinner. You’re not going to eat, you know, lunch and dinner. I mean, it’s just because for me, I think it’s, as soon I’m surprised that you didn’t know. Yeah. It’s like the secret is we, we can’t eat that much. And so we try and then we don’t need to eat again. I used
[01:02:51] Neil Robinson: to, I used to get through like, cause divorced parents I’d have my, my mom’s dinner.
My, and then I go to my friend’s house. Of course this was all bad because in high school we wrestle, there was always a wrestling tournament. So crap. But
[01:03:04] Adam Cloninger: yeah, we kind of go point division. Yeah, exactly.
[01:03:08] Chris Gazdik: So. Think about those things that are commonly difficult? Well, one of the things that we’ve figured out that we really routinely do is there’s always going to be appetizers out.
We’re going to, we’re cutting up some melons, we’re cutting up some cheese and crackers. We get some shrimp sitting out. And so if anybody gets any little bit of hangry, we’re not making you wait until 3, 3 30 or two 30 to eat. Just go get some snacks. You put healthy
[01:03:31] Adam Cloninger: stuff out or
[01:03:33] Chris Gazdik: cheese crackers, fruit.
Yeah. I like to that, man. I wouldn’t know it, but I like to try to eat healthy, turn the video off. Don’t stop, you know take some time to yourself. Look, I’m gonna use this as a quick example as well, because not that I always get things right. I’ve, I’ve screwed many things. But, but I developed a plan that absolutely every holiday season I was going to take a nap every holiday day.
I decided I didn’t follow through, but I did for like three, four years. Th I was just going to, even if it was 15 minutes, I was going to lay down and take a nap and just stop. Right. So make sure that you’re taking some time to yourself that you do things that you need for you. Again, that expectation thing I will do that.
You’re going to do that. Absolutely. Right. I’ve done it.
[01:04:22] Adam Cloninger: I’m not allowed to,
[01:04:24] Neil Robinson: you’re not allowed to, when I take naps, I, I just slept through the night. So my wife’s like, I can’t take naps.
[01:04:32] Adam Cloninger: When you, when you take a nap, you sleep through the night. I don’t
[01:04:35] Neil Robinson: wait back up. I’m like gone. Like I, I never sleep otherwise.
So if I’m that tired, it’s like 2, 3, 4 hours. And it’s like,
[01:04:44] Adam Cloninger: you can’t take naps 20
[01:04:46] Chris Gazdik: minutes. Don’t take naps, develop a stronger sense of gratitude so that you’re not caught up in keeping up with the next best thing. Gratitude lists are great. This time of the year feeling lonely, which is huge. Feeling lonely is managed by reaching out to others, reach out, go to your neighbor’s house.
You’re not going to ruin their day or embarrass yourself. Reach out. Don’t be lonely this time of year, knowing that there’s people all around you. Boundaries right. Say no. When you mean no, say yes when you mean, yes, we’ve done a whole show on boundaries, but you know, otherwise resentments are developed.
You will get exhausted by not following boundaries or having boundaries. So you’ll, you’ll just, you’ll, you’ll run yourself into the ground again, trying to meet other people’s expectations, cornerstone of mental health. I’m not going to try you because you may not have heard that before, but do you know the cornerstone of mental health?
No. Neil, come on self care. Boom. Right? That is the cornerstone of mental health. And it’s something that you need to be able to do. Take a nap maybe, but do something fun for you. If you’ve bought Legos for your kids and you really enjoy Legos, go get the kid’s Lego thing and just spend 15 minutes and put it together because you enjoy it, take it apart and let him fix it yourself.
But right. Whatever it is, have two deviled eggs and make special deviled eggs because you enjoy cooking. Watch football, right? Something take pieces of this day and this time and balance it out with self care. It’s okay to let other people know that you’re not happy. We had this myth. I don’t know where it got created, but I have to be joyful.
I have to be happy. I have to be up. I can’t be sad. I can’t be depressed. I can’t be down. But let me tell you something. As a reminder, we didn’t get to do the segments that I wanted to. When you already have a mental health condition, whether it’s manic, bipolar, depressed, OCD, anxious, all types of mental health conditions, and you go into a stressful season, you will have that likely be aggravated.
You don’t have to spend extra energy to try to pretend that’s not the case. So let me give you permission out there. If you’re feeling these mental health impacts and you’re struggling because you’re grieving. I’ve got a couple people in my therapy right now that have that going on. Terrible grief and loss.
They just lost their family members. It’s okay to let people know that that’s the case, man. Lastly, this actually came from our article. I didn’t even mention it during today, but there was a cool article. We have shown that it seemed involved in a couple cool links and I, and I enjoyed it, but you know, it was an interesting tip.
They made, I never even thought of this before, but how about playing something for after the holidays that you’ll enjoy? I thought that was brilliant. You know, Thanksgiving’s wearing you out and stressing you out, you know, what is it always on a Thursday, right. Playing something nice on a Saturday. You know that you’re going to go, you know, boating on that Saturday or after this holiday season, you know, you’re going to go do something special and different and fun.
Like we’re going to take a, it’s an awesome time for a trip. You know, the holidays are over. January’s there January 15th, take a vacation. Why can’t we take a vacation in January or staycation or a staycation stay at home and just plan on Netflixing a bin or just not
[01:08:24] Adam Cloninger: planning on doing anything.
[01:08:26] Chris Gazdik: Absolutely. I love the thought.
[01:08:27] Adam Cloninger: I mean, you still Netflix, but just, you know, don’t plan
[01:08:30] Chris Gazdik: on it. Right. But it’s a plan. So the idea here is you’ve got a plan after the holidays can get you through the holiday, Malays and stress. So I dunno. Let’s see. How should we wrap up here? You guys, we need to get out of here.
You know, what are you doing for Christmas this year? We’re running down to the beach. I said we are. Thoughts, holiday plans, what you’re looking for, how might you sum us up? I appreciate you guys and, you know, end in 2021 with us and, you know, tagging us outta here for the year. Had he tag us out of the show?
What, what do you think? What are you doing? Yeah,
[01:09:10] Adam Cloninger: well my case I’ll be at home for Christmas. I’m not working. We used to have not working, not working. My regular job is, you know, doing something. My, my girlfriend will be of course at home. It’s a long distance thing. So going to see her like, you know, later on that day, so, but I won’t be there Christmas Eve or anything.
She has her family and everything. So then the next week, whatever
[01:09:36] Chris Gazdik: you’re taking, take them off really. You’re just going, be
[01:09:40] Adam Cloninger: chill taken in it. But you know, when I’m off though, I like doing stuff, you know, Your deck will
[01:09:46] Chris Gazdik: get finished. I have a feeling my
[01:09:47] Adam Cloninger: decks
[01:09:47] Chris Gazdik: finished now. Is it nailed down on the rail?
Ah, no.
[01:09:51] Adam Cloninger: Ah, yeah, but that’s someone cause I can’t make mine up or to want to do yet. Oh, you haven’t made kit kitchens next. I’m on the decks on hold the kitchen’s next. That’s my
[01:09:59] Chris Gazdik: buddy. I know that rail is not nailed down. No, it’s not.
[01:10:03] Neil Robinson: I have no. I
[01:10:04] Chris Gazdik: don’t know what the
[01:10:08] Neil Robinson: grandmother and everyone else know we’re going to try to get with them and we’ll get with her family and I’ll do something with my mom. And, but we’re, we’re very spontaneous was like, if it’s longer than a week out, we forget about it.
[01:10:20] Adam Cloninger: I’ll do the rounds, no plan
[01:10:21] Chris Gazdik: plan. It is a cool plan. I I’m, I’m looking forward to, this is totally something new and different man.
I’ve I’ve never done this. We’ve never been deep sea fishing, so we’re going to go deep sea fishing. And literally I’m kind of excited about the Christmas meal. I think this year we’ll probably do some different things. We were going to be in a condo, but I’m going to cook the fish that we caught the day before for crew for Christmas meal, man.
I’m excited
[01:10:44] Neil Robinson: about that. Optimistic that he’s going to, what
[01:10:46] Adam Cloninger: if he doesn’t catch him then?
[01:10:47] Chris Gazdik: Oh,
[01:10:49] Adam Cloninger: we’ll be doing an episode.
[01:10:52] Neil Robinson: to see.
[01:10:53] Adam Cloninger: All
[01:10:53] Chris Gazdik: right, listen, we’re wrapping up 2021 guys. I really appreciate you hanging out with us. The holidays can be beautiful. It can be wonderful. They can be joyful. They can be cheerful, but they can be sad and they can be depressing and they certainly can be stressful.
So hang out with us. Learn from. Talk to us. We want to figure this thing out together, but for the wrap-up of 2021, I formerly wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy holiday season all around the world. And we will look forward to 2022 with anticipation and reflection of the New Year take care. And we’ll see you soon.