- We're going to talk about Jesus and the January blues. - That way of thinking can become automatic and it can be retrained. (upbeat music) - Hello there, you're listening to the Girl Talk podcast. My name is Carol. - I'm Kelly. - I'm Tricia. - And we're so glad you've joined us today. We're going to talk about Jesus and the January blues in that order. (laughing) - Yeah, that's good. - Because I think that even though you love Jesus, the January blues can still sneak in. So let's talk about what we mean by January blues. Why do you think it's easy to kind of slip into a funk in January, in the holiday doldrums? Why do you think that is? - Well, I think there's so much excitement in the month of December, you know, you've got Christmas parties, and you've got presents to unwrap, and you've got family and friends, and you've got food, and you've got all this, you know, high energy, high excitement stuff. And then January is like dull, - All of our bills come there. - And bills come due, you're digesting all the cheese. (laughing) - There's so much cheese to dig in a different direction than I was, but in truth, you're not wrong. - You're not wrong, but gross. - But there is, I agree with you. It is the letdown of the fun, and you don't have the things to look forward to. I also think the weather plays a part in it, it just feels dark and long, and you just don't have that much to look forward to, right, unless you're beyond. - And around here with the weather, we get like cold, but no snow in January, usually. It's not the fun. - Again, not something to look forward to. - Yeah, that's the look forward to. - Yeah, so maybe that's part of it, I think. - Anti-climactic, yeah. - Just kind of sad wall. - I think the whole temperature of household change when you take the Christmas tree down, everybody's kind of like, there's less lights, there's less joy, there's just, it's a visual representation of what we go through emotionally, like oh, yeah, there's the void there. You don't even have your, your couch isn't back where it used to be. - That's right, it's like there's a hole there. - And there's probably still some pine needles all over your floor. - Lutely here are. - Yeah, absolutely. - And water stains. - Yeah. - So how do you keep yourself out of that January slump? - What are some things that have worked for you, Gals, that you say, you know what, this is something I turn to in January and kind of put on my calendar so that I can not be in the doldrums. - Well, I think one thing we can do is leave our Christmas tree up a lot longer. - Okay. - I hate taking down the Christmas tree. - I do too. - I really love, like Trisha said, I really love the beauty of it. I want it to just stay up as long as possible, especially with the one with the colored lights that brings in all the warmth and the color into the house. I will leave that up as long as I can. So that's my number one vote. - Okay, so something has happened to me this year because I in years past have been no Christmas tree till the day after Thanksgiving. And this year I put it up early. One of the reasons was I had people at my house coming for Thanksgiving. I wanted to be up for that for Thanksgiving. But I just, I never do it. I always like, no, we're gonna wait till after Thanksgiving. This year I put it up early. And I'm usually, the day after Christmas, I'm jerking it down and putting it away because I'm ready to move on, right? So, I'm not opposed to the idea. I'm just saying that this year, if it stays up longer, it's more likely this year because everything's changed for me. I don't know what it is. - That's okay. - Yeah, that is okay. That is your, your prerogative. - Yeah. - To put it up, leave it up, keep it up, whatever you need to do, right? - Yeah. - And I know people that, there are people that I know that they say, this is the, it makes me so happy to just sit and look at the Christmas tree. And I'm one of those people too. I like the quiet and the, like, after everything's kind of died down, put on some like nice Christmas music, maybe instrumental and just sit there and have an unrushed cup of coffee and just look at the Christmas tree. So, I'm not opposed to it. - Rush and tea, even rush, even rush and tea. - Yeah, it's finally kind of a rush and tea, yeah. - I can smell that, even thinking about it. - Yeah. - I think hoping for something, I think having something to look forward to, I'm bad for every time I finish a vacation, I have to think about the next one. - Yeah. - So I don't go down like in a hole. I think about what is there something to look forward to? And that might be, like for us, we're gonna go on a trip to go visit my aunt. She turns 80. - Wow. - So we're gonna go visit her. And that's gonna be later this month. So I'm excited about that. Having something to look forward to. - Yeah, I don't feel like that's a distracting thing. I think it's just something, an emotional thing to look forward to. So I think that's a good idea. I've also done things like, signed up for a race or some kind of an athletic thing. So that gets me geared up towards training, working out, getting healthy. Because it's hard to get to the gym when it's cold. And it's dark. So if you sign up for something and that may be a 5K in spring or it may be just something with a friend that you work out. But if you kind of commit to something that helps forward momentum takeover. - Yeah, yeah. Does the new year help you all with that at all? I mean, do you look forward with hope and anticipation? Or are you on this like, oh no, another year? I mean, 'cause I think some people are like that. I talk to, I have this one gal in my life group. And she's like, oh, don't talk about the new year. I'm like, really, why? 'Cause I mean, for me, I've always looked at it as, it's hopeful and it's fresh new year. And I get a new blank journal. - Yes. - Yeah, and all the things, right? And she just doesn't look forward to it. She said, I feel like, I feel like January is my month of failures. - Ooh, I think that way of thinking can become automatic and it can be retrained. - Okay, talk to me about that. - Well, because yes, I look forward to the new year. I have hope for the new year. I like to get my new planner like you talked about. It has that place where you can draw. You come up with your verse for the year. So that to me is really exciting. But I've had to cultivate that way of thinking that doesn't come naturally to kind of be excited and be hopeful. You know, we have to do what God says and renew our minds with verses and promises and thoughts of His goodness and hope for the new year and hope for good things. - Yeah. - If we don't do that, we can fall into that automatic negative thinking. And so if that's something that you do, kind of an automatic negative thing, I've done it too, but your brain can be retrained. - Yeah. So I think one of the things, as you were just talking about that is too, is I typically save some of them. I have vacation time for the holidays so that I can do it. And I think probably one of the things that, now that I see her way of thinking is, you get some time off during the holidays and then you're just right back in it. It's like the new year starts and bangs. - No, it's the grindstone. - The gun fires and it's like, I just gotta get through this next event. 'Cause I mean, I feel like this year in particular, this past year, I was just living for the next thing. Like, I couldn't look too far ahead. I was just trying to make it to the next thing on the calendar, you know, whatever that was. But I can see how, especially get some time off during the holidays, you can dread the start of the schedule when everything gets back to normal. - Back to normal. - Well, I think one of the interesting things she said was that it's a year, like, it's all of her failures, is what she's focusing on in January. And I think it's important for us to do some heart work at the end of the year, some reflection on what's gone on. But that reflection has to be intentional. And it's got to include some gratitude. - Right. - You know, looking backward on your life on the last year and saying, "Hey, these are the things I'm thankful for can help you go into the new year in a good frame of reference as opposed to focusing on the failures." - Right, 'cause there's gonna be failures. There's always failures. So it's a lot of, and there's a lot of things to be grateful for too. So a lot of successes. So it's all on how what we choose to put our mind on will determine a lot of where our mind stays. - Right. I think one of the questions that has been so helpful for me because y'all know I love hard questions. And one of the questions that has been so helpful for me is to take, you know, maybe half a day at the end of the year 'cause I do take some extended time off. Take maybe half a day and just reflect upon the last year. And go, "How am I different from this time last year?" - That's good. - So healthy. - Yeah, and this time next year, who do I want to be? - Oh, I like that. - Oh yeah, that's serving out an intention. - Right, it helps me frame those because I would go back to this book a lot because it's really helped me atomic habits. He talks about how goals are no good if you don't have the habits in place to get you to that goal. So one of the things that I try to do is, I just said an intention at the first of the year, I'm gonna exercise 45 times a quarter. So, you know, if you look at me and go, how many times have you exercised this quarter? I don't have any idea right now. But what I do is in my daily planner, I write down exercise. And by just the simple act of writing it down, holds me accountable to do it. And so the first thing I do when I get home from work, before I do anything else, - Well, I take the dogs out first. I'm sure I get the dogs take care of it. - Come back in the house.
and I put my tennis shoes on because that for me is the sticky wicked. If I don't put my tennis shoes on, if I sit down on the couch or I don't change out of my work clothes and to work out clothes, then I'm not going to exercise. But if I do that, one thing I've noticed about myself, that is that helps me to get a success. Then I think so many of our goals, especially in my generation, have been health and fitness related or weight related. And the year I decided, I'm not going to, that's not going to be my goal anymore because I've been a yo-yo dieters, but since before the yo-yo. I mean, really, that's a long time the yo-yo is true. It is true. And when I stopped focusing on a number and started focusing on habits, like, okay, so you, you overdid it during the holidays and you didn't work out, or you did it a lot of cheese. But if you get, if you know that about yourself, give yourself grace in that. Say, I'm just going to enjoy the holidays. And then on X day or I'm going to finish a big meal and I'm going to go for a walk. I mean, just the little things, the little decisions, I've stopped. I don't, I won't say I don't make news resolutions, but I don't call them that anymore because that, like my friend, she just automatically assumes that she's going to fail with whatever it is. But, but he says in the book of time, I have it's that the reason that we don't mean our goals is because we, we just set a goal out there somewhere and we have no plan to get to that goal. But if you build your daily habits around who the who you want to become, he says, every day you cast a vote towards the person that you want to become. So if you want to become a healthier person, every time you put your tennis shoes on, you're saying, look, I'm casting a vote for a healthier me, right? And, and that just helped reframe that whole conversation for me because I quit focusing on a number or how much weight I needed to lose or all those things. I found something that I like to do. And I started doing it more regularly. And that really has helped me. But I think one of the reasons that it's so hard for us is because we don't take that time reflect back. You know, one of the things I like about reflecting back is the sometimes people have a word of the year. Now that we're at the end of this year, I actually had a word for the year. And so my word for the year was change. In fact, God actually gave me a whole phrase. It was change, experience it, lead it, and encourage it in others. Wow, which was really heavy. I mean, that was like, okay, in January, when he gave me that, that's a little scary. Because it's like, okay, something's going to change. Obviously, and I have to experience it first. Then I have to lead the others through it. So it was going to be something I was going to experience change wise. So I'm now that we're here, I'm really excited to look back and do some reflecting and go, okay, what did change this year? And how did God lead me through that? And what is that phrase? Then unpack that phrase, you know, what, what changed? How did I experience change? How did I lead change? How did I encourage change in others? And then get really excited about what God's going to, what words God's going to give me this year? Sure. What you're talking about is like, when we reflect, we see what God did, right? It's faith building. So taking time to reflect is good for habits and rhythms and all of the health goals and everything. But it's also spiritually healthy. Yeah. Because it helps us look back and truly see what God has done because he's been at work. Oh, yeah, he's been working. And when we take time to see that, boy, that's going to help us in the future. So I really like that. And I love what you said, also, Carol, it reminded me to celebrate the winds that we achieve. We gloss over good stuff. So so many times and then then we think, Oh, nothing good happened. No, many good things happened. So take time to celebrate the winds, even if there are little winds, there's steps toward the goal. One thing that I've kind of been thinking towards is being more present in the moment. And I heard it said, when you think too much about the future, you feel anxious. When you think too much about the past, you can feel depressed. But when you are in the moment in the present, that is where you can find great joy. And so I think trying to even in the dark months or the cold times or the times when the Christmas trees already been put away, if you can be in the present and let God meet you right there, I think you're going to find a different level of joy. That's so good. I also have I know myself well. And I know the tendency is during those darker months to isolate. And so I'm pretty intentional about connection during that time, whether it's something I haven't coffee with somebody I hadn't got to catch up with lately, or you know, sitting down and watching elf with my kid, you know, those kinds of things, those those really moments in time that you're talking about, you know, really being intentional about planning those. Because if you don't, if you don't put them on the calendar, if you don't plan them, they're not going to happen. They're not just magically appear and somebody goes, Oh, I have a whole afternoon free. You don't have coffee. That never happens in my life, right? It's always, Hey, what are you doing Tuesday afternoon at two? Could you meet me for a cup of coffee? Yeah. And knowing that about myself helps me not only get out of my head, it helps someone else get out of their head as well. It's, it's mutually beneficial when you can get together with a sister in Christ and share that time together. So I try to be intentional more so at the beginning of the year, probably that I am any other time of the year, just because I know that myself. Yeah, because that my bent is to isolate and hibernate and drink my coffee and not letting anybody in, you know, I want to, it's one of the, I've got two things I'm looking forward to in the new year. And one of them is very much about this. It's taking another pottery class. Oh, yeah. And so scheduling that to start in the new year. So the new semester will start in January. And I haven't taken a class in over a year. So it's going to be such a fun thing for me to look forward to, yeah, get back into taking an actual class of pottery. So it, you know, schedule, like you said, scheduling those things that give you something to look forward to that are not anxiety provoking. So I'm not taking on, you know, the magnitude of what's the year going to be. It's just I'm going to do something fun and get myself out of the house and do something creative with my hands. Yeah, once a week. I have one more thing that I want to add to the conversation because I think this is quite often one that I overlook in my life. I've said no to some things. And here's what I mean by that. I realized this past year that, you know, like I said before, I was just living from one event to the next, like what have I got this week? Oh, I've got this big thing this week. Once I get through that, things are going to slow down. You know, that's another big lie that we tell ourselves. But I realized that some things in my life were for a season and that my time has passed with that. And that other things are increasing. And so I noticed that in my schedule for this past year, there were some things that I neglected. And I felt like God was saying, okay, you've you've served your time there. You can say no to some things. And I that is, it is harder for me to say no to things than it is for me to say, yes, to y'all that way. Yes. So if someone asked me to do something, I automatically want to do it because I think they thought enough of me to ask me to do it. So I'll do it. And they're talking about like service things, service things. Yeah. And and so I something that I've loved for a number of years. And I just have felt like it became a burden to me this past year. And I just couldn't keep up. And I felt like God was saying at the end of the year, it's okay to say no. And that's one of those things that I I don't think you get that if you don't slow down and reflect. Yeah, because I have the time to just say, is this really, I'm having to get somebody to cover for me all the time. And I just don't feel like I'm giving my best to this. And I felt like God was saying it's it's totally okay for you to say no. And there's some excitement in there that I can hear in your voice too. Because there's there's now going to be space for either reflection for some Carol time for some Carol in your daughter time. Right. Or and or there's going to be some time for God to write a new chapter in your book. Right. Like that maybe he's calling you to do something else. Right. Serving a different way. And now because you've kind of stepped out of last year and into the new year, you can you have a new fresh kind of journal. Yeah, a clean journal. You can go, okay, God's calling me to something new. He's calling me to something different. And now I have the headspace to be able to deal with that. But I will say that in my church experience, I've not often felt the freedom to do that. Sure. Oh, yeah. Because I think sometimes we can guilt our ourselves or someone else can guilt us into doing things that we don't necessarily feel called to do just because there's no one else to feel that space. Or you can pigeonhole. You've always been the one to do. Right. You see. And so you're always going to be the one. Yeah. Yeah. You want to be reliable. And you want people to think nice things about you. Not that well, we're proud of you. Well, thank you. Because sometimes the best thing that you can say is no. Yeah. If that's not what God's calling you to do, that prayerful reflection and then having the freedom to do that. And I'll say, it's a whole lot easier to say, yes, after you've said no, yeah, then it is to say no.
after you've said yes, that's true. - So taking the time before we commit to things just helps stave off a whole lot of problems later on. - Yeah, it was hard, it was a hard fought, no. But after I gave it, I felt a sense of relief, really. - Because I felt like I was cheating myself, I was cheating the people that I was working with. And it just, it became more of a chore. - And it shouldn't be a chore. I had enjoyed it doing it previously, but it just had become. - And it's someone else's assignment. - Yeah, I had to build myself up for it. - Good for you, I mean, that's what we've got to do. - Right. - And give permission for each other to do that in those safe spaces. So is there anything else that you guys would say? We've talked about reflecting back's important, we've talked about setting intentions, that's important. Anything else that you would add to the conversation to help you fight off those post-Christmas winter blues? - Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things that I just wanna reiterate that you said is the importance of good godly girlfriends, that spending that time being present, like you said, TK with, present in the moment. And if you couple that with some really godly women that you love spending time with, that just makes all of that so much better. And I will say this, sometimes asking those questions in the safety of good godly relationships is so powerful too because they see things in you that you won't see in yourself. - Sure. - Like they see you handling things or they see something that maybe you didn't necessarily, that you wanna gloss over. I think it's powerful for it to sit with other people who know you well, who can say, "Hey, I saw you in this season of your life and you could have been this way, but you were this way and I saw your faith really go." I think that's powerful too, to sit with some of those people and ask those questions and to say, what do you see in me? What growth have you seen in me in the last year? And really, they can help you set those intentions and hold you accountable for whatever it is that you have coming next. Anything else you'd add to the conversation? - Yeah, I would say, don't be afraid of those dark times. I like to avoid all that, like too much time at home or dark or cold. You know, I'm like, but something very rich can grow when you are home, when it's dark, when it's quiet. God can speak, I think in those times. And so oftentimes I will fill up my schedule to avoid being alone with my thoughts, but I can really hear God's voice in those quiet times, in the dark times, when it gets dark outside and I'm home more. So don't be afraid of that. Set intentions, set goals, set times with girlfriends. And then when you find yourself in that quiet space, maybe that's a time to lean in and hear what God has for you. - Absolutely, that's so good. - That's so good, yeah. - Yeah, whatever works for you, would you share it with us? We'd love to hear from you. You can always email us at
[email protected]. Love hearing from you. You also can text the word talk anytime to 818-911 to get the latest podcast. And we've just started with brand new devotions and you can get those so it kind of works through the topic of whatever we're talking about. And that's available to you as well. On the Facebook pages, you know where to find us and we would love nothing more to connect with you there. And tell a girlfriend about the girl talk podcast. Maybe in the new year you wanna share this and make this a point of discussion for you guys during the week, when we release a new episode. That would tickle us to death too. And we're gonna save you a seat right here around these microphones next time we gather for the next girl talk podcast. (upbeat music)
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