How many of you organize and plan holiday celebrations for your families? Do you open your homes and hearts and welcome your family and friends? If so, then your intention is to give them a gift. Not just the food and the wine. You create the time and space so people can spend time with each other, relax, leave day-to-day responsibilities behind, and just chill. Sometimes that’s a gift we want to give to others: a welcoming, nurturing day of rest, good food, and good conversation with family and friends. Is it your intention to be an empathetic and pleasing hostess? Or is it an identity you wear like a second skin, something you don’t even notice? Maybe this is the year to have an intentionally different kind of holiday.
How It Was Then
When I was growing up, we often invited guests to our home for holidays, birthdays, and other celebrations. I was the oldest and a girl, so I proudly wore my little apron and took orders from Mom. I was her little helper. Perhaps I should say I was my mother’s little clone, as we often had matching aprons and sometimes outfits which we sewed ourselves. (I had a very traditional upbringing.)
As we prepared for the party or dinner, I followed my mother around. I was there to help cook the meal, set the table, and make sure nothing was forgotten. I recall the hustle and bustle of the day before: shopping, washing the plates and bowls that had been stored away for special occasions, laundering the table cloths and napkins, preparing whatever could be made ahead of time, and cleaning the house to get it ready for company.
During these family gatherings, the two of us were always on our feet. The last to sit down and the last to eat. The first to get up and clear the table, whether we had finished eating or not. I rarely got to finish my meal with the other guests. Often, I picked the food from my plate in between clearing the dishes and putting them in the sink for washing later in the evening. This was a massive part of my training in how to be a woman. Last to sit, last to eat, last to rest.
How It Is Now
But some things have changed. My women friends and family members have jobs or careers, and we’re all busy. My sisters and I have done the work to get free of our mother’s rules and expectations about what it means to be a woman. We have let go of the belief that our value is attached to the beauty of our homes, or it’s cleanliness. None of us expects our homes to sparkle and shine à la1950’s commercials. When I have company, my goal is to vacuum up as much dog hair as possible (that’s an endless job!), and then I’m good. We don’t have time to plan and cook elaborate meals for a large group. These days, everyone brings a dish, and that means having many guests for dinner is less demanding than it was for my mother.
One playful vestige of my training as a hostess is the Betty Crocker apron I can’t give up—I wear it like I wear my comfy, worn slippers. Other echoes of my childhood reverberate in how much I enjoy having company. I like creating a space where people can relax, eat, converse, and enjoy each other’s company. I still get up in the middle of the meal and bring more food to the table, or clear out the dirty plates and bring out clean ones for salad or dessert. Things we learn at an early age stay in our bones.
But here is the dilemma: while we may have changed, the people around us may not have changed. When we think of gender equality, we think about the workplace, but fairness for women in the home is more a dream than a reality. No one wants to talk about how women are responsible for all the work required to maintain the home and meet the physical and emotional needs of household members. While women wish they didn’t have to do so much housework, men don’t feel the need to do it. And even though men have increased the amount of time they spend on housework and caring for family members in recent decades, women are still doing more—about twice as much as men (read the report here).
How It Could Be Different
Consider how our self-esteem and self-worth get intertwined with how other people rate our attractiveness. And how the need for being attractive spills over into how our surroundings appear—how well dressed and well behaved our children are, how lovely our home is, how clean everything is…These ideas get entangled in the background of our thinking, in our subconscious mind.
We have to get this thing out of our bones…this idea that our identities are reflected in the cleanliness and orderliness of our homes.
I have done a lot of work to let go of the belief that my home reflects something important about me, but I still hear myself apologizing because my yard is basically just dirt and some lawn for the dog. I think, well, if I really had my act together, I’d have some beautiful landscaping here. Why do I give that equal weight—in my mind—with having written and published (soon to be released on Amazon) a book? Those deeply embedded messages in my bones, the ones that came from being told, come out of your room and wash the dishes, your writing can wait, or your drawing can wait, or all that daydreaming is a waste of time. Those childhood messages got in my bones: I was less important than the tasks I was given. And I’m not the only woman who got those messages.
So let’s put the focus here and now on ourselves, and how we keep playing by old rules about what we’re worth and who we have to please to know we are okay. We are Okay. You are Okay. There’s nothing to prove by having nicer dishes, a cleaner house, a more organized dinner party…that’s all in our heads. So we now have room to imagine something different.
How Do We Change Our Thinking?
First, acknowledge and name the thoughts and beliefs that limit your freedom to act. Your subconscious beliefs are why you repeat behaviors you want to be done with: whether it’s cooking multi-course meals or saying yes to every holiday invitation. Then, accept that these thoughts you have identified are keeping you stuck.
Consider this viewpoint: Your current mindset is not your fault; you are not to blame. But you can be accountable for the thoughts you hold. And once you choose to be accountable, you are ready for change.
The next step is to unearth the limiting belief. I’ve been working with my subconscious 
beliefs for many years, and I can quickly identify where I’m stuck in my thinking. Then, I begin rehearsing new thoughts, which open the way for me to behave differently.
If you know yourself well enough to uncover that self-sabotaging belief and create your healing affirmation, congratulations! I want to share my most successful technique for reprogramming your thoughts: Mirror work.
Many people write or say affirmations to reinforce new thoughts. In my personal experience, repeating your affirmation while looking into a mirror makes you confront your ambivalence about change and also helps you get past your resistance. These are the steps:
- Write down your affirmation on an index card or something equally sturdy.
- Tape the card to the mirror you use when you wake up.
- Every morning, look deeply into your own eyes.
- Repeat your affirmation ten times while you continue to look at yourself.
- Repeat daily. It can take anywhere between a month to several months for a new belief to take the place of established, habitual thoughts.
Most people find it difficult to move ahead in this work without help and support. If you’d like my help with releasing your limiting beliefs and creating new affirmations, email me at marsha@smartcookiecoach.com to find out about my 90-minute Focused Strategy Sessions. We can work together to release your deeply-rooted, limiting beliefs and create powerful, enlivening affirmations that align with your vision of who you are becoming.
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