Finding Your Peace During the Chaos of the Holidays

Episode 018

Ben Walters: [00:00:00] In the Christian tradition, today is the first Sunday of Advent, and I am SuperPumped about that, and the theme is peace. It's almost comical that Advent in the Christian tradition begins with the idea of peace. When I look around in my house and I see so much complete chaos and lack of peace. And I have this, is just one of many piles. I don't wanna overwhelm you with the amount of piles we have in our house to decorate and get ready for Christmas, but I'll just give you a quick snapshot. I have these massive wreaths that have to go way up on our barn and way up on our second or third floor.

Ben Walters: So super high, long ladders, and then you've gotta get the power up there. It's a real pain. Speaking of power, I have about a million power strips. I've gotta get to different places in the house so that we can plug in all the trees and the lights and displays and all the cool stuff, which actually look awesome, but take a lot of work.

Ben Walters: Then if you notice there's some [00:01:00] Clorox wipes and a swiffer and a broom, because soon as you start moving the furniture around to redecorate for Christmas, bad things happen, and all of a sudden you realize there's a lot of dust bunnies. So next thing you know, you're doing spring cleaning in the middle of the end of November or December.

Ben Walters: And then in our case, I still haven't taken down our Thanksgiving decorations, so I've still got this Give Thanks Banner, which is another thing that I've gotta deal with. And then all these ornaments, which are really beautiful. Only a few of 'em have a tie, a lot of them have no ties, so they've all gotta be put on one by one individually, which is painstaking.

Ben Walters: I didn't have great fine motor skills, so that's a frustrating endeavor for me. But they look nice if you hang 'em up, and then there's Christmas trees and there's stockings to hang and there's little bells to ring over the, I guess this goes over the door so that they know you're coming into the room.

Ben Walters: All this, oh, and my absolute favorite, the massive, [00:02:00] massive box of Christmas lights that I guarantee you, as soon as I get 'em up and spend an hour and a half out in the cold and my hands are numb, two thirds of 'em won't even work, and I will lose my mind. All of this, and yet I'm supposed to enter this holiday advent season with a spirit of peace.

Ben Walters: It's kind of comical, don't you think? So when we think about that, we have got to prioritize. If we want to have a SuperPumped holiday, we have got to think about what's important and what's not important.

Ben Walters: One thing we do in our household, which really helps keep us grounded is at our dining room table, as you can see on this side, separated from the piles of unpeaceful chaos. We have this peaceful little nativity set up. So we've got a nativity here and it's cool 'cause it's on a lazy Susan, and we've got these carved wood figures and we even have a rhinoceros at the manger. So that is awesome. That makes us [00:03:00] unique.

Ben Walters: We have an Advent calendar, which I'll talk about in a minute.

Ben Walters: And then we have these five candles. Each day, we sit down together, whoever's around in our family and we celebrate Advent. And so the first thing we do is we take the candle, we take a match, and we light the first candle, which goes for a week. That is the candle of peace. And so every time we light that candle, we think about what are our priorities? How do we get that peace?

Ben Walters: We continue to light that all the way to Christmas. Then the second week is hope, and then joy, then love, and then finally the Christ candle at Christmas. Anytime you light a candle, it really tends to center you and just bring a good ambiance to the roof.

Ben Walters: So we do that, and then we have this book, and it's a very simple book. It has a little devotional each day. It has a short section of scripture that you could either read just one verse, or if you wanna read a little more, you can. Then a passage, a thought, a story to go along with the theme of the day, like this day was escape, in [00:04:00] John six. And then finally it has either a question or a prayer. So it really does a good job of centering us as a family on what's important.

Ben Walters: And then the final thing we do, which is more in the fun realm, is each person in the family has an advent calendar. And so we take turns filling these for one another. You might put a candy in here or you might put a little cool ornament in there or maybe a necklace or just some little tree that you're thinking of that person. Sometimes even just a note of encouragement or a note of affirmation goes a long way.

Ben Walters: Today, we'll pretend this is the first, it's actually the 30th, so I'm gonna open it and look at that. I've got a chocolate, so that's really cool. That just makes my day a little bit sweeter.

Ben Walters: As you think about the beginning of this holiday season, and you are inundated with decorating and cleaning and maybe social parties with friends and parties at work, and then trying to buy all the gifts, not only for family members and friends, but also for at least in our [00:05:00] case, bus drivers and mailmen and teachers and delivery drivers, and all those people that you value in your life that help make your life meaningful and, help support you and, and that overwhelms you, and if you're gonna travel to see family, that's a whole 'nother level of stress.

Ben Walters: So that's okay. All that is okay. But I also want you to think about where do you find your peace? How do you center yourself? And where do you balance these things? What is your ultimate priority? Is it all this? Is the world gonna stop if I don't get this massive, oversized wreath hung off a barn? Or might I be better off going to a ball game with my son or making sugar cookies with my daughters? Where is your priority? So think about your priorities. Think about your own inner peace, and however you get that, whether it's around an advent wreath like we do, or maybe it's in meditation, or time of prayer, or yoga, or just a walk every day to clear your head and think about things beyond [00:06:00] your life, beyond your situation.

Ben Walters: Whatever that is, I wish you peace this holiday season. 

Ben Walters: Thanks for joining me today on the SuperPumped Life podcast. If you enjoyed today's show, I have two really quick next steps for you. First, subscribe or follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube so you don't miss future shows. And second, jump on 

Ben Walters: over to superpumped.com where there are all kinds of great tips and tools for you to launch your SuperPumped Life.

Ben Walters: Keep well and I'll see you next time.