Warming the Soul (and Letting Your Inner Child Out to PARTY!) (Part 1 of 2)

Warming the Soul: Inner Child, Seasonal Reflection, and Rest

In this episode, Jen and Tava discuss the importance of making space for rest and allowing time for reflection during the busy holiday season. They highlight the significance of Yule and its connections to Christmas traditions. The hosts share personal anecdotes and ideas on how to nourish the inner child and find joy through simple pleasures like nostalgic foods, crafts, and self-care activities. The conversation also includes messages from Archangel Michael about the importance of warming the soul and the balance between productivity and rest. They emphasize the value of setting manageable to-do lists, delegating tasks, and rethinking holiday celebrations to reduce stress.

00:00 Morning Greetings and Podcast Setup

00:23 Winter Solstice and Yule Traditions

02:14 Creating a Cozy, Warm Space

06:38 Reflections on Daily Discomforts

09:06 Balancing Rest and Productivity

17:09 Managing Time and Tasks Effectively

27:49 The Power of Delegation and Trust

31:00 The Wave of Cancellations

31:30 Historical Free Time vs. Modern Busyness

33:26 The Gift of Canceling Plans

34:07 Redefining Holiday Traditions

36:13 Celebrating Holidays Alone

40:01 Warming Your Soul

46:14 Treating Your Inner Child

49:18 Nostalgic Foods and Fun

57:18 Conclusion and Farewell

Thank you joining us today, remember to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE to keep up to date with your tribe.

Connect with your Hosts!

Tava Baird: tavabaird.com or https://darkflowerbooks.etsy.com.

Jennifer Taylor: Willow Ridge Reiki and Healing Arts https://www.willowridgereiki.com/

Transcript

[00:00:00] 

Tava Baird: 

Tava Baird: Good morning, JenTay. 

Jennifer Taylor: Good morning, Tava. I am excited to see where today goes because, we've been having, general topics and ideas of what we were going to talk about lately. And I think we have some loose thing, but it, it feels like there's a lot more space for, things to come in and support us today.

Jennifer Taylor: So I'm 

Tava Baird: excited. Yes. Yes. it is December 16th when we're recording this, although it won't come out for other people for a couple of weeks because we have another one or two already in the can. So by the time people hear this, will be after Yule and Christmas as well. Yule is celebrated at the winter solstice.

Tava Baird: It's one of the eight Northern European, witchy pagan holidays. it celebrates the rebirth of the sun because it's the shortest day of the year. And so you are basically going, come on back, son, [00:01:00] give us crops, let us live. 

Tava Baird: we have the dark time in between October 31st or around that time. to the solstice, where the new God is in the goddess's belly. He comes roaring out into this life at Yule, and it is the return of the sun. historians believe that is why Christmas is where it is too, because according to all of the things you read in the Bible, that Jesus was probably born in the springtime.

Tava Baird: based on what's going on with the sheep and the lambs and that sort of thing, but that you had people who were used to having a party in the dead of winter to celebrate the return of the sun and to keep people's spirits going and also as they were busy converting people at that time. the Christians chose to put the birth of the sun, S O N, right around the solstice as well.

Tava Baird: So that the people who'd been celebrating that way for, hundreds and hundreds of years could [00:02:00] continue to have their midwinter festivities. It's harder to convert people if you take away their parties. so that might, it may very well explain why we are celebrating Christmas at wintertime.

Tava Baird: But, enough of me starting off on history. would you mind setting us a lovely, wintry space? 

Jennifer Taylor: Absolutely. Yeah. And I'll get into this in a little bit too, but when I connected with Archangel Michael this morning and was asking, what to bring in, and what to talk about, he said Warming

Jennifer Taylor: and so, and I got more of a definition and understanding of that. So, in my, invocation here, I'll invite that energy, the energy of warming and, um, him to come and help to bring that through in my voice and get us all in a nice,warm, cozy place [00:03:00] for our discussion today. 

Tava Baird: Wonderful.

Jennifer Taylor: [00:04:00] [00:05:00] 

Jennifer Taylor: Very lovely. As always. I have a seraphim. Who is inspired by your singing who wants to say?

Tava Baird: What will you bring with you into the next year of activity? Hold the warmth of your wings around you at this time and gather your energy close. Now is the time for turning inside [00:06:00] yourself to find wholeness. Mend the broken places. Nourish the belly and mind. Tend to the health of the blood and water that flow through you.

Tava Baird: Pull the stones from underneath the paths you tread. Rejoice in the sacred dark and prepare to bloom anew. 

Jennifer Taylor: Lovely. Wow. That was beautiful.

Jennifer Taylor: so what was that? Pull the stones from under the paths you tread? 

Tava Baird: Yes, pull the stones from underneath the paths you tread. That makes me think of all of the times there are a million little tiny discomforts a lot of times in daily life.

Tava Baird: But I'm so busy. I think I'll deal with that later. You know, like, uh oh, 

Jennifer Taylor: okay. Well, well, I'm glad I I said that. Yeah. 'cause I was imagining it as like a stone path. And like taking up [00:07:00] the stones from the path so I was like, okay, does that mean take up those paths and then decide what direction you will go in to lay them again.

Tava Baird: Oh, I like that. That's 

Jennifer Taylor: a, an interesting, Yeah, I hadn't taken it that way, but I think both would be, certainly good things to do probably. 

Tava Baird: Absolutely. You know, when you get that little rock in your shoe and you think, I'll just deal with it. And then the next thing you know, your foot hurts.

Tava Baird: there's all those little things that, especially in the fall, fall is so busy There's so many activities. And if you've got children or you play sports, there's all the fall sports. And people gathering together I know we think of this time as winter, but technically winter doesn't start until after solstice 

Tava Baird: So we're still in fall right now. And you look and you go, Oh, I really need to vacuum under the couch. And Oh, I really need to clean out my closet. And all these little things that every time you [00:08:00] encounter them, they kind of break your flow. don't make it impossible to move forward, but they obstruct it.

Tava Baird: It's like when you leave laundry in the laundry basket for too long and the next thing you know, I'm sure, I hope I'm not the only person who does this. The next thing you know, you're fishing around for your t shirts and socks in the bottom of the clean laundry basket rather than actually getting them out of the closet or the dresser because you didn't have time to put them away and now you need clean clothes.

Tava Baird: All of those little troublesome things. Now is the time to take the time and say, you know what? It's cold out. It's icy. It's dark at 4 p. m. I'm going to stay in with a mug of something warm and delicious and put on my pajama pants. Full disclosure, I may or may not be wearing my pajama pants while recording this podcast.

Tava Baird: and I'm gonna, I'm just gonna knock out two or three of [00:09:00] those things and then get up tomorrow and find how much easier life flows. 

Jennifer Taylor: And I'm saying this as much to remind myself as to remind anyone else is that sometimes I tend to take that idea too far, where it's like, okay, I have a day to just turn inwards and care for myself, but then I look around and there's the list of all those things that you were talking about, and instead end up exhausting myself.

Jennifer Taylor: because that list can sometimes be really, really long, but making sure that we measure that with rest and doing things that nourish us, because, it definitely helps to take those, stones from our shoes.

Jennifer Taylor: But if we wear ourselves out, trying to do the catch up, then we haven't taken advantage of that opportunity to turn inwards. 

Tava Baird: Absolutely agree with that. And I'm laughing [00:10:00] inwardly because a couple of weeks ago, I happened to know that you got a message to rest when you weren't feeling well.

Tava Baird: And it was really funny, like a day and a half later, you're on a Marco like, Rested, okay, I'm ready to go. And Samuel was literally like, no, till spring. 

Jennifer Taylor: Yeah, he was like, I told you to rest, singer, not for a day, not for a week, until spring. And Dava and I were like, wait, wait, till spring? Like, did you? I'm glad you said that because I was like, I thought I had done so well.

Jennifer Taylor: Like initially when I got the message, I was like, I gave myself a few hours. And then he was like, no. You know, rest. And so I gave myself a few days and then he was like, no rest. And so I gave myself like, then it was like over Thanksgiving break. And I just, I kind of relaxed and I didn't do much. And I thought, okay, it is now been a couple weeks of doing more resting than usual.

Jennifer Taylor: [00:11:00] Surely I should be good. And then Got sick and several days into really sick was yeah, I was asking top of what is going on? Please ask Sam oil what is going on? And yeah, I was like I told you to rest like but yeah I so time when it comes to getting messages from seraphim and Archangels is a little different because Yeah, uh, Michael had also said, it was time to rest and I was thinking, okay, I'll lay down here and rest and then I'll get up.

Jennifer Taylor: But I did not think it was for a season.

Tava Baird: I don't know if this happens to you, but it seems like the day that I finally Get my to do list almost close to done I'm actually wearing a brand new outfit Like my hair looks decent and I wake up one morning and I go today is the day I nearly have my, excuse my French, shit together.

Tava Baird: That is the day I get sick, or the next day. [00:12:00] It's like there's something inside you that goes, okay, you kind of achieved your goal, now let's fall apart. And you're like, no, but I'm wearing a new sweater. Like I actually, I was actually put together. I have eyeliner on, you know. And that's when you fall apart and I noticed you had mentioned a couple months ago, how a lot of times when you have students come that it's right when they start, like they do a big sort of energetic release and then boom, they get ill.

Jennifer Taylor: Yeah. You know, and it can certainly be that way. cause we talked about that when we have these times of quickening where it's like all of a sudden. Our energy fields are expanding our channel is expanding and we're able to bring through more healing and more light. And more and more things are shifting in our lives there.

Jennifer Taylor: There's a lot of [00:13:00] restructuring involved and it's a wonderful, really good thing, but it can be a little bit hard on our bodies. It's like our energy fields shift pretty quickly, but our physical bodies take a little longer to catch up. And so sometimes you may have, detox symptoms or, just not be feeling well and I think a lot of times the sickness sometimes comes when we're not.

Jennifer Taylor: allowing ourselves the rest that we need because we're not recognizing that big major shifts are happening and slowing down enough to allow those adjustments to happen with more grace, which I'm have to raise my hand big time for that because that was totally what happened this last week and was totally just, knocked down and was like, okay, you are going to slow down.

Jennifer Taylor: so that tends to happen, but there's also this natural expansion and contraction that happens that I know we were talking about [00:14:00] how, we go through these times where all of a sudden maybe we'll have a lot more kind of psychic things start to open up for us. We'll start to be seeing and hearing and experiencing more or feeling more of the energy of what's happening.

Jennifer Taylor: Um, letting go of big things that we've been doing and are like major shifts in our perspective. And if those are usually times when you have tons of energy, you feel amazing. You're so excited. You just can't seem to get enough. And it's like, Oh my goodness, all these incredible things are happening. I'm experiencing all of this stuff.

Jennifer Taylor: And then things start to slow. And a lot of times people kind of freak out. Like, did I do something wrong? why does it feel like things are grinding to a halt? And that's that natural contraction that happens after that big expansion. it's so that we can adjust and acclimate and integrate all of these new lessons and these new, [00:15:00] expanded gifts in there, the expanded ability to bring through these energies.

Jennifer Taylor: And we're meant to allow that natural contraction. And it doesn't mean that we've done something wrong or. our spirit guides have stopped loving us and caring as caring for us and feeding us all of this wonderful stuff. It's that they recognize to now it's time to slow down and integrate. It's like digesting.

Jennifer Taylor: it's like you can have this amazing meal and you're eating all the stuff and you're like, this tastes so good. This is so good. But if you overeat, you're gonna be miserable. And then after a big meal, you need time to digest. And when you're digesting, Your physical body, you know, you can't be running a marathon.

Jennifer Taylor: You can't be training. You can't be jumping around. You need to be allowing that digestion to happen. And that integration happens. When we are more at rest and the times that we resist that the most, we're more likely [00:16:00] to develop some sort of illness or pick up a virus or something because we're too raw as Samuel told me.

Jennifer Taylor: Earlier in the week through, uh, through Tava, when I was like, what is going on? why am I sick? He was saying, you're raw. You're coming out of, it was something about shedding. I was shedding another like layer of cocoon and my wings were weak and wet. And that I needed to rest so that they could then expand and in the springtime, you know, there would be, many songs coming and much to do, but that I'm in that place.

Jennifer Taylor: So I think I love that image that he gave us of After, all these transitions and these things as having been in a cocoon and that butterfly who's just, coming out of it, their wings are wet, they need to just hang out in a safe place in the tree and allow things to slowly dry and stretch and gain their strength before they decide to, uh, fly to [00:17:00] Mexico or, have a major migration that there's a period of time of adjusting to these new wings and gaining strength in this new position.

Tava Baird: Absolutely.One of, I have a little brain hack that I do that actually a friend of mine taught me. she is very organized and very logical and I love her to pieces. And I asked her at one point, I said, man, I just have all these lists and lists of things to do. And I know you are insanely busy.

Tava Baird: what do you do? Like how do you regulate yourself so that you're not just always running? And she said, well, there are lots and lots of things that everybody wants from me at work. And, I tell myself I can only do three things a day and I go three, three in an eight hour period, three. And I said, that seems like a very low number.

Tava Baird: And she looked at me and she said, have you ever finished one of your to do lists? And I have it [00:18:00] because I put 20 things on them a day, right? I've never gotten to the end of a to do list in years. It's just one constant to do list. So she says, you have to understand things are going to come up, fires you have to put out.

Tava Baird: There's going to be sick days. There's going to be days when people that you work with are not in. She said, you put down three things, you cross off those three things. You feel extremely accomplished. And if you want to start on tomorrow's three things at lunchtime. Good for you, but say three things.

Tava Baird: And if people come to you and go, but I have a, but I have, unless it's your boss or they're on fire, you say, I'm sorry, I'll put you at the end of the line. And she says, I don't get less things done than you. I just feel a lot better while I'm doing them. And I thought a lot about that, about what does it do to my psyche that I have never finished a to do list since college?

Tava Baird: every day there's just [00:19:00] five more things. Thanks. And my lists are so long that there, isn't energy and there isn't time in the day to pull them off. So I've started trying to, brain hack myself a little bit. I must admit I can't get it down to three things.

Tava Baird: I just can't. Baby steps, but what I have started doing is putting things I enjoy and rest periods on the to do list. So for example, say my to do list has 12 items on it today, okay, probably not going to finish it. But I tell myself every time I accomplish two or three things on the list, then I get or 45 minutes or what have you to play solitaire on the computer or sit and read a book or go take a walk outside.

Tava Baird: like just something in there that is restful and rejuvenating and they're built into my day. It's like when people tell you [00:20:00] to schedule the gym and time for yourself just the same way you would schedule your work. So I try to schedule these, these little breaks. And what I notice is if I only have to do two or three things to then have something on my list that I enjoy, like last night, it was, put away the laundry, get the dishwasher unloaded.

Tava Baird: And while I was doing that, I managed to pull off cleaning all of the mail that needed to go away off the bar. And I thought, wow, I'm ahead. I'm so good. I'm so proud of myself. I get to sit down and, goof off for a little while. Now sometimes I have trouble stopping the goofing off, but just putting those things on the list cause you're allowed to enjoy your time and, you know, Put your meditation on and then you get to cross it off and it feels really good.

Jennifer Taylor: I love that the concept of the three things [00:21:00] and how much, if I think of my day as I have three things, the enormity of the day just in anticipation goes down considerably too. So my level of anxiety, goes down. The level of stress goes down, that it improves. our ability to be, to breathe and, be in a coherent place, which also makes us more effective.

Jennifer Taylor: I love that. And then, yes, oh my gosh, the idea of the days when I actually managed to get everything on my list, which are very, very few and far between the feeling of accomplishment is so big. I want to go around and just show people my list and be like, look what I did. But I love the idea that every day.

Jennifer Taylor: You could cross off your three things and go, I did it. And then everything else is gravy, it's all, icing on the cake. So then you feel like you've really accomplished something and wow, look what I did. I went above and [00:22:00] beyond when before that exact same list would have been,I've totally failed at my list today because I got five things done out of the 10 versus I got five things done out of three.

Tava Baird: it's just, it becomes your mindset. I don't know if you've, you have this similar experience, but when I'm driving, if I can see the clock, like on my dashboard, I become laser focused on time, am I going to make it on time? Am I going to be two minutes late? Am I going to be three minutes late?

Tava Baird: And I become so tense and worried. About being late and inconveniencing other people that I probably then I'm not in a good mindset to perhaps make great choices and arrive there in a good mood. So what I've started doing is I get in the car, I go, I literally. I know I want to believe that I can control time, space and distance, but I have no [00:23:00] control over whether there's going to be an accident ahead or I have no control over that.

Tava Baird: So I just started covering up the clock and instead I turn on some music and I don't sing like you do Jente, but I still love to sing, right? And in my car with the windows rolled up, there's nobody there to have to deal with it. Right. Right. Right. So I will just sing my heart out all the way to my destination.

Tava Baird: It has never happened that I got there late. I have any time that I cover up the clock and I sing my way there, I arrive there, I feel refreshed. I, and somehow or another time slows down and I just found the best way. There's getting into that flow and I'm sure it's just my mindset. when I'm super tense, I probably don't drive as well.

Tava Baird: That is. as I do when I'm relaxed and happy and singing along. I have to tell you a story about me. When I was in high school, [00:24:00] I had a very busy schedule. I was working two jobs and going to high school and trying to get into college and all those other things. And I had the cheapest car known to man.

Tava Baird: Like, I think it was like a four wheeler. Ford Escort, but it had been my grandmother's and my grandmother was raised during the depression and she put absolutely nothing extra on it. No air conditioning. The thing did not have a radio. Okay. Like it was the cheapest, most stripped down version of a car that you could have.

Tava Baird: But I hada long drive every weekend. I worked one job that was down at the beach and then another job that was in the suburbs. And I had a drive between them. It always made me tense because I was always afraid I was going to be late for my second job. And so I would sing, but I didn't have any music.

Tava Baird: So I would just sing whatever came to mind. So this one day, a neighbor of ours was apparently [00:25:00] next to me in traffic and was trying to get my attention to wave. And I didn't see her. When she ran into my mother later in the week, she said, Oh my goodness, that Tava, I saw her. And she was trying to get her attention in traffic, but she was just singing her heart out to the radio and didn't even notice me.

Tava Baird: And my mother was like, I didn't want to tell her that the car didn't have a radio, but like literally you were just singing along to the voices in your head. So, you know, I think that's wonderful. Even if you don't have a radio, belt out something. Now you can put your phone, you know, put stuff on your phone, which is a lot better.

Tava Baird: But I am of the age where we did not have cell phones when I was in high school. So 

Jennifer Taylor: yes, I am with you. And, my vehicle was similar to yours, but not quite as stripped down, but pretty similar. in high school, I think there, there were a couple of things that I was trying to remember to comment on when you were talking.

Jennifer Taylor: And one of the, was that. I do [00:26:00] think it's really interesting because you were started by saying, you know, I don't have any control of time and space and all of that. And then you told your story and I was thinking, I think we have more control of that than we realize, because. It's amazing how our expectation and what we're putting out there and our intention can shape these things and given that time is an illusion, you know, our linear time is an illusion anyway, I think it's really possible that our letting go of the time commitment, our letting go of,Between here and there, there are however many stoplights, there are however many miles between these distances, and I may not be able to shorten that distance, but letting go of the constant looking at the time and the stressing about the time, you're really constantly putting out there, I don't have enough time, I [00:27:00] might be late, and kind of setting up a set of circumstances for yourself.

Jennifer Taylor: Where when you let go of it and just trust, you know what, I'm going to get there when I get there and I'm going to be in my best place, and I'm not entirely sure of the physics of how it all works, but I feel confident that There is an influence that that has on how we get there and what time because and I've experienced the same thing and I've mostly gotten to where I just let go of it.

Jennifer Taylor: I just let go of the time and trust that I'm going to get there at exactly the time That is right. And sometimes it that means it's right on time. Sometimes it may still be, it may be 10 minutes late, but the person was running late as well. And the fact that I hadn't been waiting for 10 minutes didn't strike, helped it to not stress them out.

Jennifer Taylor: when you were talking about, lists and ways of taking some of that off, I've from a number of different people I've heard and [00:28:00] I've used this a number of times where you take your to do list. and divide it between the things you're going to relegate to like the angels or your helping spirits or your ancestors or whatever it is that you work with that you feel like you could turn things over to, turn it over to the universe, to God.

Jennifer Taylor: and it's amazing how many things on that list will just get checked off with absolute ease. It's absolutely incredible. 

Jennifer Taylor: I think I have so much stress about even reading my list because I'm just not sure how I'm going to manage it or how to do it. And it feels so big. Put those things on the list and ask the angels to help you to like delegate to that and it is Amazing. I have had that with things where I'm just you know Not as specific is [00:29:00] actually writing down the list with columns But I know a lot of people do but where I've just said please I need you to take this and fix it 

Jennifer Taylor: I don't know what to do. And before I could have gotten to it on my list, like I was planning on, all right, I need to call this person. I need to do whatever it was. I was contacted by the person and the whole situation had changed. And it was no longer a thing that even needed to be sorted out. It was basically like, here you go on a silver platter.

Jennifer Taylor: It's done. You didn't have to exert any effort, and it worked out in a way that was beyond my expectations, and that kind of thing happens a lot. So I highly encourage you to take things on your list, and sometimes they can be just little things, but It's amazing how many things will just kind of work out.

Jennifer Taylor: And it, it seems initially impossible when you start thinking about it, you know, you write this down and you're like, how in the world are the angels going to take care of [00:30:00] doing whatever that is. But I am telling you, give it a try, just play with it. And it is, it's absolutely downright miraculous. 

Tava Baird: I have to say, I totally hear you on this.

Tava Baird: So a couple of weeks back, I am the queen of overscheduling myself. it's a good thing. I can't split myself into multiple parts and send me in different directions because I can tell you I would make that choice every day. Um, but I got to a point where I had overscheduled myself so much that I was actually burned out.

Tava Baird: I couldn't seem to get the energy to do anything. There were things I really wanted to do and I just couldn't get up. And I remember I said, man, Samuel, I really made a mistake here. I, I really wish I just. Had, you know, it's that feeling you get if I want to sit quietly and stare at the wall for a while.

Tava Baird: And I said, I just can't believe I did this to myself. I could really use a hand [00:31:00] here. And suddenly everything around me started canceling. People were contacting me and saying, I'm so sorry, I've got to cancel. Oh, I'm so sorry. The event has been postponed. I'm so sorry. And I was just sitting there. I mean, I must have gotten four or five emails and texts within an hour of people pushing things off and me going, Wow.

Tava Baird: Okay. And I was so grateful for each and every one of them. Now, of course I have to learn and not do that to myself in the first place. What Jenna's saying is absolutely true. I also want to talk about, um, really neat study I read. When we think about people back in, The Middle Ages or the 1700s in history where they had to make everything themselves.

Tava Baird: They had to warm up and haul their own bath water and they had to cook all their food from scratch and they had to make all of their clothes and tend to their animals and build their own houses, all of these things. I think a lot of us in modern [00:32:00] life assume that We have so much more free time than people who were living that lifestyle do.

Tava Baird: They have done studies and they show that we actually, in 2024, have less free time than any other time in history, in any culture. That, people in the Middle Ages or, even before that, Even though they were having to do all those things from scratch, they enjoyed more free time than we do.

Tava Baird: Because our technology, although it's supposed to be slowing things down for us, instead makes us Get into these mindsets of we want to be hyper efficient. We want everything to be instant. And so if you think about it, we are biologically not designed to be this busy And especially when you have things like [00:33:00] the internet, where communication is instance, and you can reach so much farther out than you could before.

Tava Baird: We are trying to fill all of those spaces and with more stuff. And we have less free time now than we ever did before. So I always try to remind myself of that and say, We're not designed to be this busy and stressed. Maybe I can give somebody else the gift of cancelling this week, right? especially around the holidays, if I call up and say, Oh my God, I'm so sorry.

Tava Baird: Is there any way we could do this after the holidays? I have never had a person answer in a disappointed way. They're all like, Yes, please. Yes, please. And it's not just that all of my friends are introverts, they, unless it was something major, like, their wedding or whatever, if it's just getting together to go out to dinner with them, you know what, there's nothing magical that says you have to stop celebrating with [00:34:00] people on boxing day.

Tava Baird: You know, you can just say, let's get together between Christmas and New Year's. Let's get together. After New Year's, I know, um, getting together withmy husband's family who we travel to see around the holidays, we've permanently moved our gathering into late January because trying to get out and get gifts for all those people is stressful.

Tava Baird: It is so much better to go out and get everybody their holiday gifts during the sales after the holidays and there's no crowd. There's no stress, everything is marked down and you're giving businesses a little bit of a boost in January when their sales crater, right? So sometimes that helps to keep their seasonal employees employed for a little bit longer.

Tava Baird: And then, we drive up or fly wherever we need to fly with no traffic or harassment. And when we get together, [00:35:00] we can actually enjoy hanging out because we didn't, crawl across the finish line to roll in with 30 gifts and a turkey. where we were battling everybody for it. So, I highly, highly encourage it. when my dad was in the military growing up , a lot of times, we would celebrate our holidays in July because dad's at sea over Christmas, you know, Like we would still do some Christmassy things.

Tava Baird: We'd get together with the neighbors for dinner and we would still do some gifts, but we would save certain things, certain decorating or going on trips or whatever for July when he would be there and we could all celebrate together. So you have to remember humans decided when holidays were, we can move them.

Tava Baird: We can create new ones and, sometimes it can be very, a huge relief to have that. 

Jennifer Taylor: I [00:36:00] love that idea and the idea of just, you know, thinking outside of the box of what would really feel good to everybody. What would make this, more of a celebration and less of a stress.

Tava Baird: I read another article the other day was this woman and she's a teacher. She is a single woman and she is an introvert. And she said, she started celebrating her Thanksgiving and Christmases with family at different times, Thanksgiving day and Christmas day. She said, I spend those two days in a way that really disturbs people.

Tava Baird: She says, I sleep in, I get up. I have cinnamon rolls and, an omelette for breakfast. I sit down with Coco. I build a fire and I read books until noon. Then I go out on a hike to some of the places that are usually really crowded, like there's a [00:37:00] waterfall near her home. And she said, it's so gorgeous to be there alone when you can really meditate and feel the energy of the waterfall.

Tava Baird: And there's no other tourists and there's no hikers. And she says, then she comes home and she's a little bit chilly. So she has, a glass of wine and takes a long, luxurious nap. She throws some cheese potatoes and a little bit of ham in the crock pot and she gets up that evening and watches a holiday film, eats chocolate, has a lovely dinner, and just reads more.

Tava Baird: And she says, It's so sad because I have to lie to everybody about what I'm doing. I'm a teacher and I'm an introvert. coming up to the holidays, there's all of this frenzied interaction with, my family and parents and children and friends. And she says, I still go to holiday parties.

Tava Baird: I do all those things, but literally the best gift I can give myself [00:38:00] as an introvert is one day with my phone on silent. And she says, but if I try to tell people I'm doing that, they go, no, no, no, you can't be alone on Christmas. And she says, they'll invite her and she says, thank you so much. But I already have plans.

Tava Baird: And she says, my plans are with my book and my cat, right? And she says, and they will just keep inviting her four and five and six times because they're mortified at the idea that she's actually relishing the idea. the day down. And she says this Thanksgiving and Christmas tradition that she started doing a few years ago puts her in a beautiful mindset.

Tava Baird: She really loves it and enjoys it. And it actually does what holidays are supposed to do for her, which is restores her energy. she actually has a spiritual experience going to that waterfall and having it all to herself. And she said, if I feel like texting people around [00:39:00] 6 p. m. and saying Merry Christmas, then I do that.

Tava Baird: And then I turn my phone back off. there are lots of different types of people and we all process energy differently. And it's really okay to take that time for yourself if you're the sort of person That needs that. There are lots of people who thrive on being in a room with, 40 relatives and presents flying through the air at each other and a massive dinner.

Tava Baird: she was talking about, how she grew up in a family where her mother was so stressed coming into Christmas that she would actually set a timer for them to open their gifts. Because she had to get this on the table and this cleaned before relatives came over. And she said, I don't ever remember my mother enjoying Christmas or not dissolving into tears when it was finally over.

Tava Baird: And she said, I didn't want that for myself. And so she decided to start her own [00:40:00] tradition. 

Jennifer Taylor: I think that's beautiful. And I feel like that kind of leads into, what it was that Archangel Michael was telling me this morning because we weren't entirely sure what we were going to talk about.

Jennifer Taylor: And I had some other ideas that came up in the car on the way back. And I was like, Oh, maybe we'll talk about this. so I said, I just sat down and asked, what would be in the best interest of our podcast listeners to speak of today, and I know I mentioned earlier. He said warming and So it's like, you know, would you please explain?

Jennifer Taylor: I'm not entirely sure what you mean. He said warming your soul and I thought about it, I said, could you share some more with me about it? And he said, Warming is a subtle way of devotion to your inner world of majesty.

Jennifer Taylor: It is a world not often explored, but deeply powerful. It stokes the fires of your being [00:41:00] and warms the heart. And that is 

Tava Baird: lovely. 

Jennifer Taylor: Yeah. I thought, wow, that sounds really beautiful. And then I was intellectually trying to be like, okay, how do we do this? how does this work?

Jennifer Taylor: And he said, by taking away the distractions and going inward. And one of the first things that came up in my mind was through handworks, like, knitting and crocheting and things like that, that you can do without needing to have a lot of focus. but I was like, how else can you do that?

Jennifer Taylor: And he said, you do not need to fully understand the mechanisms of it to perform it, as I was speaking, that warmth building in your core and heating up your heart center, you were doing it without any instructions or thought simply by being aware of it. And.

Jennifer Taylor: I realized [00:42:00] that was true, like as he was talking about it from fairly early on, when he started describing that, warming is a subtle way of devotion to your inner world. I started feeling this, it almost felt like this rectangular thing in the core of my like torso and up and kind of building in the center of my heart space.

Jennifer Taylor: it felt warm. And I was thinking. Yeah, no, he's right. it was happening already. I wasn't doing anything other than just connecting in with it. And I said, what else would you share with me about this? And he said, it is essential.

Jennifer Taylor: It is at the foundations of being to warm the heart is to awaken the soul. It is so simple and so essential. And I asked, if there was some sort of empowerment in the words that he had used when he [00:43:00] described it, that would help others to feel that, or they would feel it just from the words. And he said, it is so.

Jennifer Taylor: Whether or not others feel it is not in my control, but it is there for them. And so we talked a little bit more about the warming the benefits and I was, asking, what more can I bring through to help others with it? And he said, it is a thing to be done when the heart seems cold, when the body seems cold or weary.

Jennifer Taylor: I said, when you would want to snuggle up under a blanket, and kind of bundle up, to do this. And he said, exactly. Your soul knows when it is needed and craves warm things. But it is more than temperature. It is a warming of your heart flame, a stoking of the inner fires that have dimmed from neglect or illness.

Jennifer Taylor: And I said, it feels wonderful because by that point I could really feel that warmth [00:44:00] inside. And he said, it is a coming home to yourself. And I said, it seems like it would be something that would be good for those who are feeling lonely. And he said, yes, yes, for it is a dying down of their fires.

Jennifer Taylor: So, when we feel lonely or depleted, this will help. I was sort of stuck on this idea of doing, because initially I'd had this sense of people doing handiwork and he said, yes, that would be helpful if they need it.

Jennifer Taylor: and I said, well, how do people who need more help quiet their minds? who can't do handiwork I have rheumatoid arthritis and doing something like crocheting just isn't really a thing for me right now. And he said, it is all good.

Jennifer Taylor: The slow turning of something in the hands, even a ball of yarn, something that is warming and seems cozy to the touch, just turning it in your hands will help give a focus. [00:45:00] But truly I say you do not need it. It is like turning on the pilot light in your heart. Often you just press a button. No, you're turning the attention to warming and turn on your inner flame.

Jennifer Taylor: he said, there are times when there is an overabundance of heat in the body, when the fires are burning too brightly that, this is not a thing to be done in those times. You will know and feel it when it is right.

Jennifer Taylor: Cooling is its own experience and for a different time. 

Tava Baird: sometimes when I don't have anything, that concept of a circle, of spiraling around in a circle can be really, really soothing. sometimes if I don't have anything in my hands and I need to calm myself. And Samuel showed me to sit quietly and basically in my mind, imagine that there's a circle right around my heart.

Tava Baird: And [00:46:00] just trace the circle in my mind. He likes to say to me, Doing can be your undoing. I like that. I want to do all the time instead of sit and circle a little bit. I know along those same lines of what you're talking about, I've started doing something this week where I call it treating my inner child to the holidays.

Tava Baird: Right. So for example, I was at a very cold, very long event all day Saturday and I came home and I literally could hear my inner child go, feed me toast! I mean, I think I haven't had it since I was a kid, but all of a sudden I got consumed with this idea of, I'm going I want raisin toast with an abundance of butter and a big, like just loaded with cinnamon.

Tava Baird: And it's good for you too, you know, so. so the next time I went to the grocery store, it was Irish butter and a big loaf of raisin toast. [00:47:00] And I've been living on this stuff this week. it's something I loved as a kid and I haven't thought about it in decades.

Tava Baird: And now I am just raisin toasting like crazy. And the other day I was also out running errands and picking things up for other people for the holidays and I went into a Joanne Fabrics and they no longer have Joanne Fabrics near me so I was actually a little ways from home and this particular Joanne Fabrics had a floor to ceiling yarn wall and then about nine more aisles of yarn.

Tava Baird: Now, I I love yarn so much that I walked in and it was like, for a brief moment, I was like, am I dead? Because I think I'm in the yarn afterlife. And my brain immediately went to, no, no, you're here to shop for other people. And then I thought, well, if I was to get, you know, 10 year old me, A little holiday gift.

Tava Baird: What would I get, 10 year [00:48:00] old me? And I realized my inner child wanted to make granny squares, right? Wanted to make granny squares, I've been looking at patterns online, I have never made a granny square in my life. And the next thing I know, I'm over picking up, the They actually now have a lovely acrylic yarn that color changes so that it automatically makes grainy square color changes if you follow the pattern and I mean this stuff is like three dollars a ball but my heart was going yes and I want it in unicorn colors and I walked out of there with the stuff I was supposed to get also this bag with crochet hook in it and three of these skates of This silly multicolored fruit colored granny square yarn that, you know, the 10 year old in me desperately wanted for Christmas.

Tava Baird: So, you know, it can be a really great thing to go, you know what? I am kicking butt during this holiday season? I am hitting the marks. [00:49:00] I am doing what I'm supposed to do. I'm being merry and bright. I actually have clean clothing on. Why don't I, why don't I get myself the sprinkles on the whipped cream?

Tava Baird: What would my 10 year old self really love as a treat that would just make them go over the moon? And when you're 10, It's generally not very expensive. You know, last night I had so much fun. there is a lovely, wonderful 15 year old in my life who is kind of like an adopted niece. And, um, I was putting together a holiday gift for her and all of a sudden I thought, what would I want when I was 15?

Tava Baird: Oh my God. Glitter eyeshadow. I wanted the big dramatic goth looking when I realized she would love that stuff. So I probably spent, I mean, I could have just gone on up the goth eye shadow or had it shipped. I probably spent two hours looking at colors of, you know, [00:50:00] zombie green and you know, witchy purple and all these cool.

Tava Baird: crazy eyeshadows that I was never allowed to wear when I was 15, but I know that she is. I'm justenjoying looking at them and being like, Oh my God, maybe I could wear an eyeshadow like that. You know, like it's just silly stuff. Stickers. Oh my God. Adults love stickers. Every market that I go to,every time people walk by my booth, I go, would you like a free sticker?

Tava Baird: And adults get, 'cause a lot of them were raised in like the seventies and eighties when stickers were a big thing. Like laser ones, puffy ones, stick books, and 

Jennifer Taylor: like trading stickers. 

Tava Baird: Oh, Google I ones. Remember the scratch and sniff ones you could get? Yeah. And like, remember when those holographic ones came out and it was like, Oh my God, you had a sticker book and you kept everything in it.

Tava Baird: It's really funny. A lot of the kids today, you can get stickers everywhere, so they're not really into it. But the adults are like, I would love a sticker. They will sit there [00:51:00] and go through my whole bowl one at a time, looking at every sticker. And then they'll finally pick one up and I'll look at them and I'll go.

Tava Baird: It's okay, take three or four. And they go, really?Like, I have just given them this incredible gift. You can get 300 water bottle stickers on Amazon for five bucks. You know, and especially if you get, like, I have ones with ravens on them. So all the witchy people are way into them. You know, like, your inner kid wants stickers.

Tava Baird: Get yourself some stickers, put them on your water bottle and your laptop and your envelopes when you mail out your holiday cards. All of these lovely delightful things, just take that little inner kid out for a lunch you wouldn't normally eat. Go get the macaroni and cheese. Oh my god, I had macaroni and cheese the other day and my inner child was so flippin happy.

Tava Baird: When was the last time I ate mac and cheese? It even had kind of hot dogs in it, which adults aren't [00:52:00] supposed to wanna eat. . It's so, you know, chicken nuggets have 

Jennifer Taylor: like every so often, we'll we'll let my daughter pick, what we're having and we always think of it, it's like kid food. It's like, mixed vegetables.

Jennifer Taylor: That granite, she would ideally not have chosen, but you know, with like mac and cheese and um, like pigs in a blanket or something. Yes. And it's so funny because. You know, she's happy because that's what she wanted for dinner, but not nearly as happy as the for other adults in the house who are like, Oh my gosh, this just feels so, it's like, it's feeding our inner child.

Jennifer Taylor: It makes us so happy. We're like, we don't ever get to have kid food. Like these are the things that are on the kid's menu when you go somewhere. we don't get, pigs in a blanket and mac and cheese and, things like that, but we've gotten to where we do this fairly regularly, and I think the adults are possibly more excited about it than she is, because it does, it feeds that inner child, and it has really shown us that, Number of things that [00:53:00] we don't really allow ourselves because it's in the category of that's kid stuff or that's kid food or that's whatever.

Jennifer Taylor: And granted, we shouldn't be necessarily eating corn dogs and things like that all the time, but as a treat and especially as a treat for that inner child, I think It's so important, and there's entire areas of psychology, entire fields of that, entirely designed around recognizing our inner child and feeding that inner child with, and I love, love the things that you were sharing about the, the yarn and the kid kinds of colors of yarn.

Jennifer Taylor: the things that we would put in the kid category of things that you would make for the granny squares. I think the more we can Do that andit nourishes us in on so many really important levels I just love that. I mean, 

Tava Baird: I think back to when I was a kid beanbag chairs, right?

Tava Baird: I can afford a beanbag chair now. Why don't I buy one, [00:54:00] you know, and and I was talking about the macaroni and cheese before. There's this great restaurant down in Charlottesville and they have literally what they serve is macaroni and cheese, like 30 different kinds. You can get it with all different gourmet cheeses.

Tava Baird: You can get one that has chicken in it. They have one called everything, but the kitchen sink that is literally like every Mac and cheese additive. You can imagine in the Mac and cheese. That place is always . p acked when I go. Right? Always. Get yourself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and put, remember how you used to take, I don't know if anybody else did this.

Tava Baird: I used to take potato chips. You used to take potato chips. Yes. Oh. And put them inside the sandwich. Have that one day. Better yet, have a inner child potluck. with a couple of friends get together for silly board games. And yeah, like when I was a toddler teacher, we lived on those instant crescent rolls.

Tava Baird: You can put slices of pepperoni and cheese in them, roll them up, stick them in the oven for 10 [00:55:00] minutes, dip them in tomato sauce. You have pizza rolls. There are so many things, little finger foods that we just haven't had. We're allowed to have them. Guys, we're in charge of the world right now.We can do this once in a blue moon, I mean, some of us look at some of the things we ate as a kid and go, Whoa, look at all the additives in that.

Tava Baird: I was so surprised I was in a health food store the other day. They had vegan chocolate twinkies So, they were the same shape, the same size. They had a vegan whipped cream inside them. They were chocolate flavored, chocolate mint flavored instead. They had them just for the holidays and I went, I am getting some frickin Twinkies.

Tava Baird: Those things have been so good. You know, just because I feel like a little kid. Kid getting to eat them. Animal crackers. Oh my god, do you remember the animal crackers that they used to dip in icing and then they had the little tiny color sprinkles on them? They're probably, I [00:56:00] don't even want to think what the ingredients are.

Tava Baird: Get yourself a kid's cereal. It doesn't have to be an entire box of Count Chocula you can get the little tiny single serving box, just have a bowl of apple jacks like you did when you were six every now and it's not gonna kill you. As long as you don't make it a huge habit.

Tava Baird: No, as you 

Jennifer Taylor: say, the every now and then, and you're fine. 

Tava Baird: Yeah. Every now and then and you're fine. All those things you did when you were a kid, you know, those are great ways to get cozy. Funny slippers with heads on them. You remember having slippers? Do you remember underoos? Oh my God. Now I'm really showing my age.

Tava Baird: Oh, I loved underoos. 

Jennifer Taylor: Yeah. Oh my gosh. Wonder Woman underoos. And I would watch Wonder Woman in my underoos with a towel wrapped around me so that I could run behind the couch and twirl around and throw it off and jump back out as, as Wonder Woman. Underoos are the greatest things ever. We need to, we need adult underoos.

Tava Baird: We definitely need adult underoos for, so we can all be superheroes. I had both the Wonder Woman [00:57:00] set and the Supergirl set. And I felt very grown up in the Supergirl set because it was sort of a bikini style thing. And I think I was the ripe old age of five. So, um, you know. How scandalous. Um, yeah, have a little inner child party is, it can be a lovely thing.

Jennifer Taylor: Thank you for being a part of our tribe, for listening along and participating and being a part of this incredible journey with us. And we look forward to seeing you next week for part two. Until then, go with our blessings and love.