The Remembrance Codes

The Season of Enough: Rewriting Exhaustion, Guilt & the True Gift of Presence

• Susan Sutherland

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Tired before December even begins? You’re not alone.
But what if the exhaustion you feel every December isn’t a personal failing… but a lineage you’re finally ready to unbraid?

In this episode, we look honestly at seasonal burnout - the invisible labor, the emotional load, and the inherited belief that women must over-give to be good, worthy, or loving.

I share a very personal realization about where my own holiday guilt began… and how many of us unknowingly braid together love, service, and self-erasure because that was the model we were shown by the women before us.

We explore:

✨ Why so many women hit their emotional limit before the holidays even begin
 ✨ How “love = labor” became an unconscious survival pattern
 ✨ The difference between heartfelt presence and heartless doing
 ✨ Why exhaustion is often a boundary, not a flaw
 ✨ How to reclaim a season that feels nourishing instead of depleting
 ✨ Simple practices to shift from performance into presence

This episode is an invitation into a gentler truth:

Your presence - not your productivity - is the gift.
 Your warmth - not your performance - is what people remember.
 You were never meant to earn love through exhaustion.

If you’re craving a new way of moving through December - one anchored in softness, sovereignty, and actual joy- this conversation is for you.

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SPEAKER_00:

Before we begin, I have a small request that makes a big difference. If this podcast has supported you on your journey, if it's helped you feel less alone or more seen or more connected to the truth inside of you, I would love for you to add me to your Christmas list this year with a rating and a review. It's completely free and it takes just a minute or two, and it truly helps this work reach the people who are meant to find it. Your words become part of the bridge that carries this medicine to others. So thank you truly for being here and for supporting my work in the ways that you can. It means more than you know. As we move into the season, I want to begin with a truth that may feel a little tender. So many of us, especially women, are exhausted long before December even arrives. And it's not because we're weak, and it's not because we can't handle life, but it is because we have inherited generations of expectations that taught us to equate love with labor and worth with overgiving. This time of year amplifies all of it. The decorating, the meals, the emotional load of family dynamics, the hosting, the shopping, the remembering of everyone's preferences, and the unspoken belief that if we don't do it, it won't get done. Or worse, if we don't do it perfectly, then somehow we failed. And I want to gently unravel that today, not from judgment and not from rebellion, but from remembrance. For many women, December is not just a holiday. It's the annual performance review that we never signed up for. It's the month where invisible labor becomes hyper-visible and yet remains unacknowledged. It's the month where our presence often gets replaced by our productivity, where our doing becomes the currency of our belonging. And the truth is, most of us never chose this. We inherited it. We absorbed it from mothers and grandmothers who survived by anticipating needs and smoothing edges and holding emotional landscapes together. So today, we're going to explore how we got here and how we walk a gentler and truer path forward. I was sorting through the lingering threads of guilt that might still be there for me. And what came up is that I was feeling guilty about not doing more for my dad right now. Doing and more. Those are the words that were echoing in my chest. Because nothing was wrong, nothing had been neglected, but the guilt was there anyway. And so I sat with that. And what I discovered wasn't actually about my dad. It was about the blueprint that I learned from my mother. My mother provided the truest, most unconditional love I've ever experienced. And my mother also loved by doing, constant doing, relentless doing. Love for her was expressed through tasks and service and sacrifice. And so I braided those together inside of myself. Love means effort, love means responsibility, and love meant tasks, and love means more. And yet that version of service often feels heartless and automatic and performed. So here I am as a grown-up woman untangling this braid, relearning love as presence, and relearning that warmth doesn't require performance. Learning that I can show up wholeheartedly without abandoning myself. And maybe you are learning this too. It's really interesting because before I went to Avalon and was having this conversation with myself about guilt, I had an experience with my sister after Mark's heart attack. She had messaged me many times asking what she could get him, what she could send him, what kind of gift would he like. And I couldn't come up with anything. I actually told her a motorcycle helmet because his post-heart attack activity was getting his motorcycle license. I guess, you know, if you're gonna live, you might as well live, right? So she came for a visit about a month after his heart attack and was like, I'm gonna pick up dinner on the way. What can I bring? What I can I bring? And I was like, just bring it yourself. Just bring yourself. And she walks in the door. And when she gets to the kitchen, he is cooking on the stove and he's got on the apron he always wears. And for her, that was the first time she really knew he was okay. When she was experiencing his heart attack from a different city, she didn't get to see him waking up and going through the motions and truly being okay like I did. But her laying eyes on him, then he was okay. And she hugged him and she started crying and she hugged him tighter. And she just had this moment of, you really are okay. Everything's okay. And the next morning, Mark and I were laying in the bed, and he brought that up. And just he even choked up, like I'm choking up now. He he choked up, talking about how that made him feel. And that was the greatest gift she could have ever shown up with was him feeling so loved and so cared for and so appreciated that his health was appreciated by her. She hugged him and really expressed her love and her gratitude for him being in her family. And it moved him like no casserole ever could. So while I was negotiating this braid that my mother has braided within me, seeing this unconditional love and this love through service, I remembered that experience of my sister showing up. And she could have gifted nothing more than that moment to mark. So we have to remember that. Your presence really is the offering. So if you were tired this season, let me offer you this. Your exhaustion is a boundary, not a flaw. Your exhaustion is your body whispering, I am crossing lines that I didn't consent to. I'm carrying what was never mine. I am giving from depletion, not from devotion. This is why December dread isn't laziness, it's wisdom. It's your body remembering that it was never meant to be the engine of everyone's holiday. You're meant to be the heartbeat, not the machinery. And we've set ourselves up for failure a little bit by going exactly opposite of our earth wisdom that would have us know that this time is a time for quiet restoration, of rooting deeper, of allowing the nutrients to return to our soil so we are prepared for spring. But here we are, busting it out all over. There is a pattern many of us fall into, myself included, that we want everything to feel magical. We want everyone to feel held. We don't want anyone to be disappointed. And underneath all of that is this ancient fear that if I don't give enough, I won't be enough. This is how self-erasure gets wrapped in tensile and called tradition, y'all. And yet none of the magic that you are trying to create can be felt if you are not in the room. If your presence is replaced by performance, if your warmth is replaced by depletion, we have been conditioned to believe that our burnout is the price of belonging. But belonging built on burnout is not belonging. Y'all, that's bondage. So how do we shift it? We begin with one simple question, and it is not how much can I do, but how present can I be. Presence changes everything. Presence turns a simple moment into connection. Presence turns a small gathering into nourishment. Presence turns a quiet evening into memory. You do not need to make magic. You are the magic. And when you let yourself be present without the performance, your family actually receives more of you, not less. One of my daughter's favorite moments from last week is watching a movie together. I said, Yes, you can lay your head on my lap and I will run my fingers through your hair. And I did it most of the movie. And that's all she needed was for me to play with her hair. Those are the moments that matter. Those are the moments they remember. I actually asked my daughter recently what she got for Christmas last year. And she struggled. She struggled. I did ask her where we went on vacation, and she reeled those places off. And it was just a reminder for her that the things that we do together, those leave a mark. The things you're adding to your wish list don't. And so you can make a list a mile long, but let's create the memories and the moments and allow that to be what carries our season. That to be what is really important. We've gotten to where Christmas Eve is as magical as Christmas Day. We play reindeer games and everybody gets really excited. But we also bring in lasagnas that are made at a restaurant. We make the production part of the evening very seamless. Restaurant bought lasagnas, salad, and bread. And then we get to move on. We get to move on and play games with each other and laugh and just share this time with each other. And that has become just one of the most favorite things in the season is having that time where none of the to-dos that you would typically put, the expectations on producing a magical meal or laying a gorgeous table. Like we've got paper plates out there so we can clean up quickly and get to the fun. So for you to find a new holiday rhythm, here are just a couple suggestions. Do one or two of them, but start shifting the mindset out of I have to create everyone's holiday experience to how can I be more present with those that I love and with myself this holiday season? Invite a new rhythm. So here are a few gentle invitations. Choose one thing that matters the most to you, not the top 10 things that you think you're supposed to do. What is the one thing that's really, really important? I also allow my family to choose one thing. What is the one movie you want to watch? We'll make time for that. What is the one cookie you would like to bake? I used to try to bake 20 different kinds of cookies. That is crazy, y'all. Not only do we not need to eat them all, but it ends up where cookie decorating and cookie baking is stress-filled and tension filled, and maybe even resentment filled when I said yes to all of this, and then y'all bail on me and I'm still baking. No dice. That is not how it works. We all get to choose one, and then we can all participate in the mess and the cleanup. We don't have to do it all. Pick what matters most. And then let others help. You want the cookies? Pitch in. You want the decorating? Pitch in. These trees don't light themselves. The ornaments don't hang themselves. And I used to be definitely the person who wanted to do it all myself because I wanted it done my way. No, I want it done our way. We can all pitch in because I want it done, but I also want to be the one sitting and relaxing and enjoying the lights that we put on the tree. Not the one who's hustling, having to wrap gifts at midnight on Christmas Eve. No dice. Let your inner child choose one experience that feels like wonder. Not duty, not tradition, wonder. Think of something that makes your jaw drop. We love riding around and looking like looking at Christmas lights. It is it is a joy for us to do that. To get, actually, we usually get fast food and milkshakes and ride around and look at holiday lights. And it still blows my mind. And they are not the holiday lights that I grew up with. They now they they've got songs playing and twinkles blinking. And I mean, it is it is a next level light show. Or what I really like is the super tacky. I've filled every inch of my yard with this, that, and the other. I love that. That is worth one night of me to stay in the car and and have a sing-along with my kids and look at holiday lights. That is joy. Allow yourself to say, that's too much for me this year. We are forgoing two of our Christmas trees, to be fair. I put up six, and that's a lot. But this late Thanksgiving business, it's a little bit crazy and it put me behind the end with my travel in November, which normally I can start decorating November 1st and not feel bad about it because that feels spacious to me. But I didn't start decorating until after this very late Thanksgiving this year. And I don't want to hustle like that. I'm not putting out a Christmas village. What we have, I will enjoy joyfully instead of trying to do it all and then being wiped out. Because we have to remember that resentment is the signal that presence is missing. If you feel resentment rising, you are giving from fear, not from love, from fear of not doing enough, which is a fear of not being enough. That is not from overflow, that is not from joy and from love and from presence. The beautiful thing is love doesn't need your perfection. Only your presence. So this season, what if this could be the first one where you don't abandon yourself first? What if your presence, your full, alive, grounded presence was the actual gift? Not the tasks, not the performance, not the perfect holiday, just you and your laugh and your warmth and your beingness. That is what people remember. This is what people crave. This is what you were always meant to give. So if you feel tired this year, that's your invitation. If you feel stretched thin, if if you feel that familiar pressure building, let this truth settle into your bones. You were never meant to earn love through effort. You were meant to offer love through presence, and presence requires you to be whole, not hollowed out. As you move through this month, may you remember you are allowed to rest. You are allowed to choose differently, you are allowed to be enough without overgiving. And most of all, your presence is the gift it always has been. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing your presence here with me today. May this season be filled with joy and wonder and love.

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Susan Sutherland

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