Holidays and family gatherings can be challenging. Your mind and heart carry visions of Hallmark holiday celebrations, yet all too often reality doesn’t match expectations and desires. Then, within the flawed family system, all the old roles are activated. Before you know it – you’re awash in emotion, old stories and regrets.
Perhaps you experience anxiety or trepidation as you contemplate how the holiday season will shake out this year. Like some, you may dread going; perhaps you simply don’t show up at all.
Betsy’s Holiday Breakthrough
Betsy travels to Maine to see her family for Christmas every year. It is quite the ordeal getting ready, packing everyone’s bags, loading the car and heading out for a week with her family. She describes the steady uptick in her anxiety and overwhelm as she anticipates this year’s journey and family time.
When the extended family converges in Maine, she hopes for the best, and in truth, there are some beautiful moments. But too often, the diverse personalities, politics and points of view bubble up and boil over into an all out brawl.
When things amp up, emotions run high, anxiety, anger, fear, overwhelm – are all in the room. Betsy’s caretaking pattern emerges, and she feels responsible to fix everything and take care of everyone else’s needs, at the expense of her own.
You Have Your Own Holiday Story
While not everyone’s holidays look the same, often common themes emerge.
Do you find yourself overwhelmed and feeling full of emotional energy?
Do you slip into old roles that no longer serve you?
Do you put everyone else’s demands and needs above your own?
Do you need everything to be perfect when you host or attend holiday gatherings?
Perhaps there’s the concern that the elephant on the coffee table will get named at last. Everyone knows it’s there, but no one mentions it.
You Can Be At Home Within Yourself
Imagine being present for family gatherings and holiday activities with ease and grace. While the dynamics may still play out similarly, you can work with your energy and your conscious awareness – to have a choice about how you show up.
Clients like Betsy learn how to navigate these situations with ease and containment.
They learn how to clear out the energy that belongs to others, and release patterns and held emotions they’d like to let go.
A profoundly effective practice they learn is how to claim their energetic space — no matter who is in the room with them.
Resourced with the ability to avoid taking on everyone else’s energy, they increase their own emotional capacity and operate through grounded self-awareness. It’s truly a game changer!
If you’d like tools and practices for navigating the holiday season, whether it be for holiday parties, family togetherness (and drama) or big crowds, come join me at Heartwood for my upcoming workshop, Your Seasonal Gift Basket: Tools & Practices for Navigating the Holidays, on December 13th, from 10:30 am to noon.
You’ll learn and apply 3 skills for releasing absorbed emotions and energies, and to cultivate ease and containment, regardless of what’s going on around you!
To learn more and register, please use this link here.
