This time of year, we move from Halloween, then to Thanksgiving, and before you know it it’s Hanukkah or Christmas!
Are you strapped in?
Because 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.
Like most of us, you probably live within a flawed family system. There’s love, sure. There’s also old roles, wounds and stories that animate the system. When everyone gathers around the holiday table, sparks can fly, and all the old roles, wounds and stories are freshly activated.
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.
Lynn’s Holiday Breakthrough
Lynn travels to Maine to see her family for Thanksgiving every year. It is quite the ordeal getting ready, packing everyone’s bags, loading the car and heading out for a week of cooking and 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 conflicts and chaos.
Emotions run high —anxiety, anger, fear, overwhelm – are all in the room. When the fur flies, Lynn’s caretaking role emerges, and she feels responsible for peacemaking, and settling everyone down, usually at the expense of her own needs.
Lynn realized that something else was possible and entered my practice to gain agency and resolve her caretaking pattern.
You Have Your Own Holiday Story
While not everyone’s holidays look the same, often common themes emerge when families get together to ring in the season. Take a moment and consider this list of questions. Do you::
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find yourself overwhelmed and feeling full of emotional energy?
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slip into old roles that no longer serve you?
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put everyone else’s demands and needs above your own?
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need everything to be perfect to maintain the Hallmark holiday myth?
You Can Be At Home Within Yourself & Thrive
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.
You can learn how to clear out the energy that belongs to others, and release patterns and held emotions you’d like to let go.
Learning how to claim your energetic space is a profoundly effective practice to navigate whatever dynamics are going on around you.
Resourced with the ability to avoid taking on other people’s energy, you gain emotional capacity and can operate with grounded self-awareness. It’s truly a game changer!
If you’d like tools and practices for navigating the holiday season, for holiday parties, family togetherness (dinners and drama) or big crowds, join me at Heartwood for my upcoming workshop, Your Seasonal Gift Basket: Tools & Practices for Navigating the Holidays, on November 14th, from 10:30 am to noon.
You’ll learn and apply 3 skills for releasing absorbed emotions and energies, to cultivate ease and containment, regardless of what’s going on around you!
I can’t promise you a Hallmark holiday, but I can help you gain agency, clarity and arm you with tools for entering the fracas while holding your own!
To learn more and register, please use this link here.
