The holiday season is known for its glowing lights, intimate gatherings, and kind gestures.
And yet, behind closed doors, it can also be a deeply vulnerable time as we prepare to be in close proximity to environments and people where our deepest wounds are buried. Like landmines, we tiptoe around them and hide behind the facade of cheerful embraces and gift-giving. Yet the truth is, there is an undercurrent of anxiety that electrifies from within.
I remember this being my reality, especially during the first few years of my healing journey.
It took every fiber of my being to manage the intense emotional activations that would sweep over all five of my senses. I felt so raw on the inside during those initial years that I would skip family holidays, vacations, and weddings.
If you find yourself in the same predicament, know that I see and acknowledge you.
But here is the deeper truth about the healing journey: Healing isn’t about avoiding the things and people that trigger us. In most cases, doing so can actually become a coping strategy that leads us to close off our worlds in unhealthy ways. True healing becomes available when we are willing to utilize the triggers to bring stale, stagnant emotional energy to the surface so that it can be witnessed and fully felt.
We achieve real, sustainable healing when we find the courage to dip ourselves into trigger-filled territories and engage in ways that bring us closer to our authentic truth.
This will look different for everyone: for some, it’s about finally speaking their truth and resisting the impulse to diminish themselves in service of keeping peace within the family system. For others who are conditioned to react with fiery rage, it will mean pursing their lips tightly and choosing silence as a way to take accountability for their own wounds. And for a few, it’ll be about stepping back from the role of mediator and allowing people to fight their own battles with one another.
Where I am today, after many years of bravely facing my triggers head-on and taking accountability for them, I am headed back to the Bay Area with the kind of excitement and assurance that it will be a season to fondly remember. It will be the most amazing time of the year—not because people have necessarily changed around me, but because the things that once propelled my nervous system into survival mode no longer do.
For those of you who feel like you are about to enter the arena, here are a few invitations and insights that I hope will allow you to thrive through the holidays:
While others may have inflicted your wounds, they are your wounds to heal now. No one has the power to keep you shackled but you.
Take meaningful breaks to refuel. Go for a walk. Take a long shower. Wake up late. You are the conductor of your life.
Emotions, at their root, are mere sensations that appear in the body. Notice them. Allow them to be there. Speak love into them. At the end of the day, they are visitors that come and go.
Nobody can take your peace, power, and perspective away unless you let them.
Live inside of gratitude as much as you are able. It’s your entry point to joy.
Remember, friends, we are often braver and stronger than we think. We can do hard things.
Comments