The holidays have a way of pressing on a bruise you thought had healed.
One moment you’re wrapping gifts or standing in line for hot chocolate… and the next, your breath shortens, your shoulders lift, and some younger part of you whispers: “Not safe.”

If this happens to you, hear this clearly: nothing is wrong with you.

Your body isn’t overreacting.

It’s remembering.

The holiday season carries layered energy — memory, family dynamics, pressure, and old emotional weather that once shaped how you learned to survive. Your nervous system, being the loyal protector it is, responds to those cues instantly.

This blog is here to help you stay in your body, stay on your side, and stay connected to yourself through a season that brings up more than it looks like on the surface.

Why the Holidays Wake Up Old Wounds

The holidays are not just days on a calendar — they are energetic portals.

They carry everything you once absorbed: the joy, yes, but also the chaos, the silence, the expectations, the disappointments, the moments you learned to disappear.

1. Familial Proximity Activates Old Programming

You could adore your family and still feel your system bracing around them.
We learn safety through co-regulation.
We also learn patterns of contracting, staying quiet, people-pleasing, or scanning the room for danger.

So when you’re back in the very environment where you first learned these strategies, your system can snap into them automatically.
This is one reason I often recommend clients explore the deeper subconscious patterns behind safety and worthiness.

If you want to understand how those early imprints still run the show, Lies of Money breaks this down beautifully — not about money itself, but about the trauma-coded narratives that attach to it.

2. Sensory Cues Pull Trauma Imprints Forward

A smell, a song, a memory tucked into a cold December night — these can activate implicit memory stored in your body.
Trauma doesn’t live in the logical mind.
It lives in sensation.

This is why during holiday gatherings, your body may react like a 10-year-old even though you’re 40 and fully capable. It’s not regression. It’s your nervous system being efficient.
If your body goes offline, dissociates, or tightens in these moments, returning to your physical senses is essential — and if you need a guided support for that, the Body Awareness Practice is a gentle first step.

3. The Season Holds Collective Pressure

There's a cultural script that says the holidays must be:

• cheerful
• generous
• emotionally available
• “holiday movie perfect”

For someone with trauma patterns, this pressure can feel like a performance.
But you don’t have to perform. You get to stay with yourself.

How to Stay in Your Body When the Holidays Hit Hard

Staying regulated doesn’t mean staying untriggered.
It means your adult self remains present enough that your younger parts don’t have to run the show alone.
Here are grounded tools that work on the nervous system, subconscious, and energy field.

1. Orient to the Present Moment (Somatic Reset)

When you feel yourself slipping into survival mode — freezing, dissociating, bracing — the first step is orientation.

Try this:

• Look around and name 5 neutral things you see.
• Let your eyes land on something pleasant.
• Feel your feet.
• Inhale for 4, exhale for 6.

This simple reset reminds your nervous system:

“We’re here. And here is safe.”

If orientation work is new, the Body Awareness Practice can deepen this in a safe, guided way. It helps you reconnect when your system is overwhelmed, especially in family spaces.

2. Give Your Inner Child a Seat at the Table

Holiday triggers often belong to younger versions of you. Instead of overriding them, try listening.

Ask internally:
“How old do I feel right now?”
“What does this version of me need?”

Maybe the answer is: space, quiet, grounding, or permission to step away.

This is where subconscious work becomes powerful. When you understand the roots of worthiness, safety, and permission — themes explored deeply in Lies of Money — these moments feel less like emergencies and more like invitations to shift.

You are reparenting yourself in real time.

3. Clear the Energetic Residue (Spiritual + Practical) 

Energetic residue is the emotional static left after certain interactions — heaviness, pressure, irritation, exhaustion.

A quick energy sweep helps reset your field:

• Imagine light pouring from above your head.
• Let it wash down your body.
• Exhale what isn’t yours.

Your energy field responds to intention — this is both neuroscience (vagal activation + visualization) and spiritual hygiene.

If you want deeper clarity on energetic imprints and how they shape behavior, Lies of Money explains this intersection of trauma and energy beautifully and practically.

4. Create Micro-Boundaries That Keep You Safe Inside Yourself

You don’t need dramatic boundaries to stay regulated during the holidays. Micro-boundaries — subtle, quiet choices — often work better:

• Sitting at the edge of the table
• Stepping outside every hour
• Limiting exposure to certain conversations
• Protecting your morning grounding time

Micro-boundaries build internal safety quickly.
If holding boundaries is especially hard, there’s often a subconscious worthiness pattern underneath — something Lies of Money addresses in a way that brings compassion, clarity, and choice back to you.

5. Anchor in One Practice That Brings You Back Into Your Body

You don’t need a toolkit of 20 spiritual hacks.
You need one practice that reliably brings you home.

Try:

• Hands on ribcage
• Humming
• Warm mug grounding
• Slow intuitive movement
• Feeling the weight of your legs

Choose the one that creates an immediate “yes” in your body.

If you want a guided version of this “one-degree back to yourself,” the Body Awareness Practice is designed exactly for this — simple enough to use in a crowded room, powerful enough to re-anchor you when you’re spinning.

You Deserve to Feel Safe in Your Own Body — Especially Now

The holidays may stir old wounds, but they don’t get to control your nervous system anymore.
You are allowed to take breaks.
You are allowed to choose presence over performance.
You are allowed to honor your pace.
You are allowed to redefine safety — not as something given to you, but something generated within you.
You deserve all good.
Not some. Not a few. But all.
And if you’re ready to deepen this work, here are the next best steps for you:

✨ Primary Support: Lies of Money (Book)