It’s your mind’s way of processing conflict, regulating your emotional response to it, and building mental resilience. This is the reason our holiday dreams can get so wild and intense. It’s a time where we revisit our roots, reawaken childhood memories - in both joyful and painful ways ( According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, 78% of children reported more than 1 traumatic experience before the age of 5) - and come face to face with ourselves at our deep-down core. The holiday season and such gatherings are inherently emotionally charged. Likely it’s both! Be gentle with yourself, friend, it’s normal. Or, feel the weight of the stress tightening your chest? Finding gifts - and the money to pay for them, enduring family bickering, rehashing of conflicts, or the same disparaging comments you heard as an awkward teenager makes it hard to breathe.

See your favorite holiday foods as a comforting veil over the gathering? You can almost taste the tender prime rib and the smell of fresh homemade rolls that makes all right with the world. When you picture sitting around the table at a family holiday meal, do you:

These emotions can bubble over and it can be a challenge to keep a lid on them. And all these extreme emotions can be jumbled up together into one confusing alphabet soup. The holidays are a time of togetherness and joy, but can also bring on anxiety, loneliness, and even despair.

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