How to own your emotional triggers this holiday season
“Why is being with family around the holidays triggering AF?”
My friend Briana Pharos, a fellow coach and breathworker, and I were having a frank chat over Zoom. She nodded sagely: “Yep! That’s the time where all our personal growth *truly* gets challenged.”
The spiritual leader Ram Dass once said: “If you think you’re enlightened, spend a week with your family.”
As the holiday season ramps up, it can feel like all the great internal work we’ve done throughout the year gets trashed. And with the greatest of respects to my family—and Briana’s!—I know we are not alone in this. Does this time of year feel challenging in parts for you too?
Why the holiday season can be so triggering
For people of nearly any background, the winter solstice is a time when we gather with family and loved ones. And yet for many people—and for all sorts of reasons—this can trigger feelings of boredom, resentment, judgement, impatience etc. Perhaps you are estranged, or are choosing to create distance between you and your family.
It can be challenging to not fall back into old patterns of behaviour and unhelpful coping methods. And with strong societal messaging around this time of year being one of joy, love and togetherness, feeling low at this time of year and/or being stuck in old patterns can be particularly painful.
When you’ve done a lot of personal development growth, any shift back to your old self can be frustrating. You chide yourself—“I know better than this!”—and yet you watch yourself bicker with your siblings like you were 14 years old again.
Or perhaps your sanity slowly erodes and you begin to enact your own National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation-style family comedy drama.
Despite being a married woman in my mid-30s, hints of a grumpy sulky version of my teenage self can start to creep in over Christmas… So what the Quality Street Fudge is up with that?
If you feel one egg nog away from going full Clark Griswold, it’s OK! You’re not alone.
This time of year can be hella triggering—even during “normal” times! Let alone during the present rollercoaster.
The reality is, the emotional conditioning with our family is laid down at the deepest level. For many of us (although not all), our formative years are spent in the presence of, and are heavily influenced by, our family and peers. This means that when we are back in those familiar dynamics, our conditioned programming kicks in. HARD!
Moments later, Clark lost his f***ing s**t
Identify and explore these triggers
All decisions are ultimately driven by an emotional state. And the seasonal period can bring up a lot of intense emotions, so you may feel less in control of your decisions and therefore actions. You may feel far more reactive!
The good news is, you don’t have to sit with these triggers and feelings of discomfort. You can work through them, reconnect to the adult version of yourself and reclaim your inner state of calm. The more you can identify and own your triggers, the better you can show up as the most grown-up version of yourself. Which includes boundary setting, honouring your needs and speaking your truth, whilst still coming from a place of deep love and authentic respect towards others.
This internal work—of owning your triggers—can be challenging. But it can also be deeply healing, as you start to realise you have agency over your thoughts and feelings, with practice, perseverance and patience.
Journalling prompts to work through triggers
To help with this exploration of our triggers, I’ve got a list of journalling prompts for you to try out.These featured in the virtual retreat I co-hosted in December 2021 with Briana Pharos:
1) What does being “triggered” mean to you?
2) How do you know when you’re triggered? What’s happening in the body?
3) What challenges do you anticipate at this time of year? What feelings are associated with those challenges? Where do you feel these in the body?
4) What do you desire to feel at this time of year? E.g. Joy, peace, connection?
5) If you’re fully responsible for yourself, how do you need to show up? What would help you create the feelings you desire?
6) Is there anything else you need to hear right now?
When journalling or during self-reflection, pay close attention to the language that comes up in the mind. “Should” is so often related to SHAME. What would it feel like to work with “could” instead? It can be softer and invites more allowing.
Often we have a limited emotional vocabulary, so you can refer to this emotional word wheel by Geoffrey Roberts. When we can more clearly identify how we are feeling, it’s been shown to reduce the intensity of the emotional experience, as it re-engages the rational mind. It’s also an active process of enhancing self-awareness and cultivating emotional intelligence.
Embrace your emotions and break inherited cycles of behaviour
We are all emotional creatures. By learning to explore, express and process our emotions, we can respond and make decisions based on conscious choices. When we can make conscious choices, we start to break inherited cycles of behaviour. If we’re reactive, we stay stuck in the past and repeat old patterns. In fact, this internal work expands out beyond just you. Working on triggers is a profound way to start healing ancestral/trans-generational trauma too. The patterns we repeat at an individual level are really just history repeating itself.
Can you go against the grain? Notice the default mode playing out and CHOOSE to act, speak or feel differently. When you do that, that’s your personal freedom and autonomy claimed right there in that moment! And that’s how we each individually change this world—by working through one “who ate the last Quality Street?!” trigger at a time.
I wish you peace and inner calm this festive season!
