Coping with Trauma and Family Gatherings

The holiday season may be cheerful for some. Yet, for many people the holidays can be a complicated and triggering season. Especially for those who have strained relationships with family. And, it is important to take care of your emotional needs during the holidays. That may look like setting boundaries, ramping up your self-care, or starting therapy to help you cope.

What Type of Support Is Right for Me?

With the holiday season ripe with triggers and family conflict, you may be wondering what type of support would be right for you? If you are like many people, you want relief as quickly as possible. Especially if you know you have to be around family members who challenge you or perhaps you are gearing up for a holiday away from family for the first time, you need tools now. One of the reasons we love EMDR Therapy (Eye Movement Densensitization Reprocessing) so much at Flourish Mindset, is it is an incredibly efficient method of therapy.

EMDR Therapy, Proven Effective

Compared to talk therapy, EMDR Therapy has been shown to reduce depression, anxiety, and trauma symptoms more rapidly. Attachment-focused EMDR also offers powerful resources that you can use at home, while traveling, or any time you are triggered to access your inner resources and meet your needs to stay grounded

How to handle Family Conflict This Holiday Season

Are you imagining how you will navigate your holiday dinner with family this year, and starting to sweat? Coordinating a family meal for the holidays or deciding which traditions to honor can bring forth deep emotions, exposing attachment wounds, or unprocessed childhood wounding. Oftentimes, the situations that elicit the most intense emotions can on the surface seem arbitrary. For example: Your sister starting to cry over not being able to make her famous dessert.

Traditions and Their Deeper Meaning

These traditions and holiday rituals often have deeper meaning. We may not be openly acknowledging the importance of a tradition or deeper meaning for the family. Lack of communication around expectations or unspoken family rules can lead to major tension during planning. You may notice yourself becoming defensive or inflexible when holiday tasks and responsibilities are assigned. Or maybe you have a family member who is struggling with proposed changes in the celebrations this year.

If you are feeling confused about how to respond, or feel overwhelmed by the conflict with your family there are a few ways to ease your suffering and take a proactive approach.

Proactive Approaches to Surviving the Holidays:

Set Expectations with Family Members:

Offer space for each member of the family to share what they are excited about and any expectations they have for the upcoming celebrations. Not sure how to do this? You can practice in session with your EMDR therapist to ensure you use the tone and wording to create connection and emotional safety. 

Put Yourself in Their Shoes:

Try to imagine what your relative is going through, validate their experience and try to understand their perspective, to avoid escalating conflict. 

Take Good Care of Yourself:

Stay consistent with your self-care routine, continue to prioritize the things you need to feel healthy and supported. Go to therapy!

How to Navigate Trauma with Family During the Holidays

For those who have more than run of the mill family conflict to deal with during the holidays, the thought of spending an evening in celebration can lose its sparkle and you may be questioning attending at all. For those who have experienced emotional neglect as children the holidays can be a particularly melancholy time. You may notice that old memories come flooding back.  Some memories may be associated with smells, decorations, or traditions that only happen once per year.

Expectation vs. Reality

For many people who grew up with emotionally unavailable parents, or abusive situations, the discrepancy between what you hoped would be your experience of your caregivers during the holidays and what happened in reality can be disturbing. You are an adult now. And, you can rationally understand the struggles your parents went through or have reached acceptance. Yet, you may find big emotions surfacing during the holiday.

Experiencing Grief, Anger, Sadness, or Numbness Is a Natural Response

If you do experience grief, anger, sadness, or feeling numb, remember not to blame yourself. You are responding the way your body naturally needs to. You may find yourself more tearful, irritable, or disconnected, all of which are normal responses to trauma and unmet needs. It may feel hard to connect with others or enjoy yourself. Depending on your situation, it may be best not to engage with certain members of your family if it is not emotionally or physically safe to do so. If you are ready to get some relief and gain support with navigating your experience of the holidays this year, book a consultation with a trained EMDR therapist to get started. 

Alone for the holidays

If you are spending the holiday away from family this year, regardless of the reason it can feel lonely. You may be relieved to be free of a toxic environment or perhaps you are grieving the loss of a loved one. Whether you are grieving or setting boundaries this year, it is important for you to be compassionate with yourself. You may not understand why you are feeling what you are feeling or may be surprised by your responses.

You don’t have to understand your feelings to be compassionate.

Ensure you are non-judgemental towards yourself and work to allow full expressions of your feelings so that you can process them in a healthy way and allow your nervous system to regulate. When we ignore, push down, or numb our emotions they pop back up in unhealthy ways that often do more damage and cause more discomfort than if we were to express them in the first place. If you are feeling overwhelmed with your emotions and struggling to manage your negative memories, you don’t have to do this alone. Book a free consultation to get support this holiday season and see how EMDR therapy can help you release and move forward.

How EMDR Therapy can Help you Survive the Holidays

EMDR works by reducing the body’s fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses that get stuck “on” after being threatened. Our body naturally activates the sympathetic nervous system when we encounter a situation that our brain reads as potentially harmful for us. For people who have experienced a recent break up, emotionally unavailable parents, high conflict households, parents with chronic illness or addictions, divorce, or other childhood wounding, their sympathetic nervous system can be activated and scanning the environment for potential threats in an effort to stay safe emotionally and physically. This nervous system can also be activated when we experience reminders of the disturbing event.

The holidays can create a plethora of reminders

Sometimes layering on multiple years of disturbing experiences during the holidays. These reminders of the disturbing events can cause you to feel as if you are re-experiencing the painful event vividly. EMDR therapy helps to separate the past from the present. With the help of an EMDR therapist, you process maladaptively stored memories (the intense emotions, body sensations, and negative thoughts) and store them in a way where you remember the event occurred without having to feel all the feels or think the negative thoughts again.

Be in the present moment

This can free you up to be in the present moment. You can then experience this version of the holiday and remember the tools you have and safety you possess within yourself. After EMDR many clients report feeling more present and better able to respond to situations rather than reacting, feeling unburdened by the past. If you want to unburden yourself from the past and allow yourself to be here now book a free consultation to learn more about how EMDR therapy can help you this holiday season.

Begin EMDR therapy in Walnut creek, CA Today

The holidays do not have to be a traumatic experience. With the proper help and support you can successfully navigate the holidays and find peace. EMDR is an effective alternative to utilize when traditional Talk Therapy has not resolved your trauma. At Flourish Mindset our skilled team of EMDR therapists understands that each person’s journey to healing is unique and may require unique treatment options. If you are haunted by past trauma you have not been able to overcome follow the simple steps below to get started on the road to healing!

• Get to know our therapists here

• Book a free 15 minute consultation

• Find Peace and Healing