Navigating the Holidays With EMDR, Attachment Awareness, and Realistic Expectations

Nov 25

This blog is adapted from one of our recent podcast episodes. You can take a listen at the button above.

The holidays can be joyful, heart-warming, and deeply meaningful, but they can also stir up anxiety, overwhelm, and old emotional patterns you thought you’d left behind. As the season approaches, many people begin noticing familiar sensations in the body: tension, dread, activation, shutdown. For those with relational trauma histories or complicated family systems, the holidays can feel less like a celebration and more like a minefield.

This guide explores why the holidays hit so hard, how attachment patterns can flare, how EMDR can support you, and practical tools to protect your well-being while still creating moments of genuine joy.

The Holidays: A Perfect Storm for Old Emotional Patterns

There’s a reason so many people find the holidays triggering. Even if you don’t consciously remember difficult past holidays or specific relational injuries, your body remembers. Your nervous system remembers.

Several factors combine to make this season uniquely activating:

Returning to the System That Shaped You

Family gatherings often mean being back in proximity to the people who originally shaped your nervous system. Before you realize it, you may slip into old roles - caretaker, peacemaker, quiet one, problem-solver, invisible one. Even if you’ve done significant healing, stepping back into your family system can pull you into familiar patterns in an instant.

High Expectations, Low Control

Our culture places a tremendous amount of pressure on the holidays. Traditions pile up. Expectations expand. Everything suddenly needs to be perfect: the home, the meal, the outfits, the mood, the relationships.

And yet…you have very little control over how others show up. You may find yourself trying to manage everyone’s emotions or attempting to create the “perfect day” with very few tools or bandwidth.

Performative Joy

There’s often an unspoken demand to appear cheerful, grateful, or festive, even when you’re overwhelmed or hurting. Performance becomes the price of admission, especially in families where authenticity hasn’t historically been welcomed.

Grief in Many Forms

The holidays can amplify grief - not just grief related to loss, but grief for:

the family dynamic you wish you had
the connection you’ve worked so hard to build but still struggle to feel
the version of yourself you’re trying not to revert back to
holidays that didn’t feel safe in the past

Watching other families interact in ways you long for can deepen the ache.

Social Comparison & Marketing Pressure

Media sells a fantasy of the “perfect holiday,” complete with endless harmony, matching pajamas, and emotional breakthroughs by the fireplace. When your reality looks nothing like that, the gap can feel especially painful.

**Holding the Dialectic: Holidays Can Be Hard and Beautiful**

A trauma-informed lens helps us hold two truths at once:

Holidays often contain difficult relational dynamics.
Holidays can also hold moments of warmth, connection, and joy that help carry us through the winter.

Healing doesn’t demand that you deny the hard parts or force the good parts. It simply asks you to give yourself enough space to hold both.

Even if this year contains challenging dynamics, you can still create small pockets of comfort, safety, and meanin… on your own terms.

How EMDR Can Support You Through the Holiday Season

If you are actively in EMDR therapy, the holidays are an ideal time to adjust the pace, the focus, and your overall treatment plan.

It’s Okay to Slow Down

Instead of deep trauma reprocessing during a highly triggering season, it’s completely appropriate to pause or slow down. Many clients shift to resourcing, future templates, and stabilization during the holidays.

You can absolutely tell your therapist:

that you anticipate being around family more
that you expect increased activation
that you may need lighter, more contained EMDR work for a few weeks

Future Templates & Flash Forwards

EMDR offers powerful tools for preparing your nervous system for anticipated stressors. Your therapist can help you “rehearse” upcoming holiday moments, so your body has a grounded, resourced template to follow in real time.

Some examples include imagining:

walking into a family gathering for the first time
seeing a relative who often comments on your appearance
being around someone who drinks heavily
hearing a familiar phrase or tone that usually activates you

Processing these moments ahead of time can significantly reduce nervous system reactivity when the moment actually arrives.

Triaging Your Emotional Needs

EMDR therapists know that the holiday season is delicate. Seasoned clinicians expect clients to need adjustments, support, and strategic care around this time of year. Pausing deep work isn’t avoidance - it’s wisdom.

How Attachment Styles Can Show Up During the Holidays

Although attachment dynamics are nuanced, many people notice familiar patterns surfacing during this season.

Anxious Attachment

People with anxious attachment may:

over-function in order to make everything perfect
manage everyone’s emotions
overserve, overplan, and overgive
feel responsible for maintaining the “holiday mood”

Underneath all of that effort is often a fear of disapproval or disconnection.

Avoidant Attachment

Avoidant attachment may show up as:

keeping busy with work to avoid gatherings
attending events physically but disconnecting emotionally
spending extra time on the phone, outside, or away from the group
shutting down when overstimulated

This is less about disinterest and more about self-protection.

Disorganized Attachment

Disorganized attachment may appear as:

wanting closeness but simultaneously feeling overwhelmed by it
anticipating the holidays with excitement but becoming anxious as they approach
dissociating during gatherings
becoming reactive or shutting down when the environment feels chaotic

This pattern reflects a nervous system that has learned contradictory rules for connection - approach and avoid at the same time.

Practical Tools for a More Grounded Holiday Season

Here are actionable strategies to help you navigate gatherings with more clarity, agency, and calm.

1. Prepare a Few Boundary Scripts Ahead of Time

When you’re activated, new language won’t magically appear. Preparing one or two simple phrases can make boundary-setting dramatically easier:

“I need to step away for a bit - back in 10 minutes.”
“I’m not drinking this year, but thanks.”
“I won’t be able to make it, but I hope you all have a great time.”

Practicing them, even briefly, can make them accessible under pressure.

2. Bring a Grounding Kit

A small bag can be a lifeline in overwhelming environments. Include items that support your sensory system:

peppermint gum or candy
essential oils
a breakable ice pack
a small ball to pass between your hands
Play-Doh or fidgets
a grounding note card with reminders and scripts

Grounding through your senses is one of the fastest ways to regulate.

3. Establish Personal “Exit Rules”

Before the gathering, decide what behaviors or patterns will signal that it’s time to go.

For example:

if a certain relative begins drinking heavily
if arguing escalates
if you feel yourself shutting down

These predetermined boundaries help you avoid guilt-based decision-making in the moment.

4. Protect Time That Matters

Create pockets of rest and connection that are entirely yours. For many families, that looks like keeping Christmas Day sacred or declining events that drain more than they give.

Presence, not participation, should guide your decisions.

You’re Allowed to Have the Holiday You Need

The holidays don’t have to be perfect to be meaningful, and they don’t have to be free of conflict to contain beauty. You can hold space for both - the parts that are tender and the parts that feel magical or comforting.

EMDR can help you prepare for this season with intention rather than fear. Grounding tools can help your nervous system stay present. Attachment awareness can help you make sense of your reactions. And boundaries can help you move through gatherings with clarity and self-trust.

This season may include hard moments and it may also include moments that sustain you. You’re allowed to create the holiday you need, not the one you’re pressured to perform.