Becoming You Again

How To Make The Holidays Yours Again After Divorce

• Karin Nelson • Episode 243

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The holiday season can feel like a pressure cooker after divorce: new custody schedules, money stress, old traditions that no longer fit, and the unspoken rule that you must make it magical for everyone else. In this episode I’m offering you a different way forward. It’s one where you center yourself, protect your energy, and create a simpler, calmer season that actually feels like you.
 
I’ll break down the difference between performance mode and centered mode and why so many of us mistake exhaustion for devotion. You’ll come away from this episode with a better idea about what honest presence looks like for yourself during this holiday season rather than forced cheer. When you choose centered mode, you trade brittle perfection for steady, grounded care. 

As a bonus, if you want extra support, I’ve created a short, self-paced holiday course for divorced women with short guided videos, journal prompts, reframes, and body-based practices to guide you through the season and beyond into you’re life after divorce. Get access now by clicking the link below. 
 
https://www.karinnelsoncoaching.com/home

To download your FREE GUIDE: "7-Day Self Trust Reset" click here.

To schedule your complimentary consult with Karin click here.

If this podcast resonated with you in any way, please take a minute to follow and give me a rating wherever you listen to podcasts.

Karin Nelson:

You are listening to Becoming You Again, episode number 243, and I am your host, Karin Nelson. Welcome to Becoming You Again. The podcast where you learn to step into your power as a woman in this world, where you learn to reconnect to your wholeness, your integrity, and bring into alignment your brain, your body, and your intuition after divorce. This is the podcast where you learn to trust yourself again and move forward toward a life that you truly want. You are listening to Becoming You Again, and I am your host, Karin Nelson. Welcome back to the podcast, my lovely ladies. As always, I am so glad that you're here. I'm so glad to be here with you. Today I'm going to talk about something that comes up every year, especially for divorced women. We're divorcing women, and it can feel heavy, it can feel hard, frustrating, sad, grief-filled. We got all the feels going on, and it is the holidays. I usually try and do a holiday episode every year. Try and get it out like right before Thanksgiving leading into the, you know, Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or whatever you celebrate, holiday seasoning, holiday season of December. And so this is that episode, obviously. Like I just know that the holidays are not fun for so many of you. And especially if this is your first year as you are either divorced or going through a divorce or thinking about divorce leading into the holidays, it can be really like a triggering time of year. I love the holidays. I'm not a huge fan of Thanksgiving, but I like to see my family at Thanksgiving, so I'll take it. But I love Christmas. It is my favorite holiday. I love the twinkle lights, I love giving presents, I love being able to just get together. I love the food, I love it all. But I know that that is not the case for so many women, especially if you're going through a divorce. And I'm not saying that the holidays have to mean to you the same thing that they mean to me, but I do want you to know that they don't have to feel so heavy and you don't have to like dread going into the holidays every year. You don't have to completely love it, but it is possible for you to get to a place where it's fine, where it's just another thing that you do that doesn't have to feel heavy or dreaded, or, you know, feel like it's the most terrible time of year. Let's get to a place where it's just fine or you look forward to it or however you want to feel about it. Okay. So that's what I'm hoping with this podcast. And make sure to stick around until the end of this episode because I have something to tell you about that I'm excited to tell you about that may also help you with the holiday season. Okay, so I know that the holidays maybe don't mean like, yay, twinkle lights and mm, hot chocolate and oh, fuzzy socks, they're my favorite. Like it might actually mean to you, like, great, now I have all of the emotional highs and lows that I have to deal with. And awesome, I have this new custody schedule that I'm really not looking forward to because guess what? That means for the first time in my life, I'm not gonna see my kids on Thanksgiving, or I don't actually get my kids on Christmas. Thanks. Divorce, right? Or the money stress. The money stress is huge. Or trying to figure out like they were always our holidays were always so magical before, and now I just I don't know how I'm gonna do that. Or maybe like you're just feeling like you are running on fumes. You're tired all the time. You feel like you have to live up to these expectations of what the holidays used to look like, but now you work full-time and you don't feel like you can do that. Like, we got a lot of shit going on, okay? And I want you to know that I see you. I understand you may be feeling all of those things. Let's lighten that load for you. How about that? Okay. Because the holidays have a way of putting women, especially after divorce, right back into performance mode. Like I'm the one in charge of making the magic happen. I'm the one in charge of gift wrapping, buying the gifts, managing the lists. It's like all year long, you're already doing all the stuff. And then November and December come around and the world and society is like, here you go, here's a platter for more for you to do. It's your job. And as I said, if you're divorced, it's just an extra layer of all of this bullshit. Because now you're starting, you're trying to coordinate with your ex, or you're worrying about how your kids are feeling or doing through this holiday season, or you're trying to figure out where you fit into this idea of what new normal or this new life is going to look like. So today I am going to talk about something that might sound a little weird, might sound a little uncomfortable, but I want you to know it's actually probably the most important thing that you can do for yourself through the holiday season. I am talking about making you the center of your holiday season. Most women who go through a divorce start to come to this realization that they're like, I have never been the center of my own life. Not ever, not one time. And by making the decision to divorce, that is me regarding myself, centering me and centering my needs. And it's really important that women do that. Not to become selfish or narcissistic or whatever the world wants to label you as, but because you actually are important in this life. You are an individual that has, that is just as important as everyone else that exists in this world. Even though the society doesn't believe that or tell you that, you can start to believe yourself and tell yourself that. My cat is eating his food behind me, and I so I'm just gonna apologize right now if you can hear his very noisy eating. He's quite the noisy eater. So just disregard that if you can hear it in the background. I'm gonna continue on. Hopefully, it doesn't get much louder. Because here's what I see over and over with my clients and with women in of the world today, women out there living in the world today. We are taught that centering ourselves means pouring ourselves into everyone else. We are taught that caring for our family is actually what is supposed to fulfill us and make us feel important and useful. And sometimes it does. I'm not saying that that's bad or wrong, but when that is the only reason that you live or have a life or feel worthy or feel valuable, something is wrong with that picture. Because when you spend all of your energy meeting everyone else's needs, it is really easy to mistake exhaustion for devotion in your family. You are not a bad mom for wanting something else for yourself. You are not selfish for wanting a quieter or a less chaotic holiday where you're not the one running around taking care of everyone else's needs and presents and all of the things. You are a human being, you are an individual with needs that matter just as much as everyone else's. So let's talk about what it actually looks like to center yourself this season, to regard yourself this season. I'm gonna walk you through a very simple nervous system support tool called pre-regulation. And then at the end, I'm going to introduce you to something that I created specifically to support you through this holiday season so that you can actually have an enjoyable holiday after your divorce. Okay, so what we've got when we're women living in this world is we've got performance mode and then we've got centered mode. Okay. So performance mode is like, I have to decorate the house by December 1st or I'm behind. Something has gone wrong. Like I'm just not getting enough done. Or I need to make sure that the kids don't feel the divorce during all of this holiday stuff going on. I want to make sure that they're okay. Again, caveat here. Of course you care about your kids. And I'm not saying that you shouldn't care if they are handling this okay. Also, it doesn't need to be your only concern, okay? Or you might be thinking of something like, well, I should still get my ex a thoughtful gift from the kids, or he'll think that I'm petty, or maybe everyone else is watching how I handle this. I can't fall apart. I have to be strong. I have to be the one that holds it all together. Okay, that's performance mode. All right. We're gonna leave that in the past. We're not doing that anymore. We're done with that. This is what centered mode sounds like. If I'm the one that's gonna be creating the magic this holiday season, I get to decide when that begins and what it looks like. Or, you know what? I'm allowed to say no to things that I don't have time for that are draining on me that I'm not excited about, that I don't want to do. And if other people are mad, that's on them. Or, you know what? In this life after divorce or during or during divorce, I can let go some of the traditions that no longer fit who I am or what my life looks like. Or I'm allowed to be a human. I can feel my feelings and still be a loving mom. I can feel my feelings and still feel like I am strong and devoted to my family. And that doesn't mean I have to show up and do everything for everyone. Right? Centering yourself looks very practical. Like it might mean you know what? You get to decorate whenever you want, or not at all. Like for me, like I said at the beginning, I love Christmas. It is my favorite thing. I love the twinkle lights. It is probably my very favorite thing of the holiday season, twinkle lights. I want them everywhere all the time. I put up my Christmas tree. I didn't decorate it, but I put up my Christmas tree, I'm not even joking, October 1st. And I had zero guilt about that. I had zero like feelings about that was wrong. I just didn't care. I was doing it, and everyone around me who's not really into the holiday season, okay, you can deal with it. You can feel uncomfortable with me centering my love for Christmas in this house. Right? Like nobody really cared. But I cared. And so because I cared, I put it up on October 1st. You do not have to put your Christmas tree up on October 1st. You do not have to be like me. I want you to be like you. I want you to center you. You want to put it up November, mid-December? Not at all. Never? Great. Do it. You're the one doing the work, so it happens on your timeline. Okay, it can also look like saying no without justification or explanation. Nope, I can't do that right now. But thanks for thinking of me. Nope, that doesn't work for me. I'll check back with you in the new year. Or no, I actually can't make it. Thanks for asking. Right? Like there's no extra explanation. There's no hoping people will understand or trying to make an excuse or elaborating on why. You don't need to do any of that. None of that. We are not stepping into that. I want you to stop being the default gift buyer for everyone, and that includes your ex or anyone in his extended family. And that might even include getting presents from your kids to your ex, to their dad. If that's something that you want to do, totally do it. My kids are old enough now that they just do it on their own. They've been doing it on their own for years. If this is too much for you, but you still want your kids to think about their dad, maybe sit down with him and say, hey, like if they're younger and they can't do it on their own, say, hey, do you want to draw a picture for your dad? Do you want to make him a card? Do you want to like, let's take a picture and print it off? And you can write him a letter about how much you love him. Great. That can be your Christmas present. Like, you don't need to bend over backwards to make the holiday special for your ex any longer. That is not your responsibility. And for you to continue to take that on in divorce, again, it's totally up to you, but like your reasons for doing it. Okay. And I'm giving you permission if you don't want to do it anymore, or if you've been doing it and you're like, I'm sick of doing this, here's your permission to stop. And I want you to know in this, let's look at things practically and what we can cut out, you can let some traditions die. You can, you're allowed to. If you're every Christmas, you previously baked a thousand different kinds of cookies and you sent out holiday cards to everyone and you were always the one who was hosting the dinner and it made you miserable or you are too tired or you are just fucking over it. Stop. Stop doing it. The world will continue to spin, the world will keep on living. Stop doing it. This is about taking care of you. This is about creating really powerful shifts that let you see yourself, that let you regard you. That let you know I'm gonna take care of me. I am going to show up for me. And if this is the first time in my life that I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna start now because I am just as important as everyone else in my surroundings, in this world. I'm not gonna leave it up to everyone else to take care of me. I'm going to take care of me. And what does that look like? So let's talk about this pre-regulation, this thing that I talked about a few minutes ago. What is that? Most of us are using regulation to try and realign our nervous system after we've been triggered in some way, right? After we've had a terrible conversation or we've got a crappy text from our ex or we're in a at a holiday party and like we're getting bombarded with questions or judgment or whatever. And so we use that as a regulation tool for our nervous system to bring us like back online, bring our brain back online to, you know, realign our nervous system and to help us feel more in control of ourselves and to feel safe in ourselves, right? And that's beautiful. Keep doing that. But this pre-regulation, this is different. It's about supporting your nervous system before you go into like really high intense environments, like the Christmas party or, you know, getting on a FaceTime with your ex, or maybe going into mediation over the holiday season because that's when it was scheduled or whatever, right? This is about supporting yourself before. It's like giving your brain and your body like a little heads up, like, hey, guess what? I got you. We're safe. We can do this. I'm here for you. I'm here to support you. Let's work together here. That's like your internal voice saying to yourself. Okay. So I want you to think about this instead of waiting until you're already overwhelmed, you're already exhausted, you're already too tired. You spend a few minutes every day just preparing your nervous system, your brain for that soul alignment where we've got your brain, your body, and your intuition in alignment and you're supporting it and letting it know that it's safe, that you're safe, and you're here. So, how do we do that? Every day, for just a few minutes, we orient ourselves. What does orient mean? Orient means I look around me and I notice the things that are around me that tell me that I am in this present moment. I am seeing it, I am feeling it. Right? So, like, let me show you what's around me. Oh, my coffee cup, my computer screen, my mic, my paintings on the wall, my French doors, the Christmas tree in my office. Okay. I am present. Maybe it means I notice my feet on the floor underneath me. What do my feet feel like as they touch the floor? What does this soft blanket that is on my lap feel between my fingertips? That is how we orient. It does not have to take a lot of time. You don't even have to stop doing what you're doing. If you're washing your dishes in the morning or loading the dishwasher or making a lunch for your kid for school, be present with it. Orient yourself to it. Okay. That is what pre-regulation is. So pause, look around, gently like move your eyes around the room and name five things that you see. Notice something like a tree outside, outside the window that's like far away. Then notice something that's close to you. Like, oh, there's a tree outside across the street. Oh, my mic is like actually right in front of me. Like that far and then near, far, near. That's a good way to orient. Again, notice the weight of your body in relation to things. The weight of your body in relation to the floor, the weight of your body sitting on the chair. What does it feel like? What does the chair feel like to support your body? Like, notice these things. Notice the temperature of your skin. Notice the temperature of like your hands in your lap. My hands are actually really cold right now, but the rest of me is warm. So like I'm noticing that my hands feel cold. Like, notice these things. Shift your attention from your thoughts into these simple sensations that are reminding your brain and your body that you are in the present moment. And in this moment, you are safe. Do it a few times without forcing anything. This is not about forcing yourself to be calm. This is about like widening your body's ability to stay present in moments where the stimulus is going to get high, where the intensity may be high. We're practicing in moments where we're already calm. That's what the preregulation is, right? You're already regulated in these moments for the most part. Maybe, maybe you've got some things going on. But like for the most part, you don't have people yelling at you or judging you, or a text that you just got from your ex where he's like out of control emotionally. So we do it in an in like a low-key environment where we practice and we create capacity for our brain and our bodies and our nervous system's ability to respond in high intense moments because we know those are coming in the days and weeks ahead through through the holidays and through the your divorce to be real. This isn't just stuff that you can use during the holidays. This is stuff you use all the time. Right. So pre-regulation is basically just saying, like, I don't have to wait until I'm drowning to be able to offer myself that life preserver, right? I can support myself now and teach myself how to do that and what that feels like to be safe. All right. So practice that over the like the next few weeks leading up to the holidays and through the holidays. Okay. Now, I just want you to know you do not have to do all of this alone. Yes, you're going to do that orienting alone for the most part, but you don't have to do the rest of your holiday season alone. Because some of you might be sitting there listening and going, okay, cool. Yeah, that sounds great, but I still feel overwhelmed and I still feel totally unsure about how I'm actually going to do the holidays differently this year. And I'm not looking forward to it and I have no fucking idea how I'm going to get through it. Guess what? I got you. I got you. I created something just for you. I put together a holiday course. It is self-paced. It is specifically for divorced women. It is short. It is for women who want to feel calmer, who want to feel more grounded, who want to feel like they are themselves going into this holiday season. If you're sick of like feeling you're like you're just auditioning for best holiday performer while secretly falling apart or secretly feeling like the world is ending and your life sucks ass, but you're just going to pretend in front of everyone. If you're tired of that audition, this course is for you. Because here's what you get in this course. You're going to learn how to let go of like old rules and expectations that society has put on us about what family looks like, what it means around the holidays, and all of that bullshit. Okay. I'm swearing a lot on this podcast. I'm sorry about that. But also sometimes I just feel like swearing a lot. So here you go. Um, you're gonna learn how to like emotionally take care of yourself during this holiday season so that you don't have to feel emotionally exhausted all the time. You're gonna learn how to set boundaries for yourself and take care of yourself. And you're gonna learn how to let go of the guilt that often comes along with those boundaries when we set them so that you don't have to feel guilty about every decision that you make throughout the holiday season. You're gonna learn how to make new, meaningful traditions that honor who you are now, who your kids are now, and what you're going through now. You are going to learn how to work with your nervous system. You're gonna do practices like pre-regulation, like regulation, like grounding exercises, like self-compassion. You're gonna learn what to do when you are by yourself over the holidays. Because I know for a lot of you, you've never done that. You've never had to do that. You never thought that would ever even be something that you would think of until your kids were like off on their own with their own families, maybe. And even then, maybe they'd probably come home, right? This is a real thing that you're gonna have to deal with at some point. Maybe you have the kids for both holidays this year and maybe you don't. I'm gonna teach you what to do when you don't have your kids so that you're not just spinning in sadness and loneliness and despair the whole time. Okay? And so much more. Like those are just that's a tip of the iceberg. I promise you, you're gonna get so much out of this course because it's gonna come with videos where I walk you through everything. It comes with guided tools, journal prompts, reframes, nervous system practices, and so much more that you can use like through the holiday season. But I'm telling you, all of these tools are going to help you not just this year, but throughout your divorce as well. Because your life is going to continue after December 31st. And your life is going to continue through the holiday season, but all of these things are going to help you know how to support yourself as you go through the rest of next year and through your divorce and through your mediation and through your life and the transitions and all of the things. This is a gentle supportive companion that you can come back to whenever you feel like you are slipping into that performance mode mode of, oh, I got the, I've got to be the good girl, I've got to show up, I've got to like uphold these expectations of everyone. No, no, you do not. This course is gonna help teach you how to let go of all that. Okay. If this is resonating with you, I want you to check it out. I got the link below in the description that you can find it. You can find it on my website. And this is here to support you. So here's one thing I want you to do as you move through this holiday season. You are not responsible for making the holidays perfect for everyone. That was never your job in the first place, even though it maybe it felt like it was, it was never your job in the first place. And so now is your opportunity to start to let that conditioning go. You are not required to hold on to all of the traditions, all of the emotions, all of the expectations of everyone else. You're not required to do that. You are allowed to choose rest. You are allowed to make it simple. You are allowed to make it look exactly the way you want it to look. You are allowed to center yourself throughout this holiday season. It does not make you selfish to center yourself. It makes you honest. It makes you grounded. It makes you a woman who is learning to trust herself again through one of the hardest things that she's ever gone through. It makes you a woman who realizes that you are an individual living in this world in the same way that everyone else is as well. And you are just as important as them. So this week I want you to just try two simple things, okay? Say no to at least one thing that might feel heavy or you might have said yes typically previously, out of obligation or out of an old expectation. Just say no and no further explanation to go along with it. Just say no if it feels right to you. And then practice some of that preregulation, practice some of that orienting, okay? This is easy. You can do that. You can totally do that. Again, if you want more support, more tools, get that holiday course. It's cheap. It's typically $39 right now through November 30th. It's on sale for $29. Go get it. If it feels like it's gonna help you and you need some guidance, go pick it up. You are doing so much better than you think. You're doing amazing. I am so proud of you. Please be proud of yourself. Please be proud of yourself. You are incredible. I love you so much. You are strong, you are capable, you are worthy. That is what I have for you today. I will talk to you next week. Hi, friend. I'm so glad you're here and thanks for listening. I wanted to let you know that if you're wanting more, a way to make deeper, more lasting change, then working one-on-one with me as your coach may be exactly what you need. Together, we'll take everything you're learning in the podcast and implement it in your life with weekly coaching, real life practice, and practical guidance. To learn more about how to work with me one-on-one, go to Karin Nelson Coaching.com. That's www.k-ar-in-n, n-l-s-o-n coaching.com. Thanks for listening. If this podcast agreed with you in any way, please take a minute to follow and give me a rating wherever you listen to podcasts. And for more details about how I can help you live an even better life than when you were married, make sure and check out the full show notes by clicking the link in the description.

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Karin Nelson

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