Want to Avoid Holiday Family Drama? Here’s How to Stay Sane (From a Licensed Therapist)

Even after years of being grown-up, something about being home for the holidays can bring old emotions rushing back. 

You might be doing deep healing work — building boundaries, unpacking generational pain — and then once you’re back home with the family where it all started, you feel twelve years old again. Suddenly, you’re saying yes to anything you’re asked to do and slipping back into old roles, wondering why your siblings get praised for showing up with a frozen pie while you’ve been cooking for two days. And somehow, all of your life choices are open for discussion and judgment. 

If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone! It doesn’t mean you’ve regressed, it means you’re human. And the good news is, you can avoid all that.

Why the Holidays Can Feel So Hard, Even When You’ve Been Healing

Family dynamics are powerful, and the holidays have a way of bringing them into full force (or, let’s be honest, bringing out the worst). If you find yourself slipping back into the old you  — feeling anxious, people-pleasing, shrinking yourself — that’s a sign something deeper is being triggered. 

You can spend months or years doing deep inner work, feeling grounded and proud of how far you’ve come…and then one family gathering can send you spiraling back into patterns you thought you’d outgrown.

You might notice that:

• You feel smaller around your parents and siblings, like you’ve time-traveled back to a younger version of yourself.

• You start anticipating comments about your body, your food choices, or your life decisions.

• You feel conflicted as a Mama — wanting your kids to know their grandparents, but worrying about what they might be exposed to.

• You catch yourself thinking, “Why am I suddenly so anxious? I thought I was past this.”

If you’ve been healing, these realizations are actually a sign of progress. You’re seeing your family through a new lens — one that recognizes old dynamics, imbalances, and unspoken rules. Maybe it’s noticing how the men sit down after dinner while the women clean up. Or realizing your mom is more affectionate with your daughter than your son, but more forgiving with your son than your daughter. Or realizing how the food on your plate inevitably gets commented on, always too much or too little.

It can feel disorienting, frustrating, and even make you dread being around family for the holidays. You’re not imagining it. Your body remembers what it felt like to be that younger version of you, even if your mind says, “I’m over it.” And when you walk back into that environment again, your nervous system automatically prepares for what it knows: survival.

If you notice yourself bracing for the holidays instead of looking forward to them, that’s a sign your body could use a reset — and that’s where a short EMDR intensive can help.

How EMDR Can Help You Deal With Family Drama During The Holidays

When your nervous system slips into survival mode, logic alone can’t pull you out of it. You can know you’re safe, that you’re an adult now, that your parents’ words don’t define you, and still feel that familiar knot in your stomach or urge to appease everyone.

EMDR helps your brain and body process those old experiences so you can enter the final stages of healing. It’s not about erasing memories or pretending your family is different than who they are, it’s about releasing the emotional charge that keeps you stuck in old patterns so you can show up the way you want to. 

A short, focused half-day EMDR intensive packs the work of a month of therapy into one afternoon and gives you the space to reset before the holidays. Instead of showing up braced for drama, you walk in grounded, calm, and ready to handle what comes.

What We Work On in a Holiday Prep EMDR Intensive

Our work together is based on your needs. In just 3-4 hours, we can focus on what’s already stirring for you, the scenarios you’re dreading, the conversations you replay in your head, the guilt that always seems to tag along…and turn them into tools to arm you this holiday season.

In just a few hours, we can:

• Get clear on what’s triggering your anxiety ahead of time, so you can walk in calm instead of braced for impact.

• Work through the memories your body still holds onto, even if your mind has moved on.

• Practice real-life scenarios. We help your brain step into the moments you know are coming — the food comments, backhanded compliments, guilt trips, or boundary pushes — so you have language and tools ready.

• Strengthen your regulation skills. You’ll leave with grounding strategies that help you stay steady when things get tense.

• Set boundaries you can actually hold. Together, we’ll identify what feels realistic this year — what you’ll say yes to, what you’ll say no to, and how to say it confidently.

• Planning practical workarounds. Maybe that means ordering pre-made sides instead of cooking for twelve hours, or building in time to shower and breathe so you don’t end up feeling & looking like a garbage gremlin in the family photos because you’ve been stewing away at the stove, unlike everyone else (trust me, I have those photos too).

By the end, you’ll have a clear plan that helps you enjoy the holidays on your own terms — grounded, proud, and at peace with how you showed up.

Clients notice themselves walking out feeling lighter, more present, and less reactive — not because their family changed, but because their response did. 

And after the holidays? The follow-up check-ins are some of our favorites. Hearing clients talk about how proud they felt showing up exactly the way they wanted to. And maybe, heaven forbid, that they were able to even enjoy themselves a little!

Before You Head Into the Holidays

I need you to know something: You won’t be perfect…nobody is. But if you prepare yourself ahead of time, you’ll walk into the holidays feeling calm — like the adult version of yourself again. The one you’ve been working so hard to become.

That’s why doing this work before the holidays matters. When you give your nervous system time to prep, you’re not scrambling in survival mode once things get busy. You’re walking in grounded, clear, and confident from the start.

And the support doesn’t stop there. Between holidays, you are always able to access follow-up sessions — short, affordable check-ins to help you stay steady or celebrate how far you’ve come. Sometimes it’s a five-minute moment of a “I did it differently this time” dance party, and sometimes it’s asking for a little extra help before the next family event to ensure you keep showing up as you want to. Either way, you don’t have to white-knuckle it through the season alone.

If you’ve been feeling that familiar dread creeping in, now’s the time to get ahead of it. A half-day EMDR intensive in November can help you walk into the holidays proud of how you handle them — and maybe, just maybe, even enjoy yourself a little too.

Schedule your Half-Day EMDR Holiday Prep Intensive today and give yourself the gift of support before the chaos begins.