If returning home for the holidays makes you feel like all your healing evaporates the second you walk through the door- this episode will make your whole nervous system exhale.
Today we’re breaking down why your body pulls you back into old patterns around family, especially if you’re the eldest daughter, a recovering people-pleaser, or grew up in a home where emotional volatility, silence, comparison, or pressure was the norm.
Inside, we cover:
Why holiday visits activate stored childhood survival patterns
How “regression” is actually your nervous system revisiting its origin story and not failure
Why triggers around weight, career, expectations, and tone-of-voice hit so hard
How parentification rewires your stress response and identity
Why your body shuts down logic and flips into amygdala mode around family
How to stop internalizing comments, criticism, and subtle emotional cues
Why sensitivity isn’t weakness and how it’s information your body learned to read for safety
How to honor your growth without abandoning the younger version of you
This is a mindset-heavy, nervous-system-informed episode that explains the actual psychology behind your irritation, shutdowns, defensiveness, people-pleasing, over-functioning, and emotional fatigue during the holidays.
If you’re a woman who grew up holding the emotional weight of your household, this episode will feel like someone finally put language to your entire internal world.
Work with me inside Regulate & Release (8-month nervous system healing program). First steps here
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Website: dainwellness.com