How to Cope with Trauma Triggers During the Holidays - A compassionate guide for anyone navigating memories, moments, and meaning

 

How to Cope with Trauma Triggers During the Holidays

A compassionate guide for anyone navigating memories, moments, and meaning

The holiday season can be beautiful with twinkling lights, warm food, connection, and time off.
But for many of us, it’s also a time of tension, emotional overwhelm, and the resurgence of old pain.

As a trauma-informed coach, nurse, veteran, and spouse of a veteran with CPTSD, I know firsthand how the holidays can bring up more than just joy. They can stir grief. Resurface childhood wounds. Trigger body memories. They can remind us of what we didn’t have growing up, what we’ve lost, or how fractured some family dynamics still are.

If you find yourself struggling at this time of year, you’re not broken.
You’re responding appropriately to an environment that holds complexity.

Let’s talk about how to navigate it together and with grace.

🌪️ Why the Holidays Can Be So Triggering

We often assume triggers must be big and dramatic. But trauma lives in the body, and it responds to subtle cues such as smells, songs, expectations, and social pressures.

Here’s what can feel difficult:

• Being around family who may have contributed to or ignored your trauma
• Grief over a loved one who is no longer here
• Financial stress and the pressure to perform or please
• Changes in routine, sleep, food, or alcohol
• Feeling like you’re supposed to be happy when you’re not

Even “good” things like closeness and celebration can feel unsafe if your nervous system learned that connection was unpredictable or painful.

🧠 How Your Nervous System Reacts

During the holidays, your nervous system might go into:

• Fight: Snapping at relatives or the kids, irritability, tension
• Flight: Avoiding gatherings, overworking, overplanning
• Freeze: Numbing out, disassociating, feeling stuck, taking to your bed
• Fawn: People-pleasing, abandoning your own needs to keep the peace

Sound familiar? You're not alone. These are protective responses, not flaws.

💛 Ways to Cope, Ground, and Reclaim Safety

Here are some gentle, trauma-informed strategies to support you:

1. Name the Trigger. Make it Conscious.

Awareness softens the reaction. If you feel off, pause and ask:

“What just happened that made my body feel unsafe?”
“What memory, dynamic, or expectation did this stir up?”

Writing it down or saying it aloud can help you ground yourself in the present.

2. Create a “Plan B” for Boundaries

Give yourself permission to:

• Say no to events that feel unsafe or exhausting
• Take breaks (yes, even hiding in the bathroom is valid!)
• Leave early, or skip altogether
• Set time limits on phone calls or conversations

Boundaries are not rejection. They are kindness in action — to yourself and others.

3. Have a Grounding Toolkit Ready

Build your own "nervous system first aid kit" for the holidays. Ideas:

• A grounding stone or essential oil
• Breathwork (try 4-7-8 breathing) (box breathing)
• Somatic shaking or stretching
• A calming playlist or safe podcast
• A pre-written message you can text someone for support

For me, going outside for five minutes, touching a tree, and doing some slow breaths helps me reset when the energy feels too much. Or even going for a walk.

4. Find Your People (Even If They’re Not Blood)

Your chosen family might not be the one you were born into. Spend time (virtually or in person) with people who see and celebrate you. Trauma isolates, and connection heals.

Create your own rituals if traditional ones feel hard.
Movie nights, solo dinners, quiet mornings with tea — all valid.

5. Don’t Feel Bad for Feeling Bad

If you feel sadness, rage, numbness, or grief during the holidays, you are not ruining anything. You’re honouring your truth.

“Joy is not made to be a crumb,” wrote poet Mary Oliver.
But neither is pain. Let it be seen. Let it breathe. You are allowed to feel all of it.

6. Practice Compassionate Self-Leadership

This is where trauma-informed self-leadership comes in.
You become the one who steadies yourself. You give the younger part of you what they never had: understanding, safety, and presence.

Ask yourself:

• What would help me feel safe right now?
• What am I allowed to say no to?
• How can I nurture myself instead of pushing myself?

🕯️ Closing Thoughts: You Are Not Alone

If this season feels heavy, please know that you are not the only one quietly struggling beneath the glitter.

You’re not failing at the holidays—you’re navigating them with the nervous system of someone who’s lived through real stuff. That deserves honour, not shame.

You can celebrate your way. You can rest. You can step back. You can heal.

And if you need a calm corner or a listening ear, you’re always welcome in the community I’m building — a place where trauma-informed care isn’t a buzzword, but a way of being.

With gentleness and connection,
Caron 💜