This time of year can be filled with joy, connection, and great holiday vacations.

This time of year can also be a real struggle like:
holiday to-dos added to your already busy schedule, slower work (and money) coming in, less days the kids are in school, increased offerings of foods and drinks you know make you feel off, anxiety about being crammed in a house with the people you love the most AND are triggered by the most.

No wonder the New Years is a popular time to diet, retreat, reboot, and reset. Many need it after all the struggle-effects of the holiday season.

“It’s the holidays” can be a reason your brain gives you to over-indulge and justify hangovers and weight gain.

“I just got to get through the end-of-year craziness” somehow justifies throwing your self-care routines out the window making you feel a little more than off balance.

For the average American anxiety, depression, bloating, brain fog, and weight gain rates peak end of year, every year.

But not for everyone.

Yesturday, I was with a client who has lost 36 pounds in the last 6 months in my food and mood coaching program. She came to our session asking, “How do I apply the tools I have learned to manage my anxiety and weight on my building anxiety around being crammed in a house with my sister for a week over Christmas?”

One of the first things I shared with her is that the work we do with our family’s is our soul work and it is the hardest. You don’t have to do it.

She wanted to.

We then dove into her relationship with her family and figured out where her anxiety was coming from, we brought curiosity and compassion into both her role with her sister and for her sister’s struggles.

She learned about her part and a fostered desire to work on the part of their relationship she can control… herself.

She called out who she wants to be (and doesn’t want to be) over Christmas.

She ended our call with a mindset of expecting and accepting the Christmas week to have challenges and discomforts. She left the call with options for how to interrupt her childhood pattern of snappy, defensive, and explosive.

She got off our call feeling less anxious and feeling capable to take care of herself so that she can show up how she wants to show up; present and excited to see her sister.

This is a taste of the inner shifts coaching gives us access to.

The holidays do not have to be a time to go along with the average American health decline (mental, emotional, and physical).

The holidays can be a time to step up and do our soul work… if you want to.