dare to go home in full technicolour this christmas, without the threat of a lingering hangover from being bent out of shape by your family
Because, the more aware of our gifts and sensitivity we become as women, the less we are prepared to put up with Mom being overbearing, needy and narcissistic, Dad having one too many sherries and turning on the passive agression and our children becoming the brunt of ‘bad behaviour’ jokes that are funny-not-funny, as our old auntie wilts away into the corner.
Worried about giving away your values and beliefs so as not to blow up the Christmas dinner?
Exhausted of managing everyone else’s emotions, when there’s never been space for your own?
Finding raising a family hard enough, without having to raise your parents too?
Not even sure if you’ll commit to doing it again after this year as its always so atrocious, even if its your children who’ll be the ones missing out?
“Why do you always have to be soooo over-sensitive, darling? Can’t you take a joke?”
Truth is, even if we’ve worked hard on ourselves, are au fait with psychotherapy and done some digging into the mother wound, it can still be hard not to mold ourselves to fit into our parents’ expectations - out of habit and survival. It can be even harder when we’re aware that we’re contorting ourselves for family and not project some level of frustration and resentment outward at the people responsible for co-creating that experience.
Marry that with being reminded of childhood in every room, ritual, reprisal - and going home can be hard work.
PLUS, its Christmas, so everyone’s expected to be on their best behaviour. Which, if you’re anything like me, is like a red rag to the bull… Trouble is, acting out isn’t really the remit either - for want of ending up on the naughty step (pass the peas anyone?).
“What exactly is it you do again, sweetheart? I don’t know why you have to always make things so complicated. ”
my rerun
Nearly 20 years ago now, the mere thought of needing my parents in any way, even just for the holidays, used to give me the creeps. I’d moved further away and I’d established a life that didn’t depend on them anymore; I felt stronger and able to reinvent myself and they could enjoy the independence of their retirement, without me telling them what they needed to do (and them finding a way to deliver in a way that suited them).
I'm grateful that seeing them was never overtly unsafe, but being with them over sustained periods had always required a certain amount of editing of who I was being, what I was doing, what I was saying - to fall more in line with their expectations of me (the me they wished I was) and as to not directly disrupt the status quo. That was exhausting; emotionally, mentally, energetically, physically - and rather than continue to reach out to them in the hope of being seen in the way I needed to be, at some point I had given up, my cries falling to the void.
They were experiencing the brittle shell of who I actually was. I was left with having to prop myself up with something outside of myself, which, if you're reading this, probably know isn't healthy. Christmases were a white noise of gin, pot and enabling boyfriends and the exhaustion of pushing this ball of revolution (sic rebellion) up a hill was leading me fast into burnout. Burnout exhibited in chronic migraines. Migraines resulted in further anaesthetisation. Anaesthetisation was addressing the symptom, the physical pain, but it was keeping me in agony emotionally and energetically; disassociated and out of my body and at a distance from not only my family, but from connecting with everyone and everything around me.
I needed something gentler, something that favoured peace over being right. Something that would start to ease the pain of existing despite my body.
The question of HOME and HEARTH kept being shown to me inside and out; I was looking for it in everything and everyone. But how was I supposed to connect into and receive from my Home, my lands and my family precisely when they didn't even know who I was anymore (and by this point, I wasn't even living in my home country)?
Enter a new way to resourcing through ancestry...
Working safely and slowly in the psychic space offered me the possibility of trying on vulnerability for size in my interplay with my parents,
Helped me to understand where I was still in states of defense, bracing against an unseen army,
Disassociating when what I deeply desired was to be seen and heard and loved,
And to feel deeply again; in my body, with my body (not just the states of bliss I had become accustomed to labelling as spiritual)...
The penny dropped and I realised that in committing to cutting my family off, I had committed to cutting myself off from Life - and everything that comes with.
Making moves over time to reconnect to them, myself, my bones, heritage, soil, put breath back into my body, relaxed my belly so that I didn't have to clench tight any more in order to stay in the room, I no longer had to work things out with my mind - and overburden my head - I could tap a root much deeper, connect with and be guided my creativity again and refresh my desire to write, to share, to speak in a different tone and show up more wholly.
This then began to usher out into my marriage; creating space to connect with our love for each other beneath the wounds, creating pauses in our dialogue that we once would have jumped into.
Our children also felt more stable and grounded and were able to release the burden of being the glue that held our family together.
My migraines slowly ebbed into something more manageable - no longer the only solution for my body and soma to take a break from the turmoil of being disconnected from my Soul.
And I no longer felt like I had to hold my parents at a distance, take them by the hand, or create invisible walls when I was with them - and I’m pleased to say that these are now some of the most cherished and freeing relationships I have in my life.
Finally, I found my road back Home.
Overwhelm and burnout rendered me useless as a mother. The solution I found after 2 decades of searching was wrapped up in my relationship with my mother and all the women who stand behind her.
your rerun
Give less of a crap about what others might say or feel as you turn up more fully - holding your tone (even if its not sharing your whole brand’s mission statement with Auntie Pat) without having to hide who you are or what you need.
Stop old discord dead in its tracks, by centering to presence and patience - creating pause, gaps and breathing space - so you can respond versus react.
Release the exhausting hypervigilance of caretaking the vibe, so that you can focus on finding that relaxing place in your belly that IS home (and let everyone else have a good time in their own way in the process).
Soften the resentment you’ve been harbouring for Mom, who hasn’t been there for you in the way you’ve needed her, so that the walls of defense might slowly start to crumble and you can make eye contact again beyond the Berlin Wall - before old age and/ or senility takes a hold and reconciliation is either futile or skin-deep.
Give yourself permission to be the juiced-up, creative woman stuffed with aliveness that you desire to be in 2025; the entrepreneur, facilitator, alchemist - as well as the mother you are to your epoch-altering children - by first practicing these skills at home.
The package
Parts 1, 2 & 3 of Your Christmas RERUN, delivered sequentially for you to listen to, contemplate, attune to and practice.
Private Q&A by email for 12 days following delivery of Part 1, to support you in writing your new Christmas story.
the exchange
FREE of charge before New Year’s Eve, then 155GBP or possibly, I won’t offer it again at all.
Includes over 1450GBP of value if sold separately. In my experience, this is priceless - something I wish hadn’t taken me 2 decades to work out.
Single private sessions are currently 555GBP for a reset package of 3. Private mentorship is currently 2222GBP/ month for 6x months.
I don’t know if I’ll offer this in this format again (or at all), so please do gift the link to your friends while its HOT (gracious if you’ll put me in the credits if you do so).
“I feel a lightness in my being which feels pretty consistent and whereas I have in the past felt a kind of vulnerability to overwhelm, right now overwhelm feels quite far off, far away, almost as if I can’t feel it in my system in the way that I might have done in the past.
That sounds like a sort of slightly odd way of describing something but I’m not saying that the sort of potential to be in overwhelm has gone by any means I suspect but it does feel like there’s a robustness in me or a resourced-ness. It feels like I feel more resourced and I feel a lightness and I feel much more aware of all my thoughts and feelings and it’s almost as if it feels like there’s very little that I’m identified with.
I’m managing to hold myself in what arises and just allowing it to arise and pass which is really helping me stay in a place of an open heart.”