There is so much that can be triggered during the holidays and it varies for each person given your own 
family of origin and trauma.
In this fragmented society alot of what we are collectively grieving is the dissolution of our families held in community, in village. Of ourselves deeply intertwined with our plant and animal siblings and our Mother, Earth. With a deep, joyful, playful, vibrant sense of belonging and connection.
And the holiday narratives are constantly selling fantasies of this.
It’s a very insiduous piece woven into colonialism assisted by all media. There is the hyper focus on individualism as the rallying cry for exploitation of people and plundering of Mother earth to satisfy individual desires* which results in rampant disconnection. Then at the holidays, we are sold the fantasy of the very thing empire has taken away: belonging, connection, community.
It’s pimp psychology on a grand scale.
And in the midst of this wider landscape, we are left with the broken pieces.
Families who coped with alcohol, drugs, violence, who learned to control with shame and judgement. Parents who unwittingly or intentionally used the master’s tools on their own children. Siblings who learned to shame, manipulate, abuse and violate for survival. Legacies of sexual abuse and violence; intergenerational trauma.
So much of what we call family dysfunction is people surviving separation and domination.
With self-reclamation, we find liberation through tending to ourselves. Recognizing that while we have little control over all the moving pieces of domination/stress/oppression,
we can say ‘this cycle stops with me.’ And when we do, we bring liberation to the collective.
When we are entering family situations that may be triggering, we can stay present with our inner child and reassure them that we are there for them/her. That we will do our best to be present and loving at the holiday event, but if in any moment the dynamics feel unloving, we will leave or speak up. It may be a dance, but when we are holding ourselves this way, we can enter many family situations with the intention to share love and connect with each others’ essence which helps us remember humanity and strengthen our collectives. (However in cases of abuse (physical, sexual, emotional), it may not be loving to engage. Always check in with what feels truly loving within)
When we are triggered by the fantasy of holiday perfection that the media sells, we can bring in the truth that it is an illusion. We can open to our Guidance about what true love, true celebration and true presence look and feel like to your little one, AND we can take loving action to bring this in to her/them.
When we feel the existential feelings of life, like grief, helplessness, loneliness, we can sit with and allow these feelings, being willing to feel the discomfort. And once felt, surrendering this feeling, this heaviness to Spirit to carry away for us.
Always remembering/asking/imagining how we would tend a heartbroken child. How would we feed her, tuck her in, give her a hug, help her do things that she loves. Show up for her. For some, this may mean calling a friend, for others it can mean cozying up and reading a book. The answers are different for everyone.
The essential piece is that we reclaim ourself, we turn inward with love and ask our Guidance
‘what is loving for me?’
Not ‘what would fix this?’
So much of what gets triggered at the holidays are related to our primal wounds, tender spots we will simply carry in our lives. There is no fixing.
There is only being with, with love and compassion.
Liberating ourselves from the programming of shame, guilt, obligation, dysfunctional expectations and fantasy, by asking our Guidance for the loving truth from our heart (vs. programmed mind).
AND
gently tuning in to our inner child to help her/them remember what really brings them joy, what ways they would like to keep family threads alive…how they like to dance with the wind, breathe in the moon and enter the stillness and dreamtime of the winter season.
xoxoxo
*I recommend the docuseries; the Century of the Self