Showing Up Whole

What Are You Really Celebrating? Returning to the Light Beneath the Holiday Stress

• Christina Fletcher • Season 5 • Episode 17

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In this week’s episode of Showing Up Whole, Christina step intothe Holiday Season with intention. Instead of rushing into the familiar holiday shoulds, she pauses to ask a powerful question: What are we actually celebrating?

In a season filled with expectations, traditions, and emotional weight, it’s easy for sensitive, heart-led women to disconnect from themselves and put themselves on a shelf. Today, Christina explores how the holidays can become a doorway back to your inner light rather than a drain on your energy.

She starts by looking at the deeper essence beneath every cultural holiday: light, hope, renewal, and the faith that life returns even in the darkest season. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Diwali, solstice, or something uniquely yours, the theme is the same; remembering the light within and around you.

You’ll hear stories from her childhood, how family traditions have shifted through the years, and why joy, comfort, and meaning often show up in simple rituals like music, movies, nourishing food, and shared presence.

Explore how holiday stress disconnects you from your truth, and how to sort your shoulds from your joys so you can choose what actually supports your nervous system, your energy, and your spirit.

If you’re craving a grounded, sacred reset this season, join Christina for her free Winter Solstice Ritual of Light on December 21st. We’ll meditate, release the energetic clutter, reconnect to your inner fire, and celebrate the return of light together.

And don’t forget to download your free guide, Three Practices for a Calm Holiday Season, plus a bonus 7-minute meditation to help you stay centered no matter how busy life gets.

This year, choose calm over chaos, alignment over pressure, and joy over expectation.
Make this the season you remember who you really are.

Christina Fletcher is a Spiritual Alignment coach, energy worker, author, speaker and host of the podcast Showing Up Whole.
She specialises in practical spirituality and integrating inner work with outer living, so you can get self development off of the hobby shelf and integrated as a powerful fuel to your life.

Through mindset, spiritual connection, intuitive guidance, manifestation, and mindfulness techniques Christina helps her clients overcome overwhelm and shame to find a place of flow, ease, and deep heart-centered connection.
Christina has been a spiritual alignment coach, healer and spiritually aware parent coach for 7 years and trained in Therapeutic Touch 8 years ago. She is also a meditation teacher and speaker.
For more information please visit her website www.spirituallyawareliving.com

Want to uncover where you need the most energy alignment?
Take her new Energy Alignment Quiz to identify which of your energetic worlds (mind, body, heart or spirit) needs aligning the most!

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Christina:

Hi, and welcome back to Showing Up Whole, the place where we discuss alignment in mind, body, heart, and spirit in every aspect of our lives. And today we find ourselves at the beginning of December. And with that, you can already feel the holiday seasons creeping upon us. Today I want to talk a little bit about the holiday season with a little bit of space so that we're not fully diving into the have-to's or the shoulds, but just giving it a little bit of time for some contemplation, reflection, and decision making. Hi, and welcome back. I actually am really diving into the holiday season this year, which is quite the change from last year. Last year it had been a really uh tumultuous year, which had led to a lot of various emotions. I was just really embarking on perimenopause. I was feeling really like I had a very small bandwidth. And so I actually pulled back last year a lot, which has actually been kind of great because this year it means that I can feel a little bit more festive, even though I'm definitely putting some changes in place. I'm gonna touch a little bit about that in a minute. Uh, but I want to talk today about the actual what are we actually celebrating? You know, it's a fascinating thing that collectively across the board, we have a celebration in um across cultures, across the globe, that we everyone celebrates something different. And even if you actually were just to take Christmas itself, you may find that everybody celebrates it differently than one another. And yet at the same time, what everyone does conscribe to is a certain amount of shoulds. So if you know you're just new to the podcast, they do call shoulds those hidden senses of responsibility, often that leads to a sense of guilt, a sense of being pulled in a direction that doesn't go with your inner self. A should is something that we feel like we have to do, but only because we're told to do it. It can often date back to childhood or even just from society. But then you have a deep inner calling within yourself that is actually your path. So it's a fascinating thing that here we stand at the holiday season. I may do a lot of you know, fly quotation marks here, um, because it is fascinating that we can stand here at a celebratory period of time, which most people find momentously stressful, which brings up a lot of different emotions and is full of shoulds. So then you go into the actual meaning of the season. Now, if you are a Christian, there's a certain story that goes along with that. If you aren't, then there's other traditions that fall into place. If you have, I mean, there's other religious traditions at this time. Uh, recently there is Diwali last month. There is, of course, Hanukkah, there are there's various traditions that happen at this time. And then, of course, from also a pagan standpoint, you have things like the solstice. Again, gonna get that in a minute, if all goes according to plan. So, what are we celebrating? You know, my journey in holiday celebration has been a long and windy path. I have always loved the holiday season. As a child, looking at, you know, the family Christmas tree. Um, I remember sitting on one of my mother's and father's armchairs, just looking at the tree and admiring its beauty, just the twinkling lights and the cards in the background. There was something about the essence of the Christmas season that I could barely pinpoint. You know, it was, it was, I know this sounds, you know, poetic, but it was the smell of the snow that was in the air. It was the um the the I would always beg for everyone to put a fire on in the fireplace. It was the cards that I would meticulously put up on the on the mantelpiece, even though I didn't even know most of the people that they come from. I remember keeping long lists of who had written and and what they had said. And it was this a period of time that was full of sensual experiences. It just tingled and sparkled within my senses. And as an energetic sensitive, it enhanced everything. It was such a magical time. Growing up, we didn't do Santa. Um, and I have not passed down Santa to my children either. My husband and I agreed very early on we were not doing this. Um, but it wasn't, it didn't take away from the magic remotely. It was, you know, even growing up, even not having that kind of made-up magic, I always felt this undercurrent of magic that actually couldn't even be found in any of the things we were talking about. It wasn't found in church, it wasn't found in the carols. It was almost like this little mystery of this essence of something. And I think I've probably spent a huge period of my life looking for that essence and still, whenever Christmas arrives, still relishing in it, still celebrating it. That feeling of Christmas. Now, when I decided to leave the church, when I decided that I wasn't prescribing to certain philosophies anymore, I will say that part of the anchor did leave. It was almost like the question of what am I celebrating did get a little deeper. What was I celebrating? I mean, I had been researching uh the history of the Bible, the history of uh the Gnostic Gospels. I had heard that, you know, Jesus wasn't very likely even born at that time. It was more likely that he was born in the spring. I had also heard that, you know, I'd realized that the manger story was only in one part of the Bible. There was actually stories of his birth in another book that was totally different. So I had this sort of feeling like it was slipping away from me. And it was within that slipping away that, yes, I still kept certain traditions alive for a long period of time. My husband bought me a Creche one year, uh, and we had a removable Jesus. I made sure that our kids, every Christmas Eve, we would pop the little Jesus in, and it was fun and it was brilliant, and it was a sense of, it was almost like an embodiment in some ways of that magic. It was like looking for a way of explaining it to kids. When you can almost taste it, and of course, it loads a taste of Christmas, but when you can actually feel into it so deeply, and yet you look for how to explain it, how to cognitively understand it, and what can represent it. Fast forward a few years, and you know, again, with kids, never did the Santa thing. We we didn't have money to make it too big of a commercial event. So, really, my husband and I agreed that the way of actually really embarking on the energy of the season were three things. We would always talk about it. Okay, how are we going to embellish it with the three things? The three things of music, because we're a very musical family. My husband and I were singers for years. Uh, my husband still is a singer and um songwriter. And so we were like, how can we embellish it with music? We're huge fans of Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack. So we had music playing throughout the house all the time. Christmas songs, of course. Then it was a question of movies. What movies felt like this sense of Christmas, this mystery essence of something that was out there, the crispness, you know, watching white Christmas for some reason is yet another gateway to that sense of what we know as the holiday season. And then one of our other favorite things was, of course, food. We we love food, and so different food would come out, and that too felt Christmassy. This became our tradition. Certain things would just come out. We would have certain, and then of course, we had our decorations that we had gathered, and we would have traditional uh things that people had given us, and they would all come up. Now, again, fast forward a few more years, and suddenly we had teenagers, and our daughters can I can recollect very clearly the day that they decided when we were about to put the Christmas tree up, and they said, Mom, we need to talk. Can we not use our usual decorations? We think they're ugly. Can we have an aesthetically pleasing tree? And suddenly I found myself headed to Walmart of all places and buying a packet of baubles and a fake tree, and there we were doing a totally different thing with tradition dumped out the window. And I had grown up with a deep sense of tradition. If I was back at my mom and dad's house now, I would be laying out my angels that I've been setting up since I was four, and I would be setting them up in the certain order that I've been setting them up since I was four. It tradition is also something that our nervous systems recognize as seasonal. It just, there's something that it's kind of like binge watching a show where we um have, you know, in unstable times, we binge watch the same show, and because we've seen it so many times, we see it as safety, we see it as comfort, and we see it as joy. Traditions are the same. We have a sense of tradition, a sense of the way we've always done things, and because of that, it leads to a sense of stability and comfort and joy. And yet, and yet, underneath it all, the thing that connects all of these different ways of interpreting the magic of the season, all of these things that people across the world use to celebrate a certain thing, a certain way of interpreting an energy, an essence. That is what over the years I have become even more curious, excited, and I suppose celebratory about what is underneath the celebration. The holiday season is filled with mainly stress nowadays for most people. Most people talk about what they can't afford, most people talk about the to-dos. Um kids ask for too expensive things, it becomes about buying, it becomes about what can be managed, it comes about hanging out with people who you might not enjoy or who don't see things eye to eye. It comes out as having to defend yourself to people who don't get it, people who don't get you. It has turned into a time where you actually have to pretend maybe you're someone else and put aside who you really are. And it just seems like through all of that, that undercurrent of where all this began. And I'm not talking about a birth story, and I'm not talking about a man coming down a chimney, and I'm not talking about any of the stories we use to describe that deeper essence. Rather, I'm talking about the essence itself. That underneath sits there waiting, waiting to be acknowledged, waiting to be savored, and waiting for us to evolve with. Humans are funny. We get stressed and build up and we put aside the very thing that matters the most in order to get the list done. And we all do it. I'm not pointing any fingers, we can all do it. I I have my Christmas list sitting on my desk. I I have the different things I want to bake, I have the different pieces that I want to put out. And I watch as sometimes my mind will go, oh, are we getting stressed out about that? And we we call it back. But it's about the essence. What's the essence? What are we celebrating? We're celebrating light. We're celebrating the fact that underneath all of it. The fact that you know, North America, most of you are under snow now. There's a lot of snow on the ground in various parts in the world. Underneath that snow, there everything is becoming dormant and frozen. Here in the UK, we we watched all the leaves fall from the ground. The leaves did die away. We've watched the turning of the tide where things fundamentally die. And yet, underneath all of that, there's a force of life. There's a force of faith. There's hope. And in the darkest season, we're here in the northern hemisphere, and I am acknowledging all of you in the southern hemisphere. I know you had this in our summer, but here in the northern hemisphere, we are in the darkest time. And maybe we could even see that as a more symbolic concept of our world of the darkest time. And yet none of us lose faith in the fact that spring will come again, that there will be buds on the trees, that there will be leaves, there will be new life flowing from the ground. That everything works in cycles, and that there is a life force that springs. It is the light in the darkest, it's the light at the end of the tunnel, and in winter we are in the tunnel. To me, that's the sacredness of the season. It's faith. And that is what needs to be celebrated. Now, okay, let's let's kind of dive into that because we can be as poetic as we want. I'm gonna grab a quick drink, have a drink of water, I'm gonna just take a moment, give me a sec, and I'll be right back. With the holidays fast approaching, you might already feel that familiar pull, the pressure, the expectations, the list that only seems to grow. And that old story of, I'll just take care of myself later. Well, let's be honest. Later never really comes. You find yourself drained out by the end of the year and starting the new year on the wrong foot. Sacrificing yourself for the sake of the season never creates the joy you're actually craving and feeling called to. I get it. When life gets busy out there, it feels harder to stay grounded within yourself. That's exactly why I created the three practices for a calm holiday season. A simple, self-nourishing guide to tools that help you hold center within yourself. And guess what? I'm gifting it to you. Inside, you'll find three grounding practices that helps you come back to your center in under a minute, wherever, however, whenever. Plus, there's also a bonus seven-minute meditation to reconnect to yourself when everything feels really loud and busy. Because when you can quiet the noise around you, you can hear what's truly yours. You show up more present, you feel spacious, you move through the season with energy instead of always feeling depleted. This year, let's choose calm. We need it. Let's choose alignment. That's what we came for. And let's choose to be blessed, not stressed. So grab your free guide and the meditation in the link in the show notes. And let's make this the season that we really remember. Okay, so that's great. We have hope, we have faith, we have light, and we have this time where there is this depth. And yet we also add within this joy. It's the beautiful combination, isn't it, of this season. And yet, how often does it do we miss it? We get so caught up in the traditions of the time, we get so caught up in the shoulds, we get so caught up in in just trying to get everything done and trying to please everyone that we can forget the sacredness of joy. Where does the joy come from? Life. Life and the fact that it continues. Than the knowing that life comes again. The knowing that yeah, the the grass will grow. That there's a joy because also when we consider it for Ourselves. There's a joy in the hope and the knowing, because it's more than hope, isn't it? It's the knowing that if you're having a dark day, there's the light that is waiting for you. There is the universal arms of love that is attempting to surround you. There is life around you at your feet. There is a world to savor and appreciate. And no matter how dark the day gets, there is the seed of joy in knowing that their light exists as well. I'm doing a lot of writing right now, as you know, working on my book. And uh I was talking about how we are light, that we are light beings. That's what we are. We are energetic beings, light. And I was talking about a book that I used to love to read to my children, even though the passages are really long. You have to read this when a little bit older. Um, but it came from the book series of conversations with God. And it's written by Neil Donald. And in that book, he talks about a little soul and the sun. That's the title of the children's book, Little Soul and the Sun. And it talks about how the soul is this. You see it in the picture book because of this little small child, and the soul is light. And the little soul decides that it wants to go to earth. Wants to go to earth because it wants to experience the dark. The reason why it wants to experience the dark is because, as a light, it compares it to being a candle held up against the sun. You can never really know the light of a candle held up to the light of the sun. Rather, the candle has to be held in the dark. And so the little soul decides to go back to go into earth. And a friend decides to go with this little soul as well. The soul had said, I'm going to earth, I want to experience the dark. And his friend goes, I'm gonna come with you. And so the friend says to the soul, what do you want to learn on earth? And the soul gives it gives it some thought and then says, I want to experience forgiveness. And so the friend says, I can help you with this. I will come as the one that you forgive. And the soul, its friend, says, I only ask you this. Please remember that because I will have to darken myself and dim my light in order to do this thing so that you can practice forgiveness. Please remember who I really am. Because I'm light. What does this have to do with the holiday season? Why am I telling you this? Because we forget our own lights and we forget the light that's in the world. And so across the world, we have celebrations of light. When you look at the various traditional religious holidays at this time or around this time, what are they celebrating? They're celebrating light. Why? It's because it's who we are. We even hang lights up all over the place. You should see our yard. Oh my goodness, aliens have an official landing spot, I swear. We have so many lights, which is a wonderful thing, because it's a season of light. And so within this, this understanding that even though there's dark, there's light. Take the Jesus story as a story itself. What is it symbolic of? A dark time when light is born. The star in the sky is symbolic of light. So, how do we take the sacredness of understanding light, the light of love, the light of the universe, the light that is so undescribable because our brains can barely comprehend that it is us. So, how do we take that and truly celebrate that? Well, there's a lot of different ways. One there is acknowledging the solstice. The solstice is all about light. And if you don't know how to celebrate the solstice, I feel free to come and join me. Uh, every solstice I do do an event. It's a free event. You can come and join us. It will be on the 21st, which is the winter solstice. It's at 4 p.m. Eastern, 9 p.m. uh British time. We are going to be having a ritual of light. We will be acknowledging the light within ourselves and the light in the world. We will also be having some meditation. There will also be some group energy healing so that we'll clear out any of the clutter and anything that's kind of keeping some covers over your light. We are going to clear them out so you can feel within yourself the light of yourself and the light of the season. So 100% come and join us. So this is something that's very dear to me. It always has been. It is a time of replenishing your light, stoking your inner fire, making sure that you are shining out as your true self. So that's what we do in that celebration. You can find the link in the show notes or just spirituallyware living.com backslash winter dash solstice. So that's one way of doing it. You can, or you can look up for other winter solstice celebrations, and that will that will focus in on light for an inner journey, for your home journey, for your family's journey. I would say take a deep, deep look at what's your shoulds and what's your joy. Because practicing joy is our human expression of light. What creates joy? Don't worry if your kids are not getting the specific things they ask for. Be honest with them. They can tell a mile away if it's not true. Because they understand energy and they understand light. So talk to them about light. Talk to them about what's important. Consider what's important to you. What do you love about the season? And if you want to actually just hey, take take my celebration technique of movies, music, and food, and relish and appreciate and see it as a momentum-building joy. Allow joy to become the theme. Comfort and joy. Allow your light to feel free to shine out as joy. At the same time, tend your light. Take care of yourself. Take care of the light of others. Take care of a sense of who you are. Rather than putting it aside on a shelf for until January to pick it up again, allow it to be a season where you will actually step into your light and truly shine out as the soul you are. Look lovingly at the family members, even if you bump up against them. Because remember, they are a light. They just might not be remembering it at this moment in time. So we can see how the themes of compassion, forgiveness, helping others, giving, all of these themes that have become shoulds are rooted in a certain space. We have to go to the certain space and discover it for ourselves. I know personally, last year I didn't have the bandwidth. Last year I had to look at myself and say, not this year. I did minimal presents. I met my kids who were very honestly and vulnerably, and said, I'm getting over the year. I love you very, very much. We are keeping this very low-key. And we had a lovely, lovely time. They took over a lot of things because they're older, and it meant that we could all just collapse. This year, this year, I'm ready for some fun. I'm focusing on joy. I'm focusing on the fun of it. We are doing some really special events. My daughters and I are going to see The Nutcracker in London. Uh, there we are going to see a play of It's a Wonderful Life. My husband's been ordering movies, and we're just going to spend a month of watching cozy movies and then some old-time movies in January so that we can continue on. I am making a lot of sugar-free treats this year, uh, simply because I've realized that sugar and perimenopause do not go together. So, and I don't want to be cranky all Christmas. So, I am experimenting with new things and we are allowing it to flow and celebrating that. So, within that, I want to know what are you celebrating this season? Truly. Not what you should be celebrating, but what do you want to celebrate this year? Because the end of the year is always important and it's always a time of light. So, how can you embellish your light this year? I hope that you'll join me for the solstice. Make sure that you sign up at the link down in the comments. Share with whoever you feel needs it, and make sure that you like and subscribe to the podcast because I have some great, amazing interviews coming up very soon. And I'm sending you all my deepest love and, of course, my light.

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Bye now.