Journey To The Soul

Becoming the Calm One in the Room

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The weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s can feel like a blur—beautiful, busy, and full of old patterns that suddenly get very loud. We’re talking about the tender reality of family during the holidays: why the same conversations repeat, why certain people still press your buttons, and how to create space for a calmer, truer you at the table. This is a grounded guide to staying centered when emotions spike and expectations stack up.

We explore the idea that family can be our greatest teacher, not because it’s easy, but because it shows us exactly where we are still seeking approval, withholding compassion, or forgetting our own needs. You’ll learn how to shift from reactivity to reflection, using curiosity to interrupt the urge to defend and prove. We share practical tools for setting boundaries that feel clear and kind—choosing what topics you won’t engage, how long you’ll stay, and what you’ll do when a line is crossed—without over-explaining or apologizing for your growth. If someone resists the new you, we reframe that response as a mirror of their discomfort, not a verdict on your worth.

Along the way, we hold space for both edges of the season: the joy of gathering and the ache of loss. Time around the table isn’t guaranteed, which is why small anchors—breath, a short walk, a quiet room—matter as much as big conversations. We’ll look at repeating patterns, name the values beneath your strongest reactions, and practice speaking needs from steadiness. The goal isn’t a perfect holiday. It’s presence, clarity, and a little more peace than last year.

If you found this helpful, follow the show, share it with someone who needs a calmer holiday, and leave a quick review. What boundary or value are you choosing to honor this season?

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SPEAKER_00:

Hello my loves. Welcome to Journey to the Soul. I am so happy to have you here with me today. It is a few days before Thanksgiving in the US, so everyone is slowly getting ready for the holidays. The next couple of weeks, I feel like the time between now and New Year's just goes by in a blink of an eye. But I feel like it's also a time where so many of us have just we're anticipating, you know, everything that's coming, all the fun things we get to do, all the people we get to see. It really is one of the best times of the year. So I hope you are enjoying this time of the year, the fall. It is getting closer and closer to winter every day here in Tennessee. The trees are losing more and more leaves every single day, and it gets chillier and chillier as the days go by, but it's still a beautiful array of russets and yellows. It's one of my favorite times of the year, so I wanted to talk today about how we can approach the holidays over the next couple of weeks. I feel like it can be a little bit more of a difficult time when it comes to family in particular because you spend so much more time with your family during this time of the year. Maybe you don't even live in the same state as your family, or you live, you know, in different cities, or you just have a more difficult relationship with your family or someone in your family. So I wanted to talk about the energy of that because our family, it can be very hard to be around family sometimes, and our family can be our biggest teacher in life. I've kind of talked about this in another episode, but I wanted to touch on it again as we get closer and closer to this time of the year, because I feel like it can also be a more heightened time with a lot of emotions if you might have a tumultuous relationship with your mom or your dad or your siblings or your aunts, your extended family. It doesn't matter who it is. But around this time of the year when you have to spend more time with them, or you just do spend more time with them, that can become even more heightened, right? Because maybe sometimes you can get by without it because they are not there all the time. Or you guys have a connection or a relationship where you talk on the phone a lot. So I feel like this time of the year, it really can bring a lot of more heightened situations, you know, interactions and things like that. So I want to talk about how we can move through that because family can be hard on so many levels. And we all have our own wounds that our family brings up within each and every one of us. And I think that is all purposeful. I believe that you chose your family when you came into this world, even if your soul knew that it was gonna have a difficult dynamic, or your parents were going to get divorced, or you were going to lose a parent, or you were not gonna have a good connection with your siblings, regardless of what it is, your soul chose whatever it needed to in order to expand in this lifetime. And that's why so many people can have very difficult relationships with certain people in their family. And I also feel like that as you get older, you become more aware of this because maybe it becomes more evident over time how certain dynamics that you may have with certain people don't serve you anymore. And I think that that for many people, that's just something that you come to realize and come to understand as you get older and understand yourself more and learn to develop your own boundaries and identifying what your own needs are. So it's very possible that when you were younger, it was not something that maybe you knew in the back of your mind, but you weren't as aware of it. But as an adult now, it's very possible that you might have a very hard time with someone in your family in particular. So that is all very good and dandy, but it also makes it very difficult, right? Many people can have be negatively anticipating what's gonna happen over the next couple of weeks, you know, leading up to the holidays. But this is a moment in time over the next few weeks for you to really expand spiritually. Because, like I mentioned, these people, these situations, all of this is meant to expand you so that you can be whoever you were meant to be in this life. So you can learn whatever lessons you were meant to learn in this life. And that's why these people were put there. That's why we were born into the family that we were born. So, something that I want to invite you to do whenever you have a triggering situation over the next couple of weeks, whether it's with your siblings, your parents, whoever it is, is move from being in a reactive state. So when you feel the need to react and say something in that moment, whether to protect yourself or the need to defend yourself, that's always coming from the mind or the ego, you know, is basically the same thing. You feel the need to prove yourself or to protect who you are in some way. But most of the time, what comes in that moment, whatever we want to say or do, is not what needs to be said or done. It's not coming from the right place. It's not coming from a centered place, it's coming from a reactive state. And a lot of these relationships that we have, they continue to exist the way that they do because both parties, you know, you and some whoever else is on the receiving end, can continue to be in the reactive state, right? It's like you have the same conversation with your mom all the time, and it never changes, it never goes anywhere. And it's because you are moving through it in the same way as you always have, and she is as well. But the next time that that happens is to not allow yourself to react and to create space in that moment to look within. And the first thing I want you to notice is what is this situation or this person teaching me in this moment? What are they here to teach me? Because if you allow yourself to be curious, you you will be able to notice something that perhaps you couldn't see before. Because it doesn't matter if you change your environment and you're not around your family and you know, you're around other people. Whatever trigger comes up for you that is wanting you to react, it's always going to show up because it exists within you. That's something that needs to be moved through. You know, you need to move through whatever it is so that you can find peace and not be affected by those things. So they'll continue to pop up regardless of whether or not you're with your family or not. Your family just happens to bring them out the most. And in that situation, you know, whenever you catch yourself in that moment, maybe it's you're learning to be more compassionate towards this person or in general. Maybe you're learning to be more patient with other people or to be more understanding. Maybe you're learning that you need to nurture yourself first, or to validate yourself over anyone else, you know, validating your existence and to honor who you are. These are just a few things, but we're each gonna have our own things that we are meant to work through, right? That our family brings up in us. And something else to keep in mind is that you are allowed to change and evolve and have your own voice to be your own person. And I feel like a lot of the times we feel like with people that have known us our entire life, we need to be the same that we've always been. We're not allowed to change because we fear disappointing them or making them uncomfortable or all of these things. And the fact that you get to evolve in this life and grow is a gift. It means you are moving forward. That's something that you should celebrate. If people in your life, regardless of whether they're your family or not, do not understand that that is not your burden to bear. That is their burden to bear. If they react to this new version of you that maybe is going to set boundaries or speak what's on her heart or approach a situation with the family differently, if they react to you doing that and you know, bring it, highlight it and bring it forward and say something about it, that's a reflection of them, not you. That's something that they're imposing on you. It's a mirror. You're being a mirror to them, and that's making them uncomfortable. But you don't owe it to anyone to have to explain yourself if you really don't want to, but you also just get to be yourself in this life. And the most freeing thing to do is for you to allow yourself to do that, to be your own person. So don't feel like you need to show up as who you were last year. You can choose to show up to these environments, these situations, be in front of these people, and be a whole other person. That's okay to, you know, to want to talk about certain things or not perpetuate the same conversations all the time or not be in certain energy if it doesn't serve you. You are allowed to do all of those things. You know, the situations that are showing us where we need to grow are going to continue to repeat themselves until we've learned whatever it is that we need to. So when you catch yourself, like I mentioned, lean into it with curiosity and a gentle heart and really notice the repeating patterns that show up for you in this situation, but also look back at maybe other conversations that you've had with this person or other people in your family, or how these conversations keep coming up. Maybe it's about a particular situation, but what are those patterns showing you? And everyone anticipates, you know, these these times of the year. I love Christmas, I love spending time with my family and all of the things, you know, we all want to make the most out of these moments. And it's important that we do cherish these moments and that we choose to find peace and joy in any situation. Because if we allow ourselves to, we can. And in any moment where you may have a strong emotion towards someone in your family, just know that it can evolve in a moment if you choose to. But it's important to really love and cherish everything that you're gonna be able to celebrate and experience over the next couple of weeks because life is not guaranteed, you know. Even if family can be one of the hardest things or extended family, whoever it is, there is going to be that one person that, you know, can drive you crazy and up the wall. But the point is that life is not guaranteed. And it's not a guarantee that everyone that you spend the holidays with this year is going to be a part of your life next year. And even if it's not perfect, or certain people have problems towards each other, or there's always all of these things that happen, you know, on the holidays with your family, it's really just making the most out of it because life is not guaranteed. We have to cherish the time that we have with the people in our life. And I feel like this time of the year also highlights that sense of loss for a lot of people who have perhaps lost close family in their lives. It's important that we value what we have before it's gone because everything in life is an ebb and flow. And we want to make sure that we honor and revel in that. So be gentle with yourselves. I know the holidays can be hard for many different reasons or a little bit difficult, but maybe you're listening to this and you're like, oh, this is my favorite time of the year, and I don't really have to worry about any of that. And if so, that's great. This could apply to anyone in your life, not just your family. But as you do gear up to celebrate Thanksgiving here in the US in the next couple of days, and Christmas for most of the world in the next couple of weeks, andor Hanukkah or whatever it is that you celebrate. I hope you allow yourself to enjoy it and to not let certain things get to you and to really just make the most out of it because it really is a beautiful time of the year if we allow ourselves it to be. But I am sending you all so much love and I will talk to you all in my next episode. Until then.