Bonus Holiday Boundary-Setting Meditation: Finding Your "Yes" and Your "No"

This 11-minute guided reflection helps food allergic/celiac individuals and food allergy parents pause, reset, and listen to their own internal “yes” and “no” signals during the busy holiday season. Using gentle, polyvagal-informed cues and somatic reflection, you’ll explore what feels nourishing versus uncomfortable and create an internal guide for identifying boundaries to honor this holiday season and all year long. This practice supports nervous system regulation, reduces stress, and helps you navigate holiday expectations with clarity, compassion, and confidence. 

Special thanks to Kyle Dine for permission to use his song The Doghouse for the podcast theme!
www.kyledine.com

Find Dr. Whitehouse:
-thefoodallergypsychologist.com
-Instagram: @thefoodallergypsychologist
-Facebook: Dr. Amanda Whitehouse, Food Allergy Anxiety Psychologist
-welcome@dramandawhitehouse.com

Transcript

amanda-whitehouse--phd_1_12-13-2025_181638: 0:02

For many food allergy parents, the holiday season brings even more decisions, more expectations, and more pressure,, This meditation is a gentle pause. It's not about fixing anything or pushing through. Instead, it will help you tune into your own internal signals, your sense of yes and no in the body, so that you can notice what feels nourishing, what feels overwhelming, and make decisions with more clarity and self-awareness. You don't need to analyze or justify anything here in this space. Just listen kindly to yourself and let your nervous system guide the way. Find a comfortable position and let your body begin to arrive in this moment. Take a slow breath in through your nose And exhale through your mouth As your breath settles gently offer yourself permission to pause. For these next 10 minutes, I'm allowed to step outside of the hustle of the holiday season and listen to myself. Let your shoulders soften. Let your jaw release. And observe your breath as it finds a natural rhythm. If it's comfortable, you can close your eyes, and if it's not, you could soften your gaze. Bring your attention inward with curiosity, noticing sensations without analyzing them, without interpreting them. Simply sensing, imagine your awareness as a warm light inside your body. Steady, gentle. Grounding, let this light move through the torso, down the arms, into the hands, down the legs, and into the feet as this inner light settles. You might notice small cues of steadiness, a softening a dropping down, a quietness, or even just a sense of being here. Try to label it or notice it without letting your thoughts get carried away about it. This is your internal landscape. This is where we'll explore what feels nourishing and what feels safe, and what feels like too much or something that's not right for you or your child. Bring to mind something small about the holidays that feels genuinely good to you. A memory or a tradition. Something simple. It might be a quiet morning moment. A particular tradition, warm lights, a song, a familiar food you trust, a person who feels safe, don't force anything. Just let one nourishing moment rise to the surface and imagine it as vividly as you can. Now, notice what shifts inside as you hold this gentle"yes." maybe your inhale feels easier, maybe your shoulders lower. Maybe your chest opens or softens. Maybe a smile creeps onto your face. The cue might be very subtle, a slight spaciousness, a sense of warmth, or simply a reduction of, or the absence of tension. This is how your body says yes, not excitement. Not perfection, just a genuine sense of alignment or openness. Let your body feel this for a few breaths. Inhale into the yes, exhale, and let it settle. You don't need to describe it. Just let it anchor in your system as a reference point. Now bring to mind a holiday experience, memory, or tradition that has been heavy for you in navigating your food allergy life. It could be something that drains you, overwhelms you, or feels misaligned. You don't need to dive deep. Something will probably come to the surface right away. hold it at arm's length in your imagination. Not inside you, but near you, like an object that you're observing. Notice how your body responds. Do you feel a pulling away, a closing, a sense of pressure, bracing, tension or hesitation? A desire to withdraw, to create space, whatever arises is your,"no."Your body's way of saying. This is too much or this needs a boundary. Let the breath support you here. Inhale, gently exhale, and imagine creating just an inch more space between you and that situation. Feel the clarity in this,"no." not guilt, not conflict, just information. A wise signal from your inner landscape. Bring your awareness back to your yes for a moment. Bring that visualization and that sensation back into your mind. You feel the openness, the ease, and the alignment as you picture that scenario. And then again, recall the, no, the heaviness, the protective sensation, or the pulling away. Move back and forth gently in your mind. Yes. And it's physical presence in your body and no, and its physical cues. This contrast is your compass. Your nervous system is showing you what nourishes you and makes you feel safe, and what depletes you or makes you feel unsafe. You can trust these signals. You can use them to build boundaries that are appropriate for you, and you can shape your holiday season with them. Last, let's choose one boundary you'd like to honor this holiday season. It could be something you've already decided, or something that you've been struggling about how to approach it. It might be declining an invitation, shortening the time you attend something. Bringing your own food, choosing one tradition, releasing another, or creating more space in your schedule. Let this boundary form clearly in your mind and not through force defensiveness justification, but through the gentle guidance of your internal yes and no. Imagine yourself honoring this boundary. Feel the shift inside, the steadiness, the relief, the clarity, the self-Trust, the groundedness before you participate in that event or communicate that boundary if it's something that you're stressed about. Bring this to mind again and speak or decide or attend from that place of groundedness rather than from a place of fear or resentment. Let this sensation of steadiness become your anchor. Bring your attention back to your breath. Now, slow. Inhale, soft exhale. You've listened deeply to yourself. You've consulted the wisdom of your own nervous system, your yes, your no. Your needs carry this clarity with you into the rest of the season. You are allowed to choose what nourishes you. You are allowed to keep yourself and your loved ones safe. You are allowed to protect your own energy. And you are allowed to listen inward and set boundaries without apology or justification. Take one final deep breath in and let it go. When you're ready, gently open your eyes and return to your surroundings.