Meeting Holiday Triggers with Compassion (A Somatic Meditation for Relief and Healing)
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Meeting Holiday Triggers with Compassion
Holiday stress and triggers have a way of showing up in the body before we fully understand what’s happening.
You might notice tension, reactivity, emotional overwhelm, or a sense of bracing around family or familiar dynamics. Even when you’re deeply self-aware and have done a lot of inner work, this time of year can still activate old patterns connected to belonging, unmet needs, and early relational experiences.
That doesn’t mean you’re failing or going backward.
It means something tender inside you has been touched.
And often, what makes holiday triggers feel even harder is the self-judgment that follows. The part of us that thinks we should be past this by now. That inner pressure can intensify the experience far more than the trigger itself.
This episode and meditation are an invitation to do something different.
Why Holiday Triggers Don’t Mean You’re Doing Healing Wrong
From a body-centered perspective, holiday triggers are incredibly common, especially because these environments are where many of our patterns were formed in the first place.
Your nervous system and body learned how to adapt, cope, and stay connected in these exact relational dynamics. So when you return to them, those patterns can get activated automatically, often before you have a chance to think.
And here’s the most important reframe I want to offer.
Your trigger isn’t the problem.
Your trigger is a messenger.
Triggers as Messengers From Your Inner World
Triggers arise from deeper parts of you, often parts that carry old pain, unmet needs, and beliefs formed early in life. These parts live on a subconscious, body-based level, which is why holiday triggers can feel so fast and so intense.
But, they’re not trying to sabotage you.
They’re trying to communicate.
What they’re asking for isn’t fixing or forcing yourself to calm down. They’re asking to be seen, heard, and met with compassion.
When we judge ourselves for being triggered, we miss the message. But when we respond with kindness, curiosity, and attunement, something begins to soften.
And that’s the heart of the practice I share in this episode.
A Compassionate Somatic Exercise for Holiday Triggers
In the Somatic Meditation for Relief and Healing When You’re Triggered, I guide you through a gentle, embodied exercise designed to help you stay connected to yourself when triggers arise. Rather than pushing through or trying to change how you feel, the practice supports your nervous system first, then invites compassionate listening and understanding.
Here’s how the practice unfolds.
1. Self-Havening to Soothe the Nervous System
We begin with Self-Havening and gentle orienting to help your nervous system settle and feel safer in the present moment. When you’re triggered, your body often moves into protection automatically. Havening offers soothing touch that can help reduce activation and create a sense of warmth and regulation.
This step is about letting your system know that, right now, you’re supported and not alone with what you’re feeling.
2. Get a Felt Sense of Your Trigger
Once there’s a bit more safety in the body, you’re invited to gently notice how the trigger is showing up physically.
This might feel like tightness in your chest, heaviness in your belly, tension in your shoulders, or something else entirely. There’s no right or wrong way to experience this. The intention is simply to sense into the body, rather than analyze the trigger with your mind.
Bringing awareness to the felt sense helps you stay present and connected, instead of getting pulled into old stories or self-judgment.
3. Meet Your Trigger with Compassion and Deep Understanding
From here, the practice turns toward compassion, curiosity, and deeper listening. You’re guided through gentle iffirmations and sentence leads that help soften self-judgment and invite understanding of what’s really happening beneath the trigger.
What if it’s okay that I feel this way right now?
What if lots of people are triggered like this sometimes?
What if there’s nothing wrong with me for feeling this way?
What would it be like to meet this moment with gentleness?
What would it be like to offer tenderness to the part of me that’s triggered right now?
What would it be like to listen to this trigger and honor the message within it?
What if being triggered right now actually makes sense in a way?
What if being triggered right now makes sense because…
What I’m really feeling deep down is…
And what feels most triggering to me is…
What I really want or need when I feel this way is…
And what would feel most supportive to me right now is…
What I’m realizing now is…
And how it feels to realize this is…
Giving voice to anything else that wants to be known until that feels complete.
This process in an embodied invitation to meet yourself with compassion right where you are. It’s here to offer a sense of warmth and safety, even if you’re triggered, tired, or struggling.
Try the Somatic Meditation for Meeting Holiday Triggers with Compassion now!
Episode timing:
00:00 - Meeting Holiday Triggers with Compassion
03:51 - Somatic Meditation for Relief and Healing: How to Do Self-Havening
07:02 - Somatic Meditation for Relief and Healing: Soothing Your Nervous System
12:37 - Somatic Meditation for Relief and Healing: Getting a Felt Sense of Your Trigger
16:58 - Somatic Meditation for Relief and Healing: Meeting Your Trigger with Compassion and Deep Understanding
31:03 - Conclusion and reflections
Learn more about Havening Techniques and the science behind them
Related: More Somatic Emotional Processing Meditations
Havening Techniques® is a registered trademark of Ronald Ruden, 15 East 91st Street, New York. www.havening.org
How was that Somatic Meditation for Meeting Holiday Triggers with Compassion for you?
What shifted within? And what do you understand now that you didn’t understand before?
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And please join me every Friday on this beautiful journey out of your head, and into your more embodied and authentic self. 🩷🩷🩷
Thanks so much for joining me today!
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Enjoy more like this: Havening Exercises, Regulation Exercises, Somatic Emotional Processing
About me
Hey, I’m Karena!
I’m a somatic emotional healing coach here to help you quickly identify and heal the subconscious blocks, old emotional wounds and self-sabotaging core beliefs that are holding you back!
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