When the Holidays Hurt: Staying Steady Through Triggers, Trauma, and Confusing Emotions

Dec 16, 2025
18 mins

Episode Description

Holidays can be triggering when you’re healing from betrayal or navigating a tender recovery season. Your body remembers the pain, even when your mind wants to enjoy the good moments.

This episode offers grounding tools, emotional validation, and practical strategies to move through the season without shame, self-judgment, or overwhelm. Learn why your reactions make sense and how to support yourself one moment at a time.

Chapters

  • 00:13 Confusing Emotions During the Holidays

  • 02:00 Holding It All Together

  • 04:30 Your Nervous System Is Trying to Protect You

  • 05:55 Validation That You Are Enough

  • 10:21 Slow Down and Believe Your Body

  • 15:05 Your Presence Matters

  • 16:26 Season of Support Webinar Series Information

Register Now!

  • Season of Support - Join us for a 4-week webinar series designed specifically for couples who want to stay connected, emotionally regulated, and intentional during the holidays — rather than simply surviving them. December 1, 8, 15, 22. Register to receive the Zoom link.

  • Rise, Renew, Restore Somatic Healing Retreat in Costa Rica -  Ready to experience deep somatic healing? Join us this July for a transformative 5-day intensive created specifically for women healing from betrayal trauma or navigating divorce. This is your opportunity to reconnect with your body's wisdom, release what you've been carrying, and heal alongside other women who truly understand your journey. 

Questions or topics you'd like us to address? Send us an email with “Choose To Be” as the subject to podcast@chooserecoveryservices.com

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More from Choose Recovery Services

  • Beyond the Facade Podcast - Podcast geared toward helping men live authentically and in harmony with their values.

  • Choose Healing - Weekly support group for women who have recently experienced betrayal and are needing help coping with the symptoms of trauma. 

  • Intensives - Accelerate your healing journey with one of our intensives. Foster connection with others who share similar experiences, creating an immersive environment that enables profound transformation in a short period of time.

  • Healing Hearts - For couples seeking healing after betrayal. It emphasizes the development of empathy, integrity, and authentic intimacy. 

  • Help. Her. Heal - This program is for men seeking to learn more about empathy, conflict resolution, and healthy communication. 

  • Beyond the Facade: Men’s Healing Group - We help men move through the pains of addiction, relationship healing, managing emotions, and moving past shame. You’ll learn how to better connect with others, understand your own emotional experience, and build a deeper sense of self respect.

  • ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Empowered Divorce Podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ with Amie Woolsey for those who are leaning toward divorce.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

  • Dating From Within - Amie Woolsey hosts this workshop which teaches you how to date yourself first. Learn how to know if you are ready to date again and what a healthy relationship looks like. 

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  • Trauma Trigger Kit - Triggers can come out of nowhere. Keep a Trauma Trigger Kit on hand to help you use your five senses to stay grounded and connected to yourself.

  • Believing in You - In this program Amie teaches you how to work WITH your brain instead of against it. Learn tools that will help you move forward to trust, love, empowerment, and finding joy once again.

  • Intimacy Within ⁠- Creating healthy intimacy with your partner begins with creating healthy intimacy within. Amie’s self-paced course and guidebook will walk you through the seven levels of intimacy. Learn how to embrace authenticity and vulnerability even in the face of potential rejection.
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