Navigating Holiday Stress-With a Little Help from Christmas Movie Characters

The Holidays have always brought up a lot of layers for me- layers of stress, emotion, expectation, and pressure. And it comes from so many different directions.

Growing up, the holidays weren't magical. They were unpredictable, chaotic at times, and full of dynamics that my nervous system learned to brace itself for. I won't go into all the details here, but those early experiences shaped a lot more in me than I realized.

What I didn't understand for a long time was how much of that would follow me into adulthood.

As I started building my own family and creating holiday traditions for my children, the patterns repeated themselves in different ways. There was this added internal pressure I put on myself to make everything better for my kids-to give them a better experience than I had. And then, of course, there was always the coordinating between families, the expectations from every direction, the places to be, the schedules to manage, the emotional load of it all.

Even though I deeply loved my family, the holidays were always stressful for me. There was this tension inside me every year I couldn't quite explain. I pushed myself hard to make everything special-and yet I always felt unsettled inside.

It wasn't until I began my healing journey-really looking inward, learning about trauma, understanding my nervous system, and uncovering why I had the expectations and patterns I carried that those things slowly started to shift.

I learned how to set boundaries for myself, even when it felt uncomfortable. I learned I didn't have to say yes to every event or conversation. I learned I didn't have to spend money I didn't have or carry the weight of everyone's emotions.

Something really beautiful started to happen when I began to have compassion for myself: I naturally began to start extending compassion toward the people around me.

I could see my family members differently-not as people trying to overwhelm me, but as humans with their own stories, histories, and survival patterns.

Somewhere along the way, the holidays became lighter. Not perfect-just more human, more grounded, and more honest. And now I honestly love the holiday season.

As I was remembering all of this while preparing for Saturdays community class with Live Free Trainings, I couldn't help but think of something that always made me laugh-even during the hard years.

MY FAVORITE CHRISTMAS MOVIE, NATIONAL LAMPOONS CHRISTMAS VACATION!

I have always loved this movie, probably because I could relate to the chaos, the characters, the big emotions, and the dysfunction. The more I thought about it the more I realized... these characters are basically walking nervous system responses.

Fight

Flight

Freeze

Fawn

All showing up in their own hilarious way.

So, this Saturday Dec 6th, I have created something fun, playful, warm, and incredibly relatable:

A Christmas-movie twist on navigating holiday stress-mapped to the nervous-system survival responses.

We will explore Characters like Clark, Ellen, Cousin Eddie and others, and the ways we can actually see ourselves in them-sometimes a little more than we like to admit. It's fun, but it's also meaningful, because nervous-system education doesn't have to feel heavy.

Alongside the humor, we will also talk about:

Healthy boundaries

Simple grounding practices

Ways to listen to your body instead of overriding it

How to move through the season with compassion-both for yourself and others

We will take the time to slow down, breathe, drop into our bodies, and give whatever youre carrying some space. No matter what the history is with the holidays, you deserve to feel supported, not stretched thin.

I can't wait to see you! I hope we find a little connection, laughter, and a whole lot of breath.

With Love

Carrie Payne