When the Holidays Feel Heavy: How Stress Distorts Our Inner Truth (and How to Come Home to Yourself Again)
- 13 minutes ago
- 3 min read
By Heather Hanson
The holidays are supposed to feel warm and joyful — full of connection, celebration, and meaning.
But for many women, especially women who hold everything together, the season brings something else entirely:
A familiar tightness in the chest.
A heaviness in the belly.
A quiet sense of being overwhelmed before anything has even begun.
Because the truth is, the holidays don’t just bring gatherings and traditions.
They bring pressure.
Expectations.
Memories.
Family systems.
Roles we’ve outgrown but still slip back into out of habit or obligation.
And while everyone else sees you showing up — the gifts, the meals, the hosting, the emotional labor — what they don’t see is what it costs your nervous system to hold all of it.
The Invisible Weight You Carry
There is the list you write on paper — the tasks, the plans, the errands.
And then there is the list your body carries — the unspoken emotional weight.
The disappointment you’re trying not to feel.
The grief no one asked about.
The pressure to be “okay.”
The fear of letting someone down.
The exhaustion of holding it all together when no one really sees you.
This emotional weight doesn’t show up as tears.
It shows up as:
The tight jaw
The wired-but-tired exhaustion
The foggy mind
The short fuse
The stomach that clenches before you even sit down at the table
This is not weakness.
This is your nervous system trying to protect you.
When Stress Starts to Tell Lies
When the nervous system is overloaded, the mind follows — and suddenly, old narratives resurface:
“I should be able to handle this.”
“Everyone else seems fine.”
“Maybe I’m just too emotional.”
“I shouldn’t need help.”
“Something must be wrong with me.”
These are not truths.
These are stress thoughts.
The echoes of all the times you had to keep going when your body needed you to pause.
Stress doesn’t just drain your energy —
it distorts your self-perception.
You become hyper-critical, self-blaming, and emotionally contracted.
Not because you are those things…
but because your system is exhausted.
How to Recognize When You’ve Left Yourself
The moment you begin abandoning your own needs… your body will tell you.
It whispers first:
You sigh more often.
You clench your teeth.
You feel a little outside of yourself.
Then it speaks louder:
Your digestion shifts.
Your sleep becomes shallow.
Your irritation spikes.
Your joy feels far away.
These aren’t failures.
These are messages.
They are your body saying:
“Come back. I miss you.”
The Soft Return
You don’t need a reset.
You don’t need discipline.
You don’t need to push through.
You need space to breathe.
Place one hand on your heart.
One hand on your belly.
Close your eyes for 30 seconds.
Feel the rise.
Feel the fall.
Nothing to fix.
Nothing to force.
Just presence.
This is how you come back to yourself —
not through effort, but through allowing.
If This Spoke to Something Real in You…
Then you and I are already connected.
My work — the Cellara™ Method — exists for the woman who has been strong for too long.
The woman who looks “fine” to others but feels like something inside her is tired.
The woman who wants to feel alive again — not perform aliveness.
I don’t teach women to push through stress.
I teach them how to finally put it down.
If you felt your body soften while reading this…
that was your nervous system saying:
“Yes. I’m ready.”
You don’t have to navigate the holidays alone.
You don’t have to hold everything without being held.
There is a way to return to yourself gently, without unraveling.
I’ll show you.
You were never meant to carry it all.
Reply with “return” and I’ll share the next step.
Your softness is not a weakness.
It’s your way home.
Connect With Heather
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