77. Practical Strategies to Enjoy the Holidays - Part 2 (Family Dynamics, Old Patterns and Boundaries)

Welcome to the Holistic Inner Balance podcast with Dr. Nicole Cain and happy healthy Hadley.

Your go to resource for natural mental health and wellness strategies so that you can become the expert of your own emotional and physical well being.

Merging modern science with ancient wisdom. All right, welcome back. We are the holistic Inner Balance podcast. I am Hadley and I'm here with Dr. Kane and and today we are going to be talking about psychology around the holidays. So any holidays, but specifically the holidays that happen towards the end of the year. And we're going to talk about family dynamics and how to navigate them, how you maybe fall into old patterns your yourself as well. So we're going to talk about that and we're going to talk about how to not only navigate family dynamics so that you can feel okay during the holidays, but actually so that you can connect with people in a way that is deeper than maybe you have connected with them before. Start to up level some of your conversations and relationships and things. So I am super excited to go into this conversation and Dr. Cain has a ton of really great tips and tricks and advice. So I'm really excited to hear from her about that. So let's get into it.

So when you think of the holidays, Hadley, I have some. I have a word game.

Ooh, fun.

So when you think of the following words, I want you to just tell me like the first word that comes to mind. Are you ready?

Oh my gosh. This is fun. Okay, cool.

Okay. The first is Santa Claus.

Christmas.

Okay. And egg Easter. And then when you hear the word fire.

Oh, house. I don't know why I just thought of house on fire.

First thing that comes to mind. And then grandma cookies. Okay. And then vanilla ice cream.

All right.

Okay. So it's interesting the different word associations that our brains can have. So when you think of grandma, one of the words that come up for you is cookies.

Yeah. So funny.

And what comes up for me is like a turkey baster.

Amazing.

And I don't know why when I think of grandma, like the first thing is like a turkey baster. So it's like, it's what my brain does. And then when I think of Santa Claus, I think of that. I don't know why this is coming up for the second time on this podcast, but I think of that Rankin Bass song with the frickin Put One Foot in front of the Other song. We sang this on another episode. So like Santa Claus, that's immediately what comes into my head.

You guys, everyone needs to watch Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Apparently we need to be like affiliates for this freaking show from like the 50s. It's so ridiculous promoting it. I love it. But it is a great song.

It is a great song. It's like an earworm gets stuck in my house. And so what might be a really fun exercise to do with your family is to do word association games and to then like go down the rabbit hole. So if I was doing this exercise with you, like you were caught off guard or a little bit surprised that fire created the word house for you.

Yeah.

And so then we would notice that surprise and where you feel that. So like where do you feel the surprise in your body?

You're like, oh, I felt it like in the back of my head, like the bottom back of my head. Kind of weird.

So what we would do is we would notice that part. We would notice that sensation in the bottom, in the back of your head. And then we could do free association mapping from there. And what's really interesting about it is especially with holiday associated timing or holiday associated words, we can start to gain access to maybe subconscious or a little bit less cons conscious associations that our brain may be making. And association is the name of the game when it comes to thriving and surviving the holidays. Is that your brain, from the moment that you came into this world, arguably the moment that you were conceived, has been creating a card catalog, if you will, kind of a metaphorical card catalog. And so if those of you who are listening may be too young for card catalogs, it's basically like a Rolodex. If you're too young for a Rolodex, then it's kind of like your contacts list in your phone.

I don't even know what you're like.

What are these words? So your brain is creating associations from the minute that you come into this world. So this word means this and this color means that, and this smell means this, and this movie means that. Right. So our brain is constantly trying to make meaning and association is one of the ways that it does this so good. So when we're dealing with surviving the holidays, associations can be beneficial and beautiful and nostalgic. And you know, you can have holiday traditions that can just unite everyone together and just feel wonderful. Or we can have associations that are like skeletons in the closet. And so they can be really troublesome. And we may not know that these associations are here. Like there's some sort of an association with fire and house. I don't know what it is. We haven't gone down that rabbit hole. Cuz I just surprised you with this just now?

Yeah. That's super weird. I've never experienced a house on fire.

But yeah, and it could be metaphor, like, who knows?

Yeah, totally. I am thinking about a dream that I had when I was a kid that was a house on fire. So, you know, there's definitely something there.

Oh, y', all, this is brilliant.

We'll go into it in a future episode.

Here's a dream. I'm circling this. I have my pen and I'm circling fire on house on fire in the dream. And so you just might not know. And so this is a great opportunity to deal with some of this stuff as we're coming into the holidays because we're getting access to some of these Rolodexes, some of these associated networks. And so if you're listening and you have relatives who dwell in the past, if your family gatherings get hijacked by old arguments or past mistakes, hurts, disappointments, resentments, you may feel like you're living in a time warp. It's like, why do we keep having the same conversation over and over and over? And if you feel like you're stuck there, then you're probably dealing with patterning and habits that are a part of the family culture, the part of the family dynamic, but it's also ingrained in your brain. It's ingrained in your brain mapping.

Totally. Yeah. And this is why we also, like, sometimes I don't know if you guys have ever felt this, but I've definitely felt like, why am I acting like my high school self when I go back home to be with family? Like, what is happening? I don't want to act this way. This is like, I'm not this person anymore. But this totally happens when we go back into situations that, like, we're kind of like an old version of ourselves, we kind of revert back to that. You might feel that when you hang out with like your college friends too, like you revert back to how you were during, during your college days or whatever it might be. And so, you know, maybe you revert back to your like 4 year old self when you're back home with family. And so just becoming aware of that can be really helpful as well. Yeah.

And what you're saying is I'm not that person anymore is that you are that person plus all of your subsequent experiences. So you are your 4 year old self plus your 5, 6, 7, 8, et cetera, up to this very moment. But what's really interesting about neuropsychology findings is that sometimes these parts of Ourselves get stored in parts of the brain that don't have time and that don't have language. And so if they get activated because there's something that's associated with them that reminds them of that, then that part can get activated and you can start to behave in a certain way or have a re. Experience something. So I'm gonna give you a fictionalized example because I don't want to totally throw my husband under the bus, but this is tweak just a little bit. So I was having an argument with my husband a while back and I said something and I to this day don't know what I said. And I wish I did because holy moly, that was a matchstick. And I noticed that in an instant his face got really, really red and he was scrunching it together and he balls his fists, straightens his arms at his sides and he stomps his foot. And I was like, are you seven years old?

Throw a tantrum.

I was like, you're throwing a full on tantrum right now. And so something that had taken place had sent a signal to his brain that activated this part of himself. And when activated, he was behaving like a seven year old. And so he's a man who does tons of self work. And I respect and love that about him. And so he went and he did some work on it. And it turns out that he had a similar cue. Something similar was said to him when he was little. And then that part got activated and he started acting like a little kid.

So interesting.

It's really fascinating. So if you're listening to this and you're like, wow, I need to know more. This is actually science based stuff. This isn't like new age theorizing. This is science backed research that we're seeing. And so look into the research of Dr. Schwartz. There's a book that you could look into. It's called no Bad Parts. And so he starts to introduce parts work or ego state, which is the separate selves that we have. You could also find research into interpersonal neurobiology. You can look at the work of Bessel van der Kolk and you can find my favorite. He's the best. He wrote Body Keeps the Score. Such a groundbreaking text. Highly recommended if you can get through it. It's very sciencey and dense.

It is, but I totally nerded out on it. I love it.

This is one of the many things I love about you. And also EMDR talks a lot about this. And EMDR is eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy, where we use bilateral stimulation to access parts of the brain that may be holding onto stored memories, whether they're aversive or traumatic or that are just holding a lot of associations that keep coming up for you. And we can go in and actually treat and release these stored troublesome memories.

So good.

So the tricky part about this is that you have your own Rolodex and then every single person in your family has their own Rolodex. And because you live in, or used to live in some sort of a community or a network with them, so some of your associations overlap with some of their associations. And so everybody ends up triggering themselves left and right all over the place. And so then we combined that with the holidays, which have tons of emotional amplification and symbolism and loss and meaning and trauma and expectations in conjunction with maybe suboptimal eating, drinking in excess or smoking or staying up late and not sleeping or traveling and sending us into a vata state. Right. So we have these imbalancing scenarios.

Yeah. Listen to the podcast episode before this if you want to get into all of the practicalities of that. Yes. Of how we can set ourselves up, like, physically and mentally for all of.

This stuff for success. So that you're less active to get triggered.

Yeah.

During these events. And so when we think about skeletons in the closet, these skeletons are associated with past emotional states or ego states. And so depending on the era or the age of that ego state, that original triggering event to that person may feel like it's happening again. So let me give you an example. When I was younger, and I was probably around 4 years old, my grandmother is in the kitchen. And I said this in our last podcast, but the women in the family do the cooking while the men fall asleep in front of the football game. And my grandmother's in the kitchen and she's very stressed and my aunt's stressed and my mom is stressed and there's just stress pouring out of the kitchen. And my grandmother has the turkey carcass in this big black pan bowl thing and she's got this carcass in there, which my four year old self is like, oh my God, what is that? And she's like sucking the gravy out to make gravy.

And she's got the turkey baster.

She's got the turkey baster in her hand. Of course there's an association. Right. And so then there's this like whole process. And I remember feeling really nervous and scared about all the stress and So I would go under the dining room table. And the dining room table is this really old, beautiful antique table and it has this massive metal lever underneath of it. So if you push the lever to one direction, then the leaves could pop out and you could extend the table and if you pulled the lever to the other direction, then it would put in a locking mechanism and it made this like wonderful clanking sound. And so I would go under the table and it felt safe, kind of like a little protective den. I'm out of the way so I'm not getting yelled at. And I'm like getting this physical and this almost tactile stimuli.

Yes. Touch and sound and sight.

Yes.

You've got all of the, all three of those senses. Yeah. Yes.

And that table has been passed down through generations. So my grandmother had the table, my mother now has the table. And when I sit down, Even as a 40 year old adult, I sit down at that table and I get ego state activation. Like I get this emotional sense of I'm in the way. I get this emotional sense of I'm troubling them. I'm a burden. I still associate my grandmother with that, that image in my mind, even though there's many, many more. And so if, if I sit down at that table and I'm in an ego state activation, if my four year old part is like, I've seen this table, you look underneath, you feel the cool metal of that lever. And then if somebody says something to me, I would have to be very mindful in order to respond as my 40 year old adult self as opposed to having a reaction.

Totally.

And so this is what's happening in part at family holidays. And so I want to talk a little bit about practical solutions for dealing with your own skeletons in the closet. And I want to hear how you deal with skeletons in the closet. And so of course, listen to the other podcast episode because the more that you can support yourself, the more you can support your nervous system, the more you can honor your own needs and be intentional, the less likely you are to end up with your parts trying to pop up and protect you.

It can be responsive rather than reactive.

You can be responsive rather than reactive. Because when you're reactive, so you sit down at that table, that four year old self, my four year old self is like, oh, she needs me. I have to protect us by creating this urge to go under the table and to hide. But in my adult 40 year old self, I have other solutions that don't necessarily involve going under the table. Like I don't want to crawl under the table as a 40 year old adult.

Be a little weird.

The 4 year old doesn't know that.

Right.

And so I have an exercise called the three minute hack that you can get for free on my website and you just can learn how in 3 minutes to go in and identify those ego state parts. Those parts of you that are coming up. Yeah.

Oh, and also when we talk about ego states, let's just like identify that a little bit because I think a lot of times people are like, oh, ego equals bad. Right. Like ego is a bad thing. You know, maybe it's like I think I'm better than everyone else kind of thing. But when we talk about ego right here, we're talking about something that's different. It's not like you think you're better than other people. It's like these are states of consciousness essentially.

I love that. Yes, Consciousness states, self states, age states. Yeah. I don't actually really know why they call it the ego. Because we think of ego from like Freud. We have the ego, the superego. And then why do we call ego states? If anyone listening knows, then send us a comment.

Yeah, yeah. It's kind of weird because it's. There are a lot of different like ways that people think about ego. So I just wanted to bring that to the forefront of like, it's just different states of consciousness and like, it's sort of like feels separate from who we are at like our core kind of thing. I love that's kind of how I look at it. At least.

I think that's brilliant. Yeah, absolutely. So it's, yeah, your ego, state your parts yourselves. That's why they call it no bad parts. But I feel like parts also a confusing word. So I think we need better nomenclature.

I think so.

Yeah. So that's our goal.

Yeah. If anyone has anything better to call.

It, call in some synonyms. So if you're dealing with your own skeletons or somebody that you love keeps slipping into the past, then here are four solutions. The first one is you can control yourself, you can't control other people. And so you have to do your own work. And so understanding why I feel the way I feel, understanding your triggers ahead of time so that you feel more integrated even when you're put into an environment that has so many associations with the past is if there's any sort of a way that you can hold both in the same at the same time. So this is a table that yes, I did climb under it and I did play with a lever when I was four, but I'm also sitting at this table as a 40 year old. And so then the three minute hack will teach you how to actually go in and do that. And so I'll briefly summarize that at the end. But let's go through the four first. So do your own work ahead of time. My favorite therapeutic techniques, emdr, ego state therapy, internal family systems, all of that your insurance should cover. If you have any sort of a behavioral health coverage plan, you can go to psychologytoday.com and you can search for people in your zip code that take your insurance that do these things. There's an actual filter. It says EMDR on it. So you should do it. It's amazing.

You should definitely do that.

So do your own work.

I should do that?

You should do it.

Yes. I didn't know. I didn't realize that it was covered by insurance. That's awesome.

You don't know what you don't know.

Yeah.

So now you know. Now you know that you know what you know.

Yes, exactly.

So number one is do your own work. I'll teach you, y', all the three minute hack briefly, and then you can go check out the longer vers. But the second is to recognize the signs of ego state activation, parts activation, trauma activation in other people. And that's the huge thing.

Ding, ding, ding.

Like with my husband, right. I told the story of him like balling his fists and stomping his foot. Is that. Now hopefully he doesn't repeat that behavior, but if he did now, I would know why.

Yeah, is. And then we don't blame ourselves or like think of them as bad or wrong. It's like. No, this is just a pattern that they have that I've triggered in some way that isn't like my fault necessarily, but it's just. This is just what's happening. And we can kind of come up to it from. From a more objective lens then. Yeah.

When you think of vanilla, what comes to mind for you?

Ice cream. Ice cream.

I was thinking, if you're consistent. That's so funny because maybe someone listening when they smell vanilla, maybe their mother or their grandmother wore that Avon perfume. There's like this vanilla based Avon perfume that I feel like every woman in the 90s wore.

I love it. Yeah.

And so it could be something that you would have literally no idea. So like maybe somebody sits down next to you and there's a vanilla. There's vanilla ice cream out.

Yeah. Right.

But it reminds them of this, like, really mean teacher that they had when they were a teen and they get really grumpy with you and you're like, what did I say?

Yeah, there's a. There's a specific cigarette smell. Like it's like a specific brand. I forget what brand it is. But it's only that brand of cigarette that I think of grandpa before I realize, oh, it's a cigarette smell. Like, it's so real.

I have that association with certain kinds of coffee with my grandpa.

Oh, so interesting.

Because he would smoke cigarettes and drink coffee.

Yeah.

And so I'm like, coffee equals cigarettes equals grandpa.

I love it.

Even though I drink coffee every day and I don't smoke cigarettes. It's like some of those things are, like, really in there.

Yeah. It's so cool.

So cool.

Yeah.

So how do you know if someone is in an ego state activation? One is if they don't have logical access to the present moment. And so if they feel, like, completely illogical and emotional, like if their argument or their behavior is being governed primarily by emotions, then you're probably dealing with somebody who's in the past, whose brain is being hijacked by something in the past, especially an emotional part of the brain. We see in the neuroscience. Bruce Perry writes about this. And what happened to you? The mohawk of awareness. This is the part of the brain that's across the center, like the. Where you would part your hair. If you parted your hair in the middle, like, that part of the brain gets deactivated, the logical parts get deactivated, and then the amygdala, the emotional part, gets turned way up. So if you're dealing with somebody who is being really emotional, not logical, they're probably in an ego state activation. And so working with them logically is just going to be an effort of futility. Yeah, it's gonna be futile.

Totally.

So if they don't have access to their present resources, like, normally, maybe they, like, know to get up and leave or go, go take a break. And if they're not using their skills that you normally can see them using, then that probably means that they're in an active state. Another sign that you're dealing with trauma activation is rigidity or inflexibility. So if you're trying to. Somebody says something, it seems like, wow, where did that come from? That came out of left field or, oh, geez, not this again. And you try to redirect. Often we see in trauma activations or adverse of event activations, this rigidity, the stuckness, because they have a part that's showing up to try to protect them. And even if that part is now hijacking them, because this is from the past and they're no longer in the past, that rigidity is an indicator to you. Oh, we're not dealing with present whoever. We're dealing with past whoever. So identifying ego activation or trauma activation in other people. And so then if it turns out that that's what's going on, then you want to use a de escalation technique. Because doing the work with them as their therapist in that moment.

Not helpful.

Not helpful. So all of you enneagram type twos listening to this conversation. If you're a helper and you want to fix everybody and fix everything, now's not the time.

Not the time, not the time. I love it.

And perhaps not your rule, Right?

Yes. I mean, yeah. Becoming your family's therapist. Not helpful for your relationship with them.

Suboptimal.

No, suboptimal.

You don't want that. You don't want that. And so you want to de escalate. And I actually have three steps for de escalation. So the first thing is you acknowledge what they're expressing. So here's an example. Like, my brother likes to bring up that I whacked him in the head with a golf club when he was a kid. Oops. The story has evolved to, like, Nicole's eyes, like, turn red and flames shoot out. And I wield it like a weapon and whack him.

Oh, no.

Which is not what happened.

Yeah, right.

What happened is I was very poorly skilled in putt putt golf and swung the club and whacked him accidentally.

Oh, my gosh. I slammed my fingers or my sister's fingers in a screen door multiple times because it wasn't closing. And I didn't know that her hand was there. Yeah. So I get it.

So they're like, danger. This person's trying to kill me. Yes. That's awful. I don't know about her, but my brother brings it up.

Oh, yeah.

So he clearly his.

No, my sister. My sister is very gracious.

She's like, I know you aren't trying to chop my fingers off. My brother will bring it up. And so he clearly has his little self.

Some trauma.

Has some trauma for me whacking him with a golf club. And so you acknowledge and validate that they're entitled to feel all the Feels like, yeah, that sucks that that happened. And it was probably really scary and painful for you.

Yeah.

And so you acknowledge it. And, you know, I hear you. I know. I acknowledge whatever it is you insert whatever it is they're talking about, they're feeling that it's upsetting or painful.

Because it's the worst when someone invalidates you. Like, oh, aren't you over that yet? Right. Like, that's the worst when someone says that to you. So. Yeah. Can you imagine, like, if someone just validated you when you were in that moment? That feels so good.

Yeah. And I wish that myself would have done that more often because for years and years, I'm like, I didn't mean to hit you with the golf club and it was an accident and you're being unreasonable and why are you being mean? So now my age ages are getting activated. So it's just like cluster.

Yes, exactly.

Of ego state activation. So acknowledge them. Acknowledge that they're entitled to feel what they feel. Try to avoid judging their feelings, fixing their feelings, trying to talk them out of their feelings, providing an explanation for why that happened to them. Just. Just acknowledge them. Wow, I'm so sorry that happened. That must have been really scary. That must have been. Sounds like that was really painful for you. Yeah. And so then you're just. That's the first step. So you acknowledge, validate. And then we want to. So acknowledge is number one, validate is number two. Because we all are entitled to all of our feelings. And then number three is redirection. So we're at a holiday gathering. This isn't the time to be, like, going through all of the skeletons and the closet. So we want to redirect. And so you can say, hey, around that similar period, around the time that I whacked you with a golf club, do you remember this fun thing that happened?

So good.

So you can redirect them into something positive. So I acknowledge you, I validate you. And, oh, hey, this was funny. So try to find a similar angle. And it's really cool if you can try to speak to that age. Like, if, you know, like, oh, this is my brother and he's three, or he's six, or however old. If you can try to find a memory, if you know them well enough and you could talk to that ego state.

Oh, I really like that. Yeah.

Super profoundly important.

Yeah. Because then you're not just like, okay, let's move on, like, trying to. Because people can feel when you're just like, you know, like, trying to get them off of something. Right. Like, people can kind of feel that. But if you're like, actually, like, let's go in deeper. Let's go into, like, something else during that time period that was Like a connective experience. That, that could be awesome.

And if you don't know what a connective experience would be is you could be curious about that later.

Yes.

It's like maybe you know, you could call them and like a week later when you're all, when you're back at home and you're both in your grounded states, you could be like, hey, you know, you mentioned that golfing. I was just wondering if you had any other memories around that time. And then just like start to explain, explore that so that you can start to expand on that experience and integrate it with the time and place and really hear them out. If their redirection, if it isn't working, then we go to step four. And so for solutions, do your own work, identify and recognize ego state or trauma activation and others de escalation. We talked about the three steps for de escalation. Acknowledge, validate and redirect. And then if they're not responding to your de escalation attempts, if they're just like in a state where they're just like on their soapbox and if it feels really upsetting or really damaging or you notice that you're getting activated and you need to exit the situation is you have to protect yourself. You have to exit the situation. And so that may mean like go to the bathroom and do your three minute hack. That may mean like you go and run an errand. Like get in your car. If you're sober. Yeah, get in your car and go run an errand. Or that may mean that you need to leave. Like no longer participate in the holiday gatherings. Like if you're there and you're planning on the weekend, but it's just too volatile, then you have permission to leave and not spend the weekend.

You have full authority over your own self.

Yes, you are worthy of that disority.

That's so good. Yeah, so good. And sometimes that is what's necessary.

Yeah, you have to exit the situation. And it's a significant part of protecting yourself and enforcing your personal boundaries. And some people don't like the word boundaries. And so I like to use personal limits. This is like where I draw the line. This is the limit for me.

I like to use the word expectations. So it's like this is the expectation I have of how people are to treat me. And if they are not meeting those expectations, then this is my, this is what I do.

I love that. Expectations is good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sometimes boundaries can be a little bit like putting a wall up. That's what you feel like. So yeah, Having a different word is helpful sometimes.

And we all long for connection. I mean, you don't want to. Some people, you want to have a wall, let's be real. But like, we all long for connections. And so knowing our expectations or our personal limits I think is really important, especially for those Peacemaker Enneagram types and the helper Enneagram types who want to just make everybody else happy.

Yes. And then the boundaries get really mushy and a little bit sometimes codependent. And that's not what we're shooting for here.

Yeah, codependency, I feel like that's a really good. We should talk about that. Anyone here deal with codependency?

Right. So many of us.

So many. Myself included in many ways. So the three minute hack, if we can finish up with that. So the three minute hack is to honor and to pay attention to and notice your ego state activation. And you can do this in three minutes. And so excuse yourself, go to the bathroom, take a walk, whatever you need to do. And set your alarm for one minute. And then in that first minute is just to straight up acknowledge how you're feeling. Like all that the feels everything that's happening to you. And then you're going to do that for 60 seconds and just download it all, just pay attention, feel it, lean into it, notice it, and then stop your alarm and then reset it. And so then you set the alarm for another 60 seconds and you ask yourself, when have I felt this way before?

Oh, so good.

Yes. And you may have felt this way hundreds of times, but if you could try to find, if you can go down the timeline all the way to the beginning, the very first time you felt this way, that's the most. That's gonna get you the most bang for your buck.

And so you want to acknowledge the. Not just the emotions, feelings, but like the actual physical sensations that arise too, right?

Yes, yes, yes.

Because the body keeps the score.

Yes, yes. So you want to notice all of the things and sometimes we may have an emotion and we don't have any thoughts and we just like especially with my 4 year old self that I was talking about is oftentimes is just this funny feeling in my stomach. And it was after doing this kind of work that I realized what was actually going on because it wasn't very clear to me at first. Yeah, four year olds aren't logical.

Yeah.

So of course I wasn't gonna get a logical like, oh, this is why I feel this way.

Right. Yeah. Oh, that's so good. Yes. I Love this.

Go down the timeline 60 seconds, and then the third 60 seconds is. You ask that part. What is it you need me to do for you?

So good. Yes.

Yep. So you ask that part. And sometimes it may be I need you to tell me that you've got my back. It could be I need you to leave. It could be that I need you to tell mom whatever you need mom to know. Like, it could surprise you. It could be many, many things.

Right? It. It could be I need you to give mom a hug.

Yes.

Right. Like, literally, like, you know, bridge the. Bridge the gap between you or whatever. Yeah. It could be like, tell me that I'm enough. Right. That I'm, like, worthy of whatever it is. So many things.

Yeah.

That's so good.

So that's the three minute hack. And so that's for the. Doing your own work. You know, obviously it's ideal if you can find a clinician who's got your back and that can work through some, especially those harder pieces. But the three minute cat, because you could be out at a bar or a restaurant, you can be in a meeting and, like, you can excuse yourself in most circumstances for three minutes.

Yes. And this is. This is great even for just, like, emotions in general, right? Like, our emotions are here to tell us something. Tell us something that we actually need. They're not. We all like. I mean, my inclination, my, like, tendency is to just be like, oh, avoid that emotion. Like, let's get into, like, happiness or like a different, more like, quote unquote, positive emotion. But if we can actually be like, no, what is this actually telling me that I need right now? Then we can resource ourselves and just move on, like, easily and not create so much drama around it. Right?

Yeah.

Called the psychodrama. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So good.

I love that. I love it. It's a resource that you have always with you and, you know, like Hadley said, is that your symptoms are your saving grace. They're here to tell you what needs healing and how. And so by simply paying attention to those activations can give you really good survival strategies during the holidays and after.

They can show you literally how to navigate your life. Yes. It's so cool. Your emotions are your compass and your. Your physical sensations that accompany your emotions, emotions especially are huge. Oh, that's so good. I feel like I just learned so much. I'm so excited to use this in the future with family dynamics, but also just like, in my everyday life. So good. Thank you so much.

Let us know how it works for you.

Yes.

And we're here. You aren't alone. You are worthy of love. You are worthy of respect. You are worthy of being treated with agency and mercy. And you are worthy of feeling good and enjoying the holidays.

Yes. Yeah. And allowing. Yeah, just allowing the holidays to be like an experience that you, that you actually want to have rather than it being like white knuckling your way through. Yeah. Yeah, you're worthy of that.

Oh, thank you for listening, everyone. We're very, very grateful for you. We hope you have a happy, healthy.

Happy, healthy holiday season. Amazing. Thank you so much, Dr. Kane. This was so informative. I'm really excited to go forth and use it and you guys let us know how it goes for you. We want to hear from you. So yay.

Thanks, my friends.

By.

The recording you just listened to consists of the personal opinions of Dr. Nicole Cain, a naturopathic doctor with a Master's in Clinical psychology, and Happy Healthy Hadley, an Ayurveda expert with a master's in health behavior and health education. While these opinions are based upon literature, counseling education, medical training, and clinical experience, this content should not be viewed as the definitive opinion on these subjects. Listening to this podcast is not a substitute for any sort of medical, psychological, or other form of treatment. If you are in a Crisis, please call 911 or call the National Suicide Prevention Line at 1-800-273. If you are in need of counseling, don't hesitate to make an appointment with a counselor in your area. Dr. Nicole and Hadley are passionate about you becoming the expert of your own emotional and physical well being. If this resonates with you and you think this podcast would help someone you love, please share it with them. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode of the Holistic Inner Balance Podcast.

Sam.