How To Feel Like A Kid Again At Christmas (And Retain Your Grown Up Sparkle)

December 7^th, 2025 in Blog

How To Feel Like A Kid Again At Christmas

(And Retain Your Grown Up Sparkle)

Every year, Christmas invites us into its warmth, nostalgia, connection…
And for many people, a silent, shame-filled spiral back into patterns they swore they’d long left behind.

Suddenly you find yourself:

People-pleasing
Emotionally shutting down
Avoiding conflict
Overreacting to tiny comments
Doing chores you didn’t sign up for
Agreeing to plans you don’t want to go through with
Feeling like the younger version of you is behind the wheel again

Here’s the truth…

You’re not “failing”

You are not “regressing”

And you’re not “Back at square one”

You’re experiencing Festive-incited neurological activation.

Let’s break this down, simply and powerfully – so you can walk into family gatherings and get togethers as the adult you are now, not the child your nervous system remembers.

Why Holidays Hit the Nervous System So Hard

Because your brain isn’t reacting to the present moment.
It’s reacting to:

The smell of a familiar family dish
That creak of the old floorboard
Sound of a certain voice from the sitting room
The tone of aunt Aggy who has opinions
A room where old arguments happened
Those “vintage” Christmas decorations
Throwback soundtracks from the tunes you grew up with

These aren’t just memories.

They’re full sensory emotional networks that instantly activate your limbic system “emotional memory album.”

And once this lights up?
Well, your prefrontal cortex (the rationale and reasoning part) aka monkey mind when rubbed up the wrong way can go bananas.

This is why someone can run a team at work like a confident CEO…
…and instantly shrink back to being the “peacekeeping kid” at the dinner table.

This is no nonsense neuroscience, not weakness.

Holiday Regression:

What’s Actually Happening

FMRI studies show that returning to your childhood home can light up the amygdala memory bank like a Christmas tree.

This region of your brain is your personal Netflix library of old emotional experiences.

Once it’s activated, your system starts replaying patterns such as:

Over-accommodating
Staying small
Avoiding conflict
Shutting down
Snapping, withdrawing or people-pleasing

This is subconscious BS (belief system) wiring, not conscious choice.
Your brain is choosing safety over authenticity in under a millisecond.

And unless you interrupt the loop…it plays out for the entire visit.

Holiday Triggers Can Be Ridiculously Small

Holiday Triggers Can Be Ridiculously Small-Retain Your Grown-up Sparkle A harmless comment like:

“Why do you load the dishwasher like that?”

can suddenly feel like:

“Your whole life is wrong”

Why?

Because your brain isn’t responding to the comment.
It’s responding to a pattern that was created years ago – a pattern of ‘not good enough’ that has you wishing you could run and hide.

Even light family bickering can activate old childhood codes.
It’s the emotional tone, not the intensity, that cues your neurobiology niggles.

This is why Mom can retreat into silence for the rest of the day after one tiny jab about lumpy gravy.

And why you leave exhausted, resentful, and disconnected – even when nothing “big” happened.

GOOD NEWS: You Can Train Your System to Respond Like the Adult You Are Now

This is where the work gets powerful.

Your conscious mind can override old BS wiring –
but it must be primed first.

Think of it like your own personal bodyguard:
You train it well before the threat shows up.

Here’s your three-step to Happy Holidays Method.

Prime Yourself Before You Arrive

Pick 3 triggers that you know are coming.

For example:

The smell of a certain dish
Uncle Awkward’s predictable love life question
That sticky space where arguments always happened

Then rehearse your chosen ‘grown up’ response for each trigger.

Say it out loud in advance.

This primes the monkey mind so it’s ready to stay onside.
Research shows this increases follow-through in the moment by over 200%.

Use an “In-the-Moment” Anchor

When activation hits, your nervous system needs a physical cue to slow the reaction.

Use one of these:

Touch your watch
Shift posture (straighten up and stand tall)
Take a slow sip of water
Change your breath rhythm
Run your thumb along your watch strap

This interrupts the limbic lingo takeover and re-engages conscious choice.

A micro-response like:

“Noted.”

Or simply in your head: ‘I am enough.’

keeps you anchored in the present instead of falling into the past.

Unwind & Rewire Afterwards

Within 24 hours, do a quick voice note or journal on:

What triggered you?
What surprised you?
Where did you react from the past?
What response would you love to have next time?

This reflection phase is where the new wiring strengthens and the old BS patterns weaken.

N.B Skipping this step keeps the cycle alive.

Why This Matters

Regression doesn’t mean you’re unhealed.
It means your brain is doing exactly what it was trained to do in that environment.

This work lets you re-train it.

Not to avoid your family.
Not to disconnect.

But to arrive as the super human you’ve become –
not the child they once knew.

If You Want to Start the New Year Clear, Energised and Unshaken…

Remember, small shifts compound into massive liberation.

You deserve to walk into January resourced, centred and sovereign – not drained, resentful or self-abandoned.

And you absolutely can.

Wishing you a very ‘Happy Holiday’