Coping with the Holidays After a Traumatic Event: Finding Your Ground and How EMDR Can Help
For many, the holiday season is painted as a time of joy, connection, and celebration — a season filled with family gatherings, lights, and tradition. But for those who have lived through trauma, the holidays can feel like something entirely different.
The sights, sounds, and social expectations of the season can stir up painful memories, loneliness, or overwhelm. You might notice yourself feeling detached, anxious, or simply “off” — even if you can’t pinpoint why. If you’ve gone through a traumatic event recently, or if the holidays tend to bring up older wounds, it’s understandable to feel uneasy when everyone else seems to be celebrating.
This post explores how trauma can shape your experience of the holidays, practical ways to care for yourself during this season, and how EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy can help you reclaim peace and presence, even when the world feels loud.
Why the Holidays Can Feel So Hard After Trauma
Trauma changes how your body and brain respond to the world. It can make certain sounds, smells, or memories feel like danger signals. Even if you’re physically safe, your nervous system might not register it that way. During the holidays — when there’s more stimulation, travel, family dynamics, and emotional expectations — your body’s alarm system can get easily triggered.
You might notice:
Feeling emotionally flooded or shut down
Difficulty being around family members who were part of your trauma
Guilt for not “feeling festive”
Flashbacks or intrusive memories
Heightened anxiety in crowded or unpredictable environments
Exhaustion or irritability after social events
A desire to withdraw and avoid gatherings altogether
All of these reactions are normal responses to trauma. Your body is doing its best to protect you from perceived threat. The challenge is that during the holidays, it can be harder to give yourself permission to honor what you truly need.
Understanding What’s Happening in Your Nervous System
When you’ve experienced trauma, the nervous system becomes finely tuned to detect threat — even long after the danger has passed. The holiday season can stir up both direct and indirect reminders of trauma:
Sensory triggers (lights, smells, music) may remind you of a traumatic time of year.
Family interactions can bring up unresolved grief or past harm.
Crowds and noise may overwhelm your system if you’ve lived through something that shattered your sense of safety.
In Internal Family Systems (IFS) terms, different “parts” of you may emerge to help you manage this discomfort:
A protective part may urge you to avoid gatherings altogether.
An anxious part may over-plan or over-please to maintain control.
A sad or grieving part may feel the heaviness of what’s been lost.
None of these parts are wrong — they’re trying to protect you. But when they take over, you can feel fragmented or disconnected from your Self-energy — that calm, compassionate center within you that can hold all parts with care.
The good news is that with awareness and support, you can begin to soothe these parts, care for your body, and reclaim moments of safety and connection — even amid the stress of the season.
Coping with the Holidays After a Traumatic Event
Here are several ways to care for yourself this season, drawn from trauma-informed and IFS perspectives.
1. Give Yourself Permission to Redefine the Holidays
You don’t owe anyone a traditional or “normal” holiday experience. It’s okay to create new rituals or skip old ones altogether. Ask yourself:
What feels nourishing right now?
What do I need more of (quiet, light, space, connection)?
What can I gently let go of this year?
Sometimes, that means spending the holidays in nature, volunteering, traveling, or keeping things simple at home. Healing often begins with allowing yourself to do things differently.
2. Make Space for Grief and Mixed Emotions
Trauma and loss often bring waves of grief — for what happened, what changed, or what will never be the same. The holidays can magnify that grief. Instead of pushing it away, try to make space for it intentionally:
Light a candle for what or who you’ve lost.
Journal about what this season brings up for you.
Allow tears if they come; they are part of the body’s way of releasing stored pain.
Remember: sadness doesn’t cancel out gratitude, and grief doesn’t mean you’re failing at healing. Both can coexist.
3. Plan for Sensory and Emotional Regulation
Your nervous system needs anchors to feel grounded. Some helpful regulation tools include:
Grounding objects (a soft scarf, stone, or bracelet to hold during stress)
Body-based grounding (pressing your feet into the floor, noticing your breath)
Intentional lighting — soft, warm tones rather than harsh overhead lights
Sensory breaks — stepping outside or taking a quiet pause in another room during gatherings
Try creating a “holiday regulation kit” — a small bag with calming items you can access anytime you feel overstimulated.
4. Set Boundaries That Protect Your Peace
Boundaries are not rejection; they’re protection. You have the right to say no to gatherings, conversations, or traditions that feel unsafe. You might say:
“I love you, but I’m not able to join this year.”
“That topic feels heavy for me right now — can we talk about something else?”
“I’ll stop by for a short visit, but I’ll need to leave early.”
Setting expectations early helps reduce guilt and confusion later. Remember: healing requires honoring your limits.
5. Stay Connected — Safely
Isolation can intensify trauma responses, but connection can regulate the nervous system. If being with family isn’t possible or safe, find other ways to connect:
Spend time with chosen family or trusted friends.
Join a support group or online community.
Schedule therapy or check-ins with your counselor.
Even brief, authentic connections can help your system feel grounded and supported.
6. Support Your Body’s Rhythms
Trauma recovery and seasonal change both affect sleep, appetite, and energy. Supporting your body helps support your mind:
Maintain consistent sleep and wake times.
Nourish yourself with balanced meals, even when appetite is low.
Move your body — gentle stretching, yoga, or walking.
Get natural light exposure each morning, if possible.
When you treat your body as a partner in healing, your resilience grows.
When EMDR Can Help with Holiday Triggers
The holidays often act as emotional amplifiers — magnifying what’s already present beneath the surface. If you’ve experienced trauma, this can bring old memories and sensations rushing back. EMDR therapy can help your brain and body process these experiences so they no longer hold the same charge.
How EMDR Works
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a trauma-focused therapy that helps people heal from distressing life experiences. Through a structured process that includes bilateral stimulation (such as eye movements, tapping, or sounds), EMDR helps the brain reprocess memories that were stored in a fragmented or “stuck” state.
Rather than reliving the trauma, EMDR helps the brain connect those memories with a sense of resolution and safety. Clients often describe it as “finally feeling done” with something that used to overwhelm them.
Why EMDR Can Be Especially Helpful Around the Holidays
Reduces Reactivity to Triggers: EMDR helps desensitize the emotional charge around memories or sensory cues that tend to arise during the holidays.
Rebuilds Internal Safety: Processing trauma helps the nervous system learn that the present is safe, allowing you to experience joy and connection again.
Releases Guilt or Shame: EMDR can help reframe self-blame and restore self-compassion, especially if trauma involved family dynamics.
Restores the Ability to Feel Connected: By integrating past pain, you can show up in the present with more openness and authenticity.
For many, EMDR helps turn the holidays from a season of dread into a gentler experience of self-trust and presence.
What EMDR Looks Like in Practice
EMDR sessions typically begin with grounding and resourcing — learning to connect to sensations of calm or safety before approaching painful memories. You’ll work collaboratively with your therapist to identify the experiences that continue to impact you, then process them in a structured and contained way.
During the holidays, EMDR can focus on:
Desensitizing specific triggers (certain songs, smells, or family interactions)
Building resources (inner imagery of safety, self-compassion, supportive parts)
Processing loss or grief connected to this time of year
Restoring access to positive memories or meaning-making
At Sage Leaf Wellness, EMDR is often integrated with Internal Family Systems (IFS) to help clients connect with the different parts of themselves that hold fear, sadness, or protection. This combined approach supports healing on both a neurological and emotional level.
Practical Grounding Tools You Can Use Now
Even if you’re not currently in therapy, here are a few simple grounding practices that can support you through triggering moments:
5-4-3-2-1 Grounding: Name 5 things you see, 4 you can touch, 3 you hear, 2 you smell, and 1 you taste.
Butterfly Tap: Cross your arms and gently tap each shoulder alternately to calm your nervous system.
Safe Place Visualization: Imagine a place where you feel safe and at ease — use all your senses to picture it vividly.
Breathing with Intention: Inhale for 4 counts, hold for 4, exhale for 6. Longer exhales signal safety to your body.
These tools help anchor you in the present when emotions begin to swell.
When to Seek Professional Support
If you find yourself avoiding sleep, using substances to cope, or feeling detached or hopeless, it’s a sign that your nervous system could use professional support. Therapy — and particularly EMDR — can help your brain process trauma more efficiently and restore your sense of safety.
If you ever feel in crisis or unsafe with your thoughts, please reach out to immediate help through:
988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (24/7, confidential, U.S.)
A trusted friend or therapist
Your local emergency services
You don’t have to go through this season alone.
Finding Healing in the Season of Stillness
The holidays can be complicated — a swirl of memory, expectation, and emotion. But they can also become a time of deep reflection and self-compassion. You don’t have to perform joy to belong; you simply need to honor what’s real for you.
With the right support — whether that’s grounding practices, compassionate connection, or EMDR therapy — healing is possible. Slowly, the holidays can shift from being a time of pain to a season that honors your resilience, your boundaries, and your capacity to find light again.
At Sage Leaf Wellness, our trauma-informed therapists specialize in helping people navigate the emotional complexity of the holidays. Through EMDR, IFS, and mindful support, we help clients reconnect with safety, self-trust, and meaning — one gentle step at a time.
If this season feels heavy, know that you’re not alone. Healing doesn’t mean forgetting the past — it means remembering that you can feel safe in the present.