15. How to Redefine Self-Love for the Holidays: Tips for navigating family gatherings, gift-giving, and setting boundaries during the festive season

Struggling with holiday stress? In this empowering episode, we dive into how you can navigate family gatherings, gift-giving, and emotional dynamics during the festive season. Discover practical strategies to set loving boundaries, honor your energy, and redefine self-love for a season of true joy and authenticity.

Ready to banish people-pleasing forever? Get your FREE gift: 8 Steps to Healthy Boundaries Checklist designed for high-achieving women. Say goodbye to overwhelm and hello to confident, guilt-free interactions this holiday season! Grab your copy here: https://nadjahagen.com/boundaries-checklist

🎧 Tune in now and reclaim your peace this festive season.

Transcript

Nadja Hagen [00:00:09]:
Are you ready to go?

Nadja Hagen [00:00:10]:
From Am I good enough to wait? Is this even good enough for me?

Nadja Hagen [00:00:16]:
Welcome to the Self Love Sessions podcast.

Nadja Hagen [00:00:18]:
I'm Nadja Hagen, your hostess and Self love coach for all your high achieving women recovering from people pleasing and ready to prioritize yourselves. In this show, I share actionable tips and tools to help you set healthy boundaries and prioritize yourself so that you can intentionally build your life, aligned with your values, and finally build mutual, connected relationships without the need to pretend to be someone you're not. Let's dive into today's episode.

Nadja Hagen [00:00:53]:
Hey there. Hello. Hello. Welcome Back to the 15th episode of the Self Love Sessions podcast. Take a moment seriously. Wherever you are right now, whether you are driving, cooking, phoning laundry, or stealing a quiet moment just for yourself, I want you to know this conversation is going to change everything. The holidays. Two words that can trigger more emotional complexity than a therapy session.

Nadja Hagen [00:01:32]:
Marathon. Let's get real. Those picture perfect social media moments. The matching sweaters, the flawless family photos, the seemingly effortless joy. Total illusion. And today, we are going to deconstruct that illusion together. This isn't just another podcast episode about surviving the holidays. This is your roadmap to radical self love, to setting boundaries that honor your spirit, and to walking through the season with unprecedented grace and authenticity.

Nadja Hagen [00:02:07]:
I see you, the person who's been carrying everyone else's emotional weight. You are the one who's been performing happiness instead of experiencing it. You are the soul who's been dimming your own light just to keep everyone else around you comfortable. But not anymore. Today we are changing that narrative. So let's talk about the real landscape of holiday emotional terrain. Let's talk about what's really happening during these gatherings. It's not just a family dinner.

Nadja Hagen [00:02:45]:
It's a complex emotional ecosystem where decades of unspoken dynamics, unresolved tensions, and deeply ingrained patterns are playing out. Family gatherings are like emotional archeology. Every interaction is a layer, every conversation a potential excavation of old wounds, unmet expectations, and deeply buried stories. So how do we navigate this terrain without losing ourselves? So let's have a look at the gathering dynamics breakdown. Picture the scenario. You walk into a room filled with your family. Maybe it's your childhood home. The walls are familiar.

Nadja Hagen [00:03:37]:
The smells are nostalgic. But something feels charged. Uncle Robert might be waiting to make a comment about your career choices. Your mother might have that look. You know, the one. That subtle disappointment masked as concern. Your siblings might be rehearsing their own survival strategies. Here's your first radical act.

Nadja Hagen [00:04:06]:
You are not responsible for managing everyone's emotions. Let me say that you are not responsible for managing everyone's emotions. Your job is to show up authentically, to be present, to love both yourself and them from a place of genuine connection, not obligatory performance. Before you even step into that gathering, I want you to have a toolkit. And I'm not talking about wine, though. No judgment. If that's part of your strategy, I recommend that you create your own pre gathering ritual. And I'm giving you a couple of examples.

Nadja Hagen [00:04:52]:
You might adapt one of them, or you can create your own. You can have a 10 minute meditation to make sure you are completely centered within yourself and you are connected to the power within and the peace within. You can do some breath work to ground your energy. You can journal your intentions. That's mighty powerful too. What are your intentions for this gathering? And when you do this journaling, don't focus on the intentions of people behaving in a specific and certain way because you will be disappointed. We can't command other people's actions and it's good that we can't, but we can steer our own. So what are your personal intentions? How do you want to show up? How do you want to feel during this family gathering? And set clear, loving boundaries with yourself.

Nadja Hagen [00:05:48]:
I recommend that you do this on paper. Write down the situations of which you are afraid upfront. So Uncle Robot coming to you, telling you, oh, you should lose some weight. That's a classical one and believe me, I have experienced this myself. If this is one of the scenarios, write it down and prepare yourself. How do you conjure? What do you say to Uncle Robert? You're more than welcome. You're more than invited. No, you are required to set a boundary here and now.

Nadja Hagen [00:06:22]:
I want to give you some strategies that you can use during the gathering. If you're noticing everything is becoming a little bit too much, then you can take a micro break. It can be a micro break in the bathroom where you are hiding for 15 minutes just to do some conscious breathing to calm you down, to ground yourself, to reconnect to your heart, or to just have a couple of minutes of undisturbed quiet time. You can do this in the kitchen. You can take an outside moment, step outside, have a couple of deep breaths of fresh air and enjoying nature. Another strategy that can work wonders is having a supportive text messaging exchange with someone you love and someone who's supporting you. So hearing some loving, supportive and encouraging words can give you the exact amount of strength you need to go through your family gathering and feeling good about it. Another thing that works pretty well is visualizing an energetic protective shield so you are more than welcome to imagine you are having a field of energy around you and this shield as God's love protecting and supporting you and everything that's harmful or negative is just repelled by it.

Nadja Hagen [00:07:52]:
So only the good things are led through and come to you. The next thing is creating your post gathering recovery strategies. So plan some time for some gentle self care. It can be as easy as having a bubble bath or going for a longer walk out in nature. It can meaning some friends that are giving you the laughter, the deep belly laughs and making you forget all your worries and are recharging your batteries by spending quality time together. It can also be emotional decompression so you can take some time to digest all the emotions that have been appearing through the family gathering. Give yourself some time to feel and then let it flow. Let it go.

Nadja Hagen [00:08:45]:
That's a way of feeling too. So it's a kind of processing without any self judgment. You're allowed to feel whatever you feel. You're allowed to be sad, you're allowed to be nervous. You're allowed to be angry. Whatever it is. Your feelings are absolutely acceptable and okay. Just give yourself the time and the grace to truly feel them.

Nadja Hagen [00:09:09]:
And you know there's a difference between feeling your emotions and then letting them pass through you and draining them. Don't hold on to them, just feel them as if you are an observer and you're observing what is going on while feeling the way you feel. And remember yourself. You're not defined by your emotions. You can feel so. So annoyed and so angry towards someone and still being present and respectful and polite. I know sometimes that's challenging, I admit that. But you can do this because you have a choice.

Nadja Hagen [00:09:48]:
You are not your emotions. So fear them, process them and let them go and you can take a moment to celebrate your growth. How much has this family gathering been better for you than all the last ones? You have come a long way. You have worked so hard on yourself. It's time to give yourself credit for this. You did an amazing job. So celebrate it. So let's talk about gifts.

Nadja Hagen [00:10:18]:
Not the wrapped packages, but the real gifts you are giving this season. The gift of presence. The gift of authentic connection. The gift of showing up as your true unfurtered self. Material gifts, they are secondary. Your love, your boundaries, your self respect. Those are the true presence. And I want to share some practical gift wisdom.

Nadja Hagen [00:10:47]:
Set a budget and treat it like a thoroughly Boundary. So there is not done a lot of good with you overextending your finances to buying expensive gifts that you actually cannot afford. And I have a tip here for you. There are so many really nice and lovely things we can do by ourselves. We can handmade. So one Christmas when I was still a student, my budget was very tiny. I could say non existent even. So I decided to give away some handmade cosmetics for the ladies.

Nadja Hagen [00:11:28]:
And I created a salt scrub with a little bit of aromatherapy. And I've chosen a different sand for every single person I was preparing the gift for so that the sand matches their personality. That was an absolutely amazing and fabulous gift. So if you want to have some inspiration, head over to Pinterest and put in the search bar handmade gifts, handmade cosmetics, or handcrafted Christmas gifts. You can play around a little bit with your search keywords and see what gives you the best results. But there are so many amazing ideas and recipes. Absolutely fabulous. Another gift idea is preparing handwritten notes over expensive items.

Nadja Hagen [00:12:18]:
So, you know, you might think, oh, just a piece of paper and I've written something on it. But if it comes truly from the heart, this might be one of the most meaningful gifts that the person you gift this to has ever received in their whole life. I can still remember one of the most precious gifts I have ever received. It was at the end of my official coaching training, my first one. And during our training time, you know, we have been together for nearly a year. There was a day and a time where we were asked to write down something positive about every colleague and participant. Something that stood out for us, something that was special about this person. Every one of us did this exercise for all the other participants.

Nadja Hagen [00:13:11]:
And at the last day of our coaching training, our graduation day, we got handed over a beautiful piece of paper. And on this paper, all the positive aspects, all the things that our colleagues find special about us were written down. I have this beautiful gift till today. And whenever I doubt myself too much, I remember myself, hey, have a look at this. There are so many good things in you. And this gift, seriously is one of the most precious ones I've ever received. So creating some handwritten notes might be truly, truly special and precious. Another tip I have is prioritize experiences over things.

Nadja Hagen [00:14:04]:
So, you know, when we reach a certain standard of living, which normally comes with a certain age, our material wishes become either too big to be a Christmas present or they have already been fulfilled more or less. So we can spend a lot of money to buy some nonsense that nobody truly needs. Or we can spend the money on creating beautiful experiences, whatever they may be. It can be a holiday together. It can be an invitation to a special restaurant. It can be something like, you know. You can create a guided tour for some of your family members who would like to learn more about the area you're living in. There are endless ideas.

Nadja Hagen [00:14:50]:
How would you feel if you got gifted something that was so specifically tailored towards you? I find this one amazing. And remember that quality time is the most luxurious gift. It's one of the gifts that we can't replace by anything else. We can spend as many material items, but they are never ever a replacement for your presence, your love, and your genuine connection. So let's talk boundary setting and your superpower. Maybe you are not aware of it yet that it's one of your superpowers, but it is. Some boundaries are not walls. They are actually love letters to yourself.

Nadja Hagen [00:15:40]:
They are how you communicate. I matter. My energy matters. My well being is sacred. So I would like to give you some boundary mantras. I am allowed to prioritize my peace. My feelings are valued. I can love my family and love myself.

Nadja Hagen [00:16:06]:
No is a complete sentence that requires zero explanation. How do they feel? You can use them very well to prepare yourself and set yourself up for a centered and peaceful family gathering. So this isn't just about surviving the holidays. This is about a profound evolutionary act of self love. You are healing generational patterns. You are breaking cycles. You are showing up for yourself in ways perhaps no one in your family has done before. You are worthy.

Nadja Hagen [00:16:45]:
Not when you're perfect. Not when you've met everyone's expectations. But right now, exactly as you are, this holiday season is your invitation to radical self love, to showing up with compassion and to honoring your journey. If this landed for you, screenshot it, share it, send it to someone who needs this medicine. You're not alone. I see you and I believe in you. And you're absolutely more than capable to make this family gathering and this holiday season a beautiful experience for yourself. It might not feel like this right now, in this moment, but with a little bit of preparation, with some strategies and tools that you can use during the family gathering and some well deserved after time for yourself, you can absolutely do it.

Nadja Hagen [00:17:47]:
I talk to you in the next episode.

Nadja Hagen [00:17:54]:
Thank you for tuning into today's episode.

Nadja Hagen [00:17:57]:
If you're ready to dive deeper into.

Nadja Hagen [00:17:59]:
Setting boundaries, knowing exactly when and how to communicate them so they stick, I've got something for you. Head over to nadjahagen.com boundaries checklist and.

Nadja Hagen [00:18:14]:
Grab your free 8 Steps to Healthy.

Nadja Hagen [00:18:16]:
Boundaries checklist for high achieving women so you feel confident in every interaction. This is my thank you for listening.

Nadja Hagen [00:18:24]:
And a way to keep supporting you.

Nadja Hagen [00:18:26]:
Beyond the self Love Sessions. I can't wait to chat again in the next episode.