The Body Keeps the Holidays: How Faith and Family Trauma Live in the Nervous System

Your Body is Not a Hallmark Movie (Thank God!)

In a Hallmark movie, the only bodily reaction to a decorated tree is a warm, fuzzy feeling, and a sudden urge to wear cable-knit sweaters. In real life, your nervous system is a far more sophisticated, cynical, and frankly, more interesting piece of machinery. It is less "Holly Jolly Christmas" and more like a high-tech security system installed by a slightly paranoid, but historically accurate, engineer.

That engineer is your past. And it programmed your alarm system (your nervous system) based on everything that has ever happened to you, especially the intense, repetitive, or threatening stuff. We call this somatic memory. It is the way your body remembers what your conscious mind might have filed away, forgotten, or rationalized.

The scent of pine? That’s not just a scent. To your body, it is a timestamp. The specific cadence of your aunt’s voice asking about your love life? That is not a question. It is a trigger. The first chords of the worship songs in church? That’s not just music. It is a full-body flashback.

This isn’t you being "too sensitive" or "dramatic." This is your body doing its job: protecting you. It scans the environment for patterns that, in the past, preceded emotional danger, theological crisis, or relational rupture. And it does not wait for your conscious mind to catch up.

When Your Body Reacts Before You Can Even Say "Oh, Fuck"

Think of your conscious, thinking brain (the prefrontal cortex) like the smart, meticulous CEO who likes to analyze spreadsheets. Your survival brain (the limbic system and brainstem) on the other hand is the head of security. He is former-special forces and has direct access to the panic button.

When security detects a pattern from a past breach, like the sound of your grandmother's voice yelling from the kitchen or that oddly critical, backhanded compliement wrapped in a prayer, it does not schedule a meeting with the CEO. It hits the button, floods your system with cortisol and adrenaline, and before you know it your nervous system lights up like a christmas tree. Your heart races, your gut clenches, you freeze, and you feel a sudden, intense need to flee the dessert table.

That’s why your body is already bracing by November 1st. Your security system knows the "holiday season" is coming. It is preparing for the annual audit. The dread, the tight shoulders, the holiday themed insomnia? That is your body prepping for combat. You're not crazy. You're pre-traumatized.

Reducing the Shame Spiral (Less Shame & More Eggnog, Please!)

Here is the kicker. After the security system sounds the alarm, the CEO brain finally comes back online. And what does it do? Often, he looks at a body in fight-or-flight over Christmas carols and thinks,

"What the hell is wrong with me? Everyone else seems fine.”

That, my friend, is the beginning of a two-week-long, glitter-stuffed, shame spiral. And it is the unhelpful guest who overstays its welcome every damn year.

Let's reframe this.

Your reaction is not a flaw. It is a data point.

It is not a sign you are broken. It is proof that your body learned to survive something.

Getting triggered does not mean you are not "healed." It means you have a nervous system with a really good memory.

Your body is not ruining the holidays. It is communicating the truth of your history in the only language it knows: sensation. It is saying,

"Hey, remember this? Remember how it sucked? I got you, but we gotta get the fuck outta here!"

So, What the Hell Do We Do With This Information?

First, we normalize it. Completely. You are having a biologically coherent response to remembered stress. That's it.

Second, we get curious, not furious. Instead of "Why am I like this?!" try, "Huh. My chest got tight when Uncle Greg started talking about politics. (Honestly, valid!) That's interesting data. What is my body needing right now?" Maybe it's a breath. Maybe it's a boundary. Maybe it is a discreet exit to your car so you can scream at the top of your lungs about how fucked your family is.

Finally, we learn the language of our own nervous system. This is not about achieving a state of permanent peppermint-scented peace. It is about moving from reactivity to responsiveness. It is about giving that excellent, vigilant security system a software update. You can tell him,

"I hear you. Thank you. I'm an adult now, and I have more agency and resources than I did when we were 12. Let me handle this, I've got you"

Your Next Step (If You Want One)

You do not have to white-knuckle your way through this season, waiting for January to feel like yourself again. What if you could understand your triggers not as random failures, but as a map? A map that leads back to your younger self and forward to more agency?

As a therapist specializing in religious trauma and complex family dynamics, I help people decipher that map. We work together to update the nervous system’s software, so you are no longer a hostage to the alarm system from 1998. You can learn to hold both the grief and the hope, the tension and the peace, without your body feeling like it is on a loop of Die Hard (Yes, it's a Christmas movie).

If you are ready to stop just surviving the holidaze and start changing the pattern, let's talk. I offer free 20-minute consultations to see if working together is the right next step for you.

Click here to schedule your consult. Your future self (who might actually enjoy a silent night) will thank you.