EP 0052 – Holidays

EP 0052 – Holidays

It’s Not You – It’s Your Holiday Mask

Tomorrow you walk back into the family script you’ve outgrown, slipping on the same tight role that once kept you safe. Stop pretending the holiday will magically heal the disconnection. The table won’t fix what pretending has buried. The only way through is to feel what’s actually happening inside you—right there in the chaos.

The Family System Demands Your Performance
Holidays force you back into the exact role the family trained you to play. You sense the old anxiety rising because your body remembers: show up happy, productive, positive, or face shame. The system is shame-based. Real feelings—sadness, worthlessness, exhaustion—threaten everyone’s fragile illusion of okayness. So you pretend, perform, and keep the mirror turned away from their own pain. That performance isn’t connection; it’s survival theater.

Avoidance Feels Safer—Until It Doesn’t
You avoid the discomfort by numbing out, overeating, staying busy, or scripting surface-level chatter about stuffing and football. Facing the feelings means risking rejection, judgment, or triggering everyone’s buried shame. Deep down you fear that if you stop pretending, you’ll be seen as broken, unworthy, or too much. So you bury the loneliness you already feel even when surrounded by people. Avoidance protects the system, not you.

The Price of Staying in the Role
Every year you show up as the false self, you reinforce the lie that you’re only lovable when you perform. The loneliness grows heavier. Self-hate deepens because you know you’re betraying yourself. You stay addicted to external validation while your real needs—authenticity, rest, emotional safety—starve. You end up exhausted, disconnected, and still isolated in a crowded room.

Freedom Lives on the Other Side of Feeling It
When you start paying attention—tracking body sensations, noticing the role, allowing the sadness without fixing it—you reclaim space inside. The crippling relief you feel when you leave isn’t failure; it’s proof you’re dropping the mask. Over time you stop needing their approval to feel worthy. You choose who to spend time with, or choose solitude, from self-care instead of hurt. Real connection becomes possible because you belong to yourself first.

Three Important Takeaways

• Thanksgiving isn’t about connection—it’s a mirror showing you the role you still play to stay safe in a shame-based system.
• Avoiding painful feelings only makes the false self stronger and the loneliness deeper; facing them is the only path to freedom.
• You don’t need family permission to stop pretending—belonging to yourself is the only approval that matters.

Conclusion
The holiday noise will fade, the plates will clear, and the old script will wait for next year. But the quiet ache you carry doesn’t vanish with the leftovers. It stays until you stop outsourcing your worth. Right now the choice is brutal and simple: keep feeding the performance or start feeding the part of you that’s been starving for decades. When you finally sit in your own company without apology, the silence stops feeling like punishment. It starts feeling like home. Keep choosing that.