Family Stress at Christmas: Why Old Patterns Come Back

Christmas can bring up stress in ways that feel confusing and unexpected.

Even when life feels stable, family time can activate old patterns, roles, and emotional responses that belong to much earlier chapters of our lives.

In this Christmas episode, somatic psychotherapist Shelley Treacher explores why family stress often intensifies at Christmas, how the nervous system remembers familiar environments, and why slowing down can feel surprisingly difficult at this time of year.

The episode includes a short public-domain fable, The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, as a gentle reflection on safety, stimulation, and why calm matters. Shelley also shares personal reflections on learning to slow down, noticing urgency in the body, and how regulation often begins in very small steps.

This episode is for anyone who feels more reactive, tired, or unsettled around family at Christmas. Also for you if you want a compassionate, body-based understanding of what’s happening.

Here's another Christmas episode you may relate to: The Pressure to be Cheerful at Christmas. A Real Talk Christmas Podcast

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Transcript

Christmas Family Stress, Old Patterns, and Slowing Down

This is a Christmas reflection on family dynamics, old patterns, and what it really means to slow down.

Hi, and welcome to the Stress and Anxiety Recovery Podcast.

I’m your host, Shelley Treacher, a somatic psychotherapist based in Bristol.

If you’re new here, this is a place where we reflect on emotional wellbeing, relationships, and the nervous system.

If you’re a returning listener, I’m really glad that you’re back.

Have I Said This All Before? (Watch the video version, here)

Every year around this time, I sit down and write something for Christmas.

And every year I think, haven’t I said this all before?

Slow down.

Look after yourself.

Let yourself rest.

It’s starting to feel like the Groundhog Day of emotional wellbeing.

But maybe that’s okay.

Why Important Truths Keep Coming Back

Important truths come back again and again and again.

A bit like familiar Christmas songs. Like Slade, for example.

That merry Christmas song comes back to haunt me every single year, just when I think it’s left.

In fact, I once heard it while I was in a tent at a festival in June.

It was the real Noddy Holder.

I didn’t know what was going on as he screamed at the top of his lungs, “It’s Christmas!”

My nervous system was in complete disarray.

And now I’m wondering if I’ve told you this story as well before.

Moving on...

Why We Repeat Patterns in Therapy and Life

In therapy, I see this all the time.

We repeat patterns over and over again.

Therapy, or progression or growth, isn’t really about doing it in a straight upward line.

It’s more like a wobbly walk up a hill.

You walk backwards a few steps.

You take a break.

You have a snack.

You walk up the hard bit again.

And then, you know, you have another rest.

It’s more like a wobbly line.

Why Christmas Brings It All Back

And Christmas has a way of bringing it all up again.

It has a way of bringing out the child in us.

There are the old expectations and roles that we used to play.

And all the family dynamics.

You can be a fully grown adult, with a mortgage, plenty of supplements, and a therapist, and still act like a child around your family.

Family Roles at Christmas

For some, this is about being the responsible one.

The one who takes care of everybody in the family.

The peacemaker.

And for others, it’s about being overlooked or ignored.

Or perhaps teased a little bit too sharply.

It might feel like your parents, your family, or your guardians are telling you that you haven’t learned anything at all since you were living with them.

Your Body Remembers Familiar Environments

One of my clients said that her body feels like it collapses as soon as she enters the family home.

And that’s exactly what happens.

Our bodies remember that familiar environment.

We remember the roles that we felt we had to learn and play in order to protect ourselves and to connect.

Our bodies automatically slip into this shape without us even realising it.

You’re Not Regressing — You’re Remembering

You are not going backwards when this happens.

You are remembering the posture, the tone, the strategies, the silence that you had to adopt to keep yourself safe.

Why It’s So Hard to Relax at Christmas

This is why it’s so hard to relax at Christmas.

Your adult self is responding to your child self, who might be scanning the room for who’s stressed, who’s irritated, and who needs managing.

This isn’t a setback.

This is familiarity.

Why Relaxation Feels So Difficult

Most of my clients believe that they have absolutely no idea how to relax.

Does this sound like you?

Do you feel like you have no idea how to settle down once you’re stressed?

The reason we believe this, and it’s not true, is because we think of stress and relaxation as complete opposites that we can jump between.

We can’t do that.

The Space Between Stress and Calm

We have to move slowly between stress and relaxation.

It happens incrementally.

You know that feeling when you’re neither.

When you’re stressed - not quite stressed.

Relaxed - not quite relaxed.

Somewhere in between.

It’s awkward, isn’t it?

Why Most People Miss the Transition between stress and relaxation

Most people miss this transition.

They stop work.

They shut their laptop.

They change their clothes into pyjamas — well, I know I do, especially in winter — and they expect to feel relaxed straight away.

It doesn’t happen like that.

It happens gradually.

The ‘Hurry Up’ Voice

Even in relaxation, and in trying to relax, we have a “hurry up” mode inside of us.

I know this too.

When I’m doing my videos or my podcasts, which has been my main project this year, I have this voice inside me that says, “Come on. Get it finished. I’ve got to get this all done before Christmas. Before the end of the year.”

It’s torture!

Listening to the Inner Eight-Year-Old

But I’m trying to do things differently this year.

I know that’s my inner stressed eight-year-old responding to a vague sense of duty at the end of the year.

When I hear this rushing inside me, I say, “No. Stop.”

Just like you would to a child who doesn’t want to go to bed, but you know it’s in their best interest.

And I breathe.

My nervous system thanks me for not treating everything like an emergency.

And my videos are better for it.

Shoulder Tension and Urgency in the Body

I’ve had shoulder tension for as long as I can remember.

And most of my clients have this issue too.

It’s a stiff area across my back that just won’t seem to let go.

But lately, it’s been getting in the way of my salsa dancing.

I love to do a bit of a shoulder roll, but my shoulders have been behaving like concrete.

Noticing Tension in Everyday Life

One day I was driving and I thought, what am I doing?

I was gripping the steering wheel as if that would make the car go faster.

And I realised: oh yeah! That’s where the shoulder tension is.

I realised I do a lot of things this way.

Hurrying through things with a real sense of urgency.

Often because we’re afraid of upsetting someone, or that something is going to go wrong somewhere.

Rushing Through Everyday Tasks

My mum used to say that I cleaned my face like I was scrubbing the doorstep.

And she was right.

We wash our faces like there’s no tomorrow.

We brush our teeth the same way.

If you want to see if you’ve got any tension, just look at how you brush your teeth.

We hurry and rush through everything.

We don’t give ourselves an easy time.

Unexpected Ways the Nervous System Calms

Sometimes the things that make you feel better, the things that help you relax, can be really surprising.

I read a wonderful story on social media about a woman whose workplace gave her money for wellbeing every month.

That month, she went to the local zoo.

She spent £120 on goat pellets.

She said it was the best money she had ever spent.

Simple, Sensory Ways to Wind Down

This makes so much sense.

Often the things that help us relax are simple, sensory, grounding, and maybe a little bit quirky.

They help us relax a little bit at a time.

And that’s all the body needs.

What Winding Down Really Looks Like

Winding down isn’t dramatic.

And it doesn’t have to be perfect.

It’s about small somatic nudges.

Turning the lights down.

Allowing your shoulders or your jaw to soften.

Pausing.

Breathing.

These are little signals that tell your body it’s okay to take a break.

You’re Not Bad at Relaxing

You are not bad at relaxing.

You just need to learn a different pathway to it.

Let yourself relax five per cent at a time.

And if I’ve said all this before, maybe that’s just how healing works.

Gentle repetition.

And maybe, just maybe, I’ll say it all again next year.

But slower 

A Christmas Story About Stress and Safety

As usual, I’m going to read you a Christmas story here.

It’s a simple story, often told to children.

But like so many stories that survive over time, it carries something important for us too.

You don’t need to analyse it.

Just listen.

And notice what happens in your body as you hear it.

This is a short fable attributed to Aesop, written over two thousand years ago.

The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse

A COUNTRY MOUSE invited a Town Mouse, an intimate friend, to pay him a visit and partake of his country fare. 

As they were on the bare plowlands, eating there wheat-stocks and roots pulled up from the hedgerow, the Town Mouse said to his friend,

"You live here the life of the ants, while in my house is the horn of plenty. I am surrounded by every luxury, and if you will come with me, as I wish you would, you shall have an ample share of my dainties."

The Country Mouse was easily persuaded, and returned to town with his friend. 

On his arrival, the Town Mouse placed before him bread, barley, beans, dried figs, honey, raisins, and, last of all, brought a dainty piece of cheese from a basket. 

The Country Mouse, being much delighted at the sight of such good cheer, expressed his satisfaction in warm terms and lamented his own hard fate. 

Just as they were beginning to eat, someone opened the door, and they both ran off squeaking, as fast as they could, to a hole so narrow that two could only find room in it by squeezing. 

They had scarcely begun their repast again when someone else entered to take something out of a cupboard, whereupon the two Mice, more frightened than before, ran away and hid themselves. 

At last the Country Mouse, almost famished, said to his friend: 

"Although you have prepared for me so dainty a feast, I must leave you to enjoy it by yourself. It is surrounded by too many dangers to please me. I prefer my bare plowlands and roots from the hedgerow, where I can live in safety, and without fear."

How Stress Moves Through Families

Stress rarely arrives all at once.

It moves through our systems.

Through families.

Through relationships.

Through our bodies.

When no one is allowed to slow down, to feel or to name what’s really happening, even something small can become overwhelming.

Let the Stress End With You

This isn’t about blame.

It’s about noticing how pressure travels.

And how regulation begins when someone pauses long enough to stop passing it on.

If Christmas stirs old patterns for you, nothing has gone wrong.

Your nervous system is responding to familiarity.

Sometimes the most radical thing you can do is slow things down just a little.

And let the stress end with you.

What a Foster Cat Teaches About Regulation

On a much smaller, very real note, my exciting news this Christmas is that a very sweet and beautiful foster cat has just arrived.

It’s been two years since my lovely cat Mia passed.

And I’d completely forgotten how excellent cats are at slowing you down.

I’d also forgotten that they wake you up at five in the morning by pushing any available object off any surface, repeatedly, with eye contact.

The strange thing is, she feels like my two old cats rolled into one.

It’s like having all three of them here at once.

Which is exquisite.

She doesn’t rush.

She doesn’t multitask.

She requires calm reassurance.

She expects affection, play, and long uninterrupted periods of doing absolutely nothing.

Infact, I wrote most of this podcast with her sitting on my chest between me and the laptop!

Which definitely slowed me down.

A Gentle Christmas Closing

Being with her has been a reminder that regulation doesn’t come from doing more.

It comes from staying still long enough for the body to realise it’s safe.

Which feels like a very good thing to remember at Christmas.

Thank you for joining me today.

If this episode touched something for you, you’re very welcome to subscribe for more reflections like this.

And if Christmas brings up old family dynamics, stress, or a sense of urgency in your body, you might find my other episodes supportive too.

Be kind to yourself over this season.

A lot more comes up in us than we realise.

This has been the Stress and Anxiety Recovery Podcast with Shelley Treacher.

Happy Christmas!