Relating Through the Festive Season

The festive season is thick with expectation and social conditioning.

It takes something most of us were never taught how to give.

Not effort.

Not perfection.

Not being agreeable or easy.

Not being entertaining.

It takes capacity.

The festive season is testing for most, feared by many, and easeful for few.

But, there is a deep undercurrent of wishing its were as beautiful as our fantasy hopes it to be.

Truth is, it is so easy to slip back into old patterns.

To sit at the table, nerves humming, roles already assigned, reaching for intoxicants, distractions, noise, anything to make connection happen or to avoid connection, or a conversation, or the body settle.

And yet, so much of this season is quietly disconnected.

A time society tells us is for togetherness, but how much of it is actually present.

When do we actually drop into genuine connection together?

How much is honest.

How much is vulnerable.

How much truly meets the heart.

We talk, we eat, we laugh in familiar ways, but often we do not really arrive.

When we regulate together, in a pause, or in the heart, in a moment of awe, or a simple I feel you.

We skim the surface because going deeper feels risky.

Because someone might tell the truth.

Because something real might be felt.

Because discomfort might enter the room.

Because something unfamiliar might shatter the fantasy version of what we believe family festive time should be.

Relating asks something different of us.

It asks for presence.

Not just being there physically, but being here internally. When your nervous system is braced or performing, the other can feel it. And you can choose to continue incongruence, or name it, feel it, let it be acknowledged.

It asks for self contact.

You cannot share what you are not in touch with. When we lose ourselves, we reach for roles. The pleaser. The fixer. The one who keeps it light.

It asks for emotional honesty.

Not the dramatic kind. The simple naming of what is true right now. I feel tender. I feel guarded. I do not know yet. This is the path to truth, to real connection, to real love, and sometimes that may mean distance or boundaries, but it becomes more aligned.

It asks for tolerance of discomfort.

Real connection will unsettle you. If comfort is the priority, depth cannot survive. Mmmm.

It asks for curiosity without agenda.

Listening not to manage the moment, but to understand the inner world of another. Asking questions that dive a little deeper, bringing in all aspects of self, getting to know each other, rather than playing out old familiar routes.

And it asks for responsibility.

To own your impact without shame, and your needs without demand. You are in charge of your actions, your reactions, and your responses. You create the reality you live in, no one else.

This is my wish for this festive season.

That we go a little deeper.

That we meet a little more.

That we ask one truer question.

That we stay present for one honest answer.

Warmth doesn’t live in tradition, intoxicants, or grand gestures alone.

They can create a container, but the warmth itself comes from arriving honestly, choosing to relate in the here and the now, and letting another do the same.

www.narladean.com

With love,

Narla