Holiday Smiles Seminar

Holidays can be painful reminders of loss, loneliness and disappointment.

Family gatherings can be fraught with complicated history, dynamics and clashing expectations.

Gift-giving can feel too expensive, too difficult to figure out, too overwhelming, too vague, too hard to provide for too many people.

Longer, darker days can depress moods and sap resilience.

As I talked with a loved one recently, I realized that the holiday season can be really, really challenging for a lot of people, and they don't know how to make it a better experience. I totally get it.

I know what it feels like to be intimidated by other people's expectations and reactions, to suffer pangs of grief over a departed family member, to feel stressed about matching up ideals with those I'll be sharing the holidays with, to feel disappointed about being far from family and even to sometimes experience insecurity that my celebrations don't measure up to other people's.

But, I now know what can help and how to make the holidays merry and bright again!

Want to know how my work as a certified life coach and nervous system resilience guide can help YOU face the holidays with a totally new outlook, and with a new sense of peace and confidence?

Grab your seat to the Holiday Smiles Seminar!

If you can't attend Live, no worries! You will receive access to the recording to watch at a convenient time!

• Learn where emotions that cause you discomfort and pain come from

• Understand your tendency to avoid (or wish you could!) family gatherings

• Make sense of conflict with loved ones over traditions and practices

• Cultivate resilience to manage unfulfilled expectations

• Create a powerful new mindset to embrace the holidays with new meaning

Even though I have training in and experience with managing thoughts and shifting mindsets, I know what it’s like to struggle with feeling confined to a certain pattern or expectation.

I've been 1000 miles away from family for over 20 years. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years abruptly changed when my husband and I, as newlyweds, moved far away for graduate school. Traditions were interrupted and the far distance left me feeling lonely and isolated, despite being happily married.

Even though I was now creating a family of my own with my husband, it was a bit of an identity crisis. We married young and had our first baby just a year later. We were still figuring out who we were, and sorting out the traditions we wanted to keep and which to discard. And that process wasn't always easy to agree upon.

But, mostly I was trying to hold onto traditions of my childhood. And it just wasn't the same.

So, I know how painful it can be coming into the holidays when things feel so confusingly unfamiliar when familiarity was what had made them so magical.

Thankfully, I also know what it’s like to be on the other side of it.

To realize that I can get up and do something radically different and lovingly call it my own. I can shift the expectation of what tradition looks like and means, and create a whole new story.

Go camping on Thanksgiving? Why not??

Strap a canoe to the roof of the minivan? Sure!

Cook a turkey breast in the InstantPot plugged in at the campground pavilion while foil-wrapped potatoes roast in the campfire? Hilarious and delicious!

Enjoy a simple feast at a bare, wooden picnic table by a lake? One of my favorite memories!

Pushing against the definition of tradition, summoning up the confidence to do so by thinking in a more expansive way, and curiously questioning limiting beliefs, has lead to more joyful authentic holiday experiences over the years.

Boogie boarding the following Thanksgiving in chilly crashing waves at the Texas coast 3 hours from home? Makes me feel even more alive! So, now we return to the coast every year in eager anticipate of the tradition we created that looks very little like the gatherings of our childhoods.

That’s why I do the work that I do.

I love to push the limits of my thinking, and my clients', to get curious and creative, and to open up the possibilities for more joy! There is confidence to be nurtured in facing the unfamiliar. And confidence can go with you anywhere, anytime, in any circumstance.

If you are dreading the holiday season give yourself an early gift of calm fortitude. It doesn't always have to be painful. With the guidance shared in this seminar, you will be empowered to view the holidays in a new way! See you at the Seminar!

Much Love,

Coach Michelle