Going Home Without Leaving Yourself Behind

Dear Land Loved,

Thanksgiving is coming and I'm already dreading it! Every year I go home and within an hour I'm fourteen again: shrinking, keeping the peace, managing my mom's moods, biting my tongue when my brother makes lame comments about my life. I've done so much work on myself, but around them it all seems to disappear. I love my family and I don't want to stop going. How do I show up without losing myself?

I really hear you, let’s dive in.

The first thing I want to say is that this doesn't mean your work didn't count.

It means your family knew you first.

Families are one of the oldest rooms we ever lived in. Long before you had words for boundaries or needs, your body learned the temperature of that house. Who needed calming. When to go quiet. How to make yourself smaller so things stayed smooth. That learning wasn't a mistake. It was intelligence. It was how a young you stayed connected and safe.

So when you walk through that door and feel fourteen again, I don't hear failure. I hear an old survival map switching on, right on schedule, because the terrain looks familiar.

The work you've done hasn't disappeared. It's still there. The old patterns are just louder right now, because they've had potentially decades of practice in that house. The goal isn't to stop feeling the pull back into your fourteen-year-old self. It's to notice it sooner each time, and to know how to come back to yourself when you do.

I wonder if part of the dread comes from feeling like you have to either show up as the fully realized version of who you are today, or give yourself up entirely. There's a middle place. It looks like staying a little more you than last year. Maybe that's one comment from your brother you don't laugh along with. Maybe it's letting your mom's mood belong to her, just for an afternoon. Small things. They count.

It helps to decide some of this before you arrive, while you're still steady. Ask yourself: How long can I stay and still feel like me? Maybe that's the whole evening. Maybe it's dinner and dessert. Let that be enough. How long you stay isn't a measure of how much you love them. Drive yourself if you can, so leaving is a choice you hold in your own hands.

And give yourself permission to step away, even briefly. A walk around the block. Your hands on a tree in the yard. Cold autumn air on your face. Or a quiet moment in the bathroom, letting warm water run over your hands while you take a few slow, deep breaths. These small pauses aren't escapes. They're resets, a chance for your body to remember itself before you rejoin the group.

So many of us know this feeling of walking back into old family dynamics over the holidays, especially when family lives far away. They perhaps haven't witnessed the ways you've changed. In their eyes, you may still be the person you were when you left, and those old roles can feel comfortable to them, convenient or even familiar and safe. As you show up differently, there may be some discomfort while they get to know who you've become. That's okay. Discomfort isn't a sign that something's wrong. It's often a sign that something is shifting.

For herbal support this season, I'd reach for Rose. She's one of the oldest heart allies we have, soft and opening, and still carrying her thorns. That feels like exactly the medicine for a day like this: staying tender toward the people you love while remembering you're allowed to protect yourself. A cup of rose petal tea before you leave the house, or a little rose tincture, can be a quiet reminder throughout the day that softness and boundaries aren't opposites.

Lemon Balm is a lovely companion alongside her. Bright, gentle, and calming without making you foggy, she's especially helpful for the kind of anxious, fluttery feeling that can build in the hours before a family gathering. Brew a pot, pour it into a thermos, and bring it with you for the drive there and back. Sipping something warm that you made for yourself can be its own small act of care, a way of carrying a bit of home, your home, into theirs.

When the pull is strong, try speaking to yourself the way you'd speak to that fourteen-year-old. Silently, or out loud in the bathroom if you need to. I see you. You don't have to keep everyone okay. I'm the grown-up now. I'll get us home.

And afterward, plan something gentle for yourself. A bath, an early night, a slow morning. Not as a reward for surviving, but as a way of coming back to the version of you who lives in your own life.

One of the hardest, most frustrating parts of transformation is watching yourself miss the mark in real time. You feel the old pattern take hold, you know exactly what's happening, and you do it anyway. That isn't failure. That awareness is the learning. You probably won't do this perfectly, and you don't have to. Every time you stay a little more yourself in that room, you're teaching your body a new map, one where being with your family and loving yourself no longer cancel each other out.

Warmly,

Vanessa

P.S. If you're local and the holidays stir up a lot for you, I hold free monthly women's circles in Nelson, BC. It can help to have a room where no one needs you to be fourteen. 🖤