As we navigate the holiday season and the winter winds whisper around us, I find myself taking a moment to reflect on the extraordinary journey we’ve experienced together this year. Our time with Led By Horses has been truly magical, filled with healing, hope, and transformation.

Recently, Laurie began working with Kelly Wendorf, who is an executive and personal coach, published author, spiritual mentor, disruptor, and socially responsible entrepreneur. Through Kelly’s training, Laurie has gained new tools to better assist clients dealing with trauma, grief, and life challenges.

Below are 12 tools that Kelly has compiled to help you stay true to yourself and grounded during the holiday season. We encourage you to keep these handy and refer to them often.
(The printable version of this list is below)

Self Awareness
Staying sane and centered during the holidays starts with you and your ability to track your sensations, your thoughts, and behaviors. Even though there are lots of external factors that can be distracting, keep your focus on what is emerging internally for you and attend to it before something unconscious erupts.

The Drama Triangle
The Drama Triangle is a helpful model to keep in mind. It consists of three positions: Hero [caretaker], Victim, Villian. Whenever you find yourself in the mindset of one of these three, you are inside an interpersonal drama. The only way out is off. Taking 100% responsibility for yourself, your situation, and your actions is the ticket out of drama.

Triangulation
Triangulation is the act of using a third person to vent about, gossip about, or try to resolve an issue you have with someone. It creates tension and drama. Don’t do it, and when someone tries to use you as the ‘third,’ politely suggest they take it directly to the person involved.

Breathing
Taking a longer exhale than inhale sends a parasympathetic volley to the brain that you are safe. Use this breathing technique often to keep your nervous system regulated so that you respond rather than react.

What’s OK, What’s Not OK
Take a moral, mental, physical, and emotional inventory of what works for you, what doesn’t, what you need, and what you will and will not do – preferably before the holidays go full bore. Get crystal clear with yourself so that you are ready to face and skillfully respond to the predicted and unpredicted pressures.

Don’t Argue The Facts
We naively believe that our experience is objective. But our brains skew information (aka ‘facts’) depending on our state of mind. The more emotional we are, the less reliable our information is. The goal of arguments is not to win our side. The goal is to build connection. Compromise and folding is also not an option. Instead, be creative to find mutually validating win-win options.

Invention vs Impact
Just because you or the other did not intend to cause harm does not erase the impact you or the other had. Both are valid and important and need to be held equally in resolving hurt.

Taking Space
Just like breathing techniques, removing yourself from a situation helps you regulate your nervous system so you can get back on line and face the world from a more balanced and grounded place. Taking space in nature is even more effective.

Deep Listening
We have become really bad at just facing each other when we talk. But our brains evolved to decode facial expressions to determine if the person in front of us wants to kill us or have lunch. We rely on these cues to help with the weaknesses of our communication. So face people, put down the cell phone, close the laptop, turn off the television in the room, and watch their face during discussions, especially the ones that can go off the rails.

Validation
Nothing creates safety and connection (or diffuses a situation) better than validating another. When you validate someone, you are not saying, “You are right.” You are saying, “I can get how you think/feel/believe that.”

Asking For What You Want and Need
Instead of relying on others to be mind readers, show up for yourself and ask what you want and need.

Boundaries
A boundary is not some rigid wall with a moat around it to defend you against another. It is an organic, living system that is a reflection of your authentic self. It is that point at which you begin to lose yourself.

EQUUS Tool Kit for the Holidays (Printable)