safe – Coach Carly

Why Christmas hits your childhood wounds harder than at any other time of year

Every year around December, people find themselves wondering… “Why do I feel so emotional?” “Why am I anxious, overwhelmed or irritated?” “Why does Christmas feel… heavy?” And if you’re someone who grew up with chaos, criticism, emotional inconsistency or any version of “walking on eggshells,” then Christmas isn’t just a holiday season… 🎄 It’s a somatic time machine. This is because Christmas activates the same parts of the brain as emotional memories from childhood. Christmas isn’t just a one-off…

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Survive holiday conflict without losing your shit 💩

The Christmas holidays are already in full swing with end of year work parties galore. 🎄 The time of year when everyone pretends they’re having magical, heart-warming moments when really all they want to do is curl up in bed and avoid everyone, and half the population is actually one passive-aggressive comment away from flipping a table and throat punching that relative they can’t stand. 🤜 If the build up to Christmas and the ensuing family gatherings or relationship…

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How to know if it’s toxic or just hard work 💣

“Relationships take work.” Well yep, that’s true, but there IS a difference between two people working on a healthy relationship and people disguising emotional damage as effort. The latter leads to slowly becoming a shell of yourself. 🐚 All relationships have challenges. Hard conversations, disagreements and growing pains are normal. But if you constantly feel anxious, confused, or like you’re the only one trying to fix things, that’s not “just a rough patch.” That’s a red flag. 🚩 …

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Where are you abandoning yourself?

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to spot when your mate is self-sabotaging themselves, but how when it’s you doing the same thing, you justify your behaviour? 🤔 You tell yourself you’re just keeping the peace, “letting it go”, “being chill” or compromising, being kind or “holding space”. But are you actually just abandoning yourself by people-pleasing, letting them walk all over you and having shitty boundaries? You abandon yourself every time you: 🌀 Say yes when…

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How do you protect yourself from emotional pain?

I’ve been listening to a few interviews with Michael Singer recently, author of The Untethered Soul. He wrote this book a long time ago but I only recently came across his work watching an interview he did with Oprah, where she said reading his book was a game changer for her. He gives some great metaphors for how we hold on to emotional pain and attempt to protect ourselves from further pain. If you had a…

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