5 Step Holiday Self-Compassion Practice to Soothe Your Stress and Be Present

Have you ever stopped yourself from taking care of your wellbeing because you felt selfish?

My controversial belief: The main thing holding moms back from caring for themselves isn't time. It's our deeply embedded cultural conditioning that our role is to prioritize others and neglect our own needs. 

They joke about it on "Christmas Robe - SNL", but it isn't a joke for the 66% of moms experiencing burnout!

If you're ready to change this pattern, allow me to teach you a self-compassion practice you can use to shift your mindset. Soon, you'll be treating yourself with the same kindness and understanding you give so generously to others...

...and you won't put up with just a robe as a gift! 

5 Questions You Might Be Wondering About Fitting Self-Compassion Into Your Life 

1. Why is self-compassion such an important mindset for moms?

Many of us grew up suppressing our needs, people-pleasing to stay safe, or absorbing messages about being “a good girl” who's helpful and doesn’t take up space. That conditioning doesn’t disappear when we become mothers. It intensifies.

Self-compassion interrupts that cycle. It lets us meet our own vulnerability the way we meet our kids’: with softness, curiosity, and support. Instead of piling on shame (“Why can’t I handle this?” “Other moms do it better”), self-compassion gives us a grounded nervous system and a clearer mind.

When we treat ourselves with gentleness, parenting gets easier — not because our kids change, but because we aren’t at war with ourselves.

2. What is meaningful self-care?

Meaningful self-care restores you instead of numbing or distracting you. It’s anything that supports your nervous system, your dignity, and your humanity.

For some parents it’s meditation or journaling; for others it’s taking a walk, listening to music, or meeting a basic unmet need like rest or food. 

Meaningful self-care is:

• Supportive (not punitive or performative)

• Regulating (it helps your body feel safe)

• Sustainable (you can repeat it without resentment)

You’re a human being with worth, even before you get anything done. 

3. How can we recognize the difference between self-care and numbing out?

👉 Numbing is escape. Self-care is connection.

Numbing temporarily shuts off your feelings. You avoid, scroll, snack, binge, or power through. You feel “checked out,” and afterward you usually feel worse — more depleted, more irritable, more behind.

Self-care, in contrast, helps you come back to yourself. You feel more regulated afterward. Not necessarily blissful, but more anchored, clearer, softer.

A simple way to distinguish:

• Does this bring me home to myself? → self-care

• Does this take me away from myself? → numbing

Neither is a failure. Sometimes being human means numbing is our only available choice. But recognizing the difference gives us more awareness and agency. 

4. Don’t we have to put our kids first?

No. We have to put our relationship first. A regulated parent creates a safer relationship than a self-sacrificing, depleted one ever could. Putting kids first at the expense of our wellbeing becomes martyrdom, and martyrdom leads to resentment, rage, and burnout. 

When we care for ourselves, we model:

• boundaries

• self-respect

• emotional regulation

• permission to have needs

Kids don’t learn self-compassion because we preach it — they learn it because they watch us practice it.

👉 THAT is putting kids first. Not through sacrifice, but through embodiment. 

5. What are the steps to self-compassion?

1. Recognize

Name what you're feeling honestly. 
“I’m overwhelmed.” “I’m lonely.” “I’m exhausted.”
Naming it reduces shame. 

2. Allow

Let the feeling exist without arguing with it.
Resistance makes it grow. 
This small pause increases nervous system safety.

3. Investigate

Get curious, not critical.

"Where is this feeling sitting in my body?"
"What does it most need from me?"

4. Nurture

Give this part of yourself what it needs.
A hand on your heart. A kind phrase. A hug.
With the same tenderness you’d offer your child.

5. Saturate

Let the kindness land.
Let it fill your body.
This step rewires your inner narrative.

You don’t have to do the full self-compassion practice every time — even a 30-second version can begin to shift your inner landscape.

For example, ask: 

"How can I be kind to myself right now?"

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A Grounded and Empowering Message to Remember This December

If the holidays are stressful for you, it doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong. It means you’re a human — and probably a deeply caring one.

Our culture trains moms to run on empty and calls it love. But you can choose to step out of that story. 

Self-compassion isn’t indulgent.
It’s protective.
It’s clarifying.

It’s what allows you to stay present for the people you love without disappearing in the process.

As you move through this holiday season, try returning again and again to the simple truth that your needs matter too. Let yourself soften. Let yourself receive. Let yourself exist as someone worthy of the same care you pour into others. 

If guilt shows up? Great. That means you’re actively undoing old conditioning. Keep going. 

You deserve a December spacious enough for you to exist in it

You deserve more. You always have.

If you try the 5-step self-compassion practice, I’d love to hear how it lands for you...

• What shifts?
• What surprises you?
• What becomes possible when you treat yourself with a little more tenderness?

Your wellbeing matters — not after the holidays, not in between the errands, but now. Let this be the month you remember that. 

And may this be the December you honor yourself so well that you won’t accept a robe as your only holiday gift.