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Why the Holidays Feel So Stressful (Especially for People-Pleasers and Empaths)
Anxiety & Emotional Health, Relationships & Boundaries Alyssa Kushner, LCSW 10/30/25 Anxiety & Emotional Health, Relationships & Boundaries Alyssa Kushner, LCSW 10/30/25

Why the Holidays Feel So Stressful (Especially for People-Pleasers and Empaths)

The holidays often bring both joy and stress. Here’s why they can feel so emotionally charged- and how to navigate them with awareness, boundaries, and self-compassion.

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Taking up space feels dangerous when your nervous system was taught that shrinking kept you safe.⁣
⁣
And not even because of a confidence problem. It really is a nervous system and adaptive attachment pattern that made complete sense when you learned
People-pleasing guilt doesn’t just sound like⁣
“I feel guilty.”⁣
⁣
Sometimes it sounds like:⁣
“What if they’re mad at me?”⁣
 “I should’ve just said yes.”⁣
 “Now I need to fix this.”⁣
Ahhhh I’m so excited Put It Down is finally here 💕⁣
⁣
If you keep calling it empathy but your nervous system calls it survival…⁣
⁣
It’s because a lot of us were never taught how to not carry everything.⁣
⁣
So we became:⁣
🌸the res

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Alyssa Kushner, LCSW
alyssakushnerlcsw@gmail.com
Grab my free Nervous System Reset guide here

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