Returning to Yourself: Boundaries, Rest & Healing as We Move Toward Winter Solstice

December has a way of revealing truth.

As the days shorten and the world grows darker, nature invites us to slow down, rest, and look inward. But for many women, December often brings the opposite: more commitments, more emotional labor, more pressure to plan, host, give, and hold everything together for everyone else.

Underneath the glittering lights and celebrations, something deeper is stirring — a call to pause, reflect, and tend to what’s happening inside you.

Because the winter solstice is not just a date on the calendar.
It’s an energetic threshold. A moment to breathe and reflect.
A moment when we are asked to release what we’ve been carrying…
and choose what we want to bring into the new year.

And for many women, this season also brings up old patterns that are ready to be healed — especially around boundaries, comparison, and the subtle forms of disconnect we experience with other women.

This is where the Sister Wound lives.

Intentional Rest: The Medicine We’ve Been Taught to Fear

Winter asks us to rest.
Not laziness.
Not withdrawal.
Rest.

The kind of rest that’s instinctual, cyclical, and deeply feminine.

The world may tell you to push through, hustle to the finish line, get one more thing done before the year ends.
But nature whispers something entirely different:

“Slow down.
Let go.
Make space for what wants to be born in you.”

This month, rest can look like:

• Taking 10 minutes alone before entering a crowded gathering

• Leaving a party early to honor your nervous system

• Letting something be good enough instead of perfect

• Saying no without guilt

• Letting yourself receive help instead of carrying everything alone

Rest strengthens your intuition, your clarity, and your ability to make aligned choices — all of which support healing the patterns of the Sister Wound.

The Sister Wound and the Holidays: Why It Shows Up Now

The Sister Wound is the inherited and/or learned pattern of distrust, competition, comparison, and self-protection between women — a legacy passed down through generations where survival depended on disconnecting from one another instead of standing together.

During the holidays, these patterns can subtly surface:

• Feeling responsible for everyone’s happiness

• Comparing your home, body, gifts, or family to others

• Overcommitting because you don’t want to disappoint someone

• Saying yes when your whole body is saying no

• Shrinking your needs so you don't seem “too much”

• Feeling unseen or unsupported among women you care about

And quietly beneath all of this is the belief many women carry:

“I can’t trust other women to hold me, support me, or understand me.”

But what if this season could offer something different?

What if the winter solstice — nature’s great pause — could be a turning point for your relationship with yourself and your relationship with other women?

Boundaries as a Sacred Act of Self-Trust

Boundaries often feel harder in December because they brush up against old stories:

• “Good daughters don’t disappoint.”

• “Good mothers make magic happen.”

• “Good friends show up no matter what.”

• “Good women don’t need to rest.”

• “Good women finish the job.”

But boundaries are not walls.
They are invitations — into truth, into authenticity, into energetic clarity.

A boundary says:
“I choose to honor myself, so I can show up with an open heart instead of resentment.”

When we honor our limits, we offer ourselves the gift of renewal.
And when we give ourselves that gift, we become more present for the people we love.

Reflection & Release: Crossing the Threshold into the New Year

The days leading to the winter solstice are ideal for reflection:

What did you learn?
What did you carry that wasn’t yours?
What did you give too much of?
What would you like to release as the light begins to return?

Releasing is not about erasing the past.
It’s about creating space for who you’re becoming.

And here’s the quiet truth many women feel but rarely speak:

We heal more deeply in community than we do alone.

Because the Sister Wound is a relational wound — and so the healing must also be relational.

A New Way Forward: Healing Together in 2026

In mid-January, I’ll be opening a new cohort of The Better Together Circle Program, a 6-week journey for women ready to heal the Sister Wound and reclaim trust, connection, and belonging with other women — and with themselves.

December is the perfect time to begin preparing for this work:

• by slowing down

• by listening inward

• by honoring your boundaries

• by allowing yourself to rest

• by noticing where comparison or self-protection still shows up

This season is your invitation to soften, release, realign, and renew — so you can enter the new year clear, grounded, and connected.

You don’t have to carry your healing alone.

We rise better together.
Always.