December is full of women white-knuckling their way through another holiday season, convinced that staying together for the kids is the right thing to do. But when I ask my clients what boundary they've sacrificed to keep the peace, they often look at me blankly, as if they've forgotten they were ever allowed to have needs at all. Your children are watching more closely than you think, and they're building their own templates for what love should look like.

I still catch myself folding under pressure in the most ordinary moments. Someone asks a question a little too sharply and my whole body sprints ahead of me, writing five possible replies at once. But one embarrassingly simple phrase has saved me from psyching myself out: "I need some time to think about this." It's the doorway between the part of me that panics and the part of me that chooses.

Learning the New Ways for Families method reminded me that conflict rarely explodes; it sneaks into the smallest moments, the tight breath before a text or the old pattern that rushes back before you can name it. The training slowed everything down just enough to notice the instinct to react and to choose something steadier. That tiny pause felt like remembering a part of myself I had forgotten.