written by Linda Lin, RCC RCAT

Year end / holiday stress is so real. 

Many of us enter December already depleted, with our numbing or protective safety behaviours running on overdrive.

So I wanted to write a newsletter to validate some of these experiences and patterns I’ve been noticing. 

These patterns can be so familiar that they often go unnoticed, even when we know this season feels heavier than it appears from the outside.

Please note that language I use may sound ‘too clinical’ so if you’d like to personalize with different language/words to describe similar things, go for it!

The end of the year often asks us to push through exhaustion, emotions, and (over)stimulation.

This time of year often stirs up financial pressure to find the perfect gifts, brings complicated interpersonal or family dynamics to the surface, and encourages us to wrap things up or end on a high note. 

It’s easy to become overstimulated by end-of-year sales (side note: did you know we can be exposed to 4,000 to 10,000 ads a day?), while juggling invitations and obligations, both external and internal, and navigating feelings of isolation when we’re “supposed” to feel joyful, restful, and connected. 

The stress can affect our body weeks or even months before anything actually happens at all.

A lot of us are going through this month with our safety behaviours activated. These behaviours help us numb or cope with discomfort so we don’t have to fully feel or process it. 

Safety behaviours are any acts that reduce distress in the short term by anticipating or preparing for the worst, often increasing our perception of fears. They can be very sneaky, work alongside anxiety, and often go unnoticed, leaving us feeling confused, lost, and overwhelmed.

Some examples of safety behaviours I’ve noticed (not exhaustive!):

• Overcleaning or working overtime

• Bed rotting but not allowing for true rest

• Frozen in doomscrolling

• Retail therapy or overconsumption

• Comfort eating, or restricting/picking/counting/purging, or obsessing over food/”health”/body

• Exercising excessively with little to no recovery

• Always trying to fix ourselves without ever celebrating our wins

• Avoiding conflict by pleasing others (while we have no idea what our needs are)

• Rehearsing how situations will play out at future gatherings

• Replaying something you said or something unresolved over and over in our mind

• Hyper-vigilance or hyper-independence that feels “right”

• Fixating on rigid routines that fuel perfectionism

• Harsh internal dialogue when routines are disrupted or our goals aren’t met

• Numbing with something because you feel distressed or irritated at ourselves, others, systems, or the world

• Exhaustion from masking or showing up performatively at gatherings

• Texting back immediately even when we have no more capacity, or the latter, avoiding texting back for weeks

• Seeking reassurance from others for most decisions we need to make

• Intellectualizing or over-analyzing everything.

Good news is that there are patterns / wiring that we start to become more aware of! 

Here's what safety behaviours have in common:

• Coping, not processing: They keep us “safe” momentarily, but not in the long term.

• They play on our fears: Safety behaviours increase our perception of existing fears. They make fear feel more intense or obsessive, rather than helping us heal from it.

• They respond to urgency: Acting “before the shoe drops,” safety behaviours turn anxious thoughts into rules, rituals, or compulsions in the hope of preventing a consequence. These can be physical actions, mental acts, or rigid routines we feel we have to do in the moment—or else.

• They've worked before: At some point in history, these behaviours helped you cope and feel safe. That’s why they’re so familiar, and may even feel safe and comforting.

• They dislike uncertainty: Safety behaviours often show up when situations are unpredictable, unresolved, or ambiguous.

Some practices I’ve been using for long-term care and support instead of safety behaviours:

• Catching, disengaging, and redirecting from my safety behaviours toward what actually matters. For example a fear I’m working through, always feeling responsible for my team, is gradually being redirected into the belief that I am becoming a stronger leader and team member.

• Making, creating, or crafting something with my hands (great for slowing down). 
  
  Enter our giveaway to drop in access to Off Screen Hours and an art journalling kit here: a special collab with 1912 Amax Stationery.
   

• Reducing screen time on my phone, using apps like Opal to block distracting social media during the week for more mindful consumption.

• Allowing 15+ minutes of boredom each day to check in with my nervous system and mind-body.

• Eating food that keeps me satiated, exciting, and simple (base repetitive, toppings rotated!).

• Moving in ways that make me feel strong while allowing ample recovery time. Lately I’ve been enjoying low-impact, high-intensity workouts (iykyk!).

• Inviting friends to do mundane activities: dog walks, grocery shopping, co-working, cooking a meal together, or asking them for help (this one is huge for me).

What have you been practicing? 

Below I'm sharing my fave reflection questions that really help slow me down (fyi they can go deep)!

Since we tend to be reflective during this time of year, I’m inviting us to journal, discuss with a good friend and/or make some art to check in with ourselves if safety behaviours have been showing up.

Get your tea, pens and stickers ready! ⊹

• What signals do my body give me when I feel safe, and when I feel overwhelmed?
• What are my safety behaviours? List them out and try calling them out. (see above for some examples)
• What are my go-to ways of avoiding or distracting from conflict or discomfort?

• What feelings have been harder to feel lately?
• Are there parts of me that learned to stay quieter/numb/unnoticed to stay safe?
• What does this protective strategy/response want me to know?
• Where do I notice myself toning down or editing parts of who I am, especially around others this season?
• What has it taken for me to arrive here, and what needs acknowledgement and care?

In a society designed to keep us numbing, with no time to slow down, where rest is mistaken for laziness and bursts of anxiety are mistaken for productivity, our awareness is rebellion. Slowing down to notice our limits, finding ways out of misery and fear, and understanding our grief are acts of resistance. And this resistance doesn’t have to feel endless or scary.

If you’re needing some extra love and support navigating these complex experiences, our team is here for you!

May this season of reflection lead us to explore moments for rest, awareness, and connection to support us into the new year. Take good care, First name / friendsee you in 2026 ♡

Sincerely, 
Linda

Enter our giveaway before the end of the year (Dec 31st, 2025) for a chance to win: 
📓 Drop-in access to weekly Off Screen Hours (Friday workshops until Feb 2026)*
🖋️ An AMAX journaling kit — Hitotoki notebook + Pentel brush pen set

from our January newsletter, written by Linda Lin, RCC, CCC, RCAT

Dear doomscrolling, doomspending, binging…
please be gentle with me this year

Lately, I’ve noticed a familiar cast of characters resurfacing—old coping behaviours from past versions of myself, barging in like they’re the main stars of the show. They’ve brought along their usual companions: unsolicited waves of intense, complex emotions, with no proper space to hold it all.

For many of us, patterns we’ve worked so hard to unlearn are making a comeback. These habits of distraction and numbing aren’t random—they’re our nervous systems doing what they know best: shielding us from overwhelm. It’s an act of self-protection, even if it doesn’t always help in the long run.

𓅰 𓅭 𓅮 𓅯 

everything everywhere all at once  

In a single week, we had to process:

• Genocides, ecocides, scholasticides, dehumanization, forced displacement (Sudan, Congo, Tigray, Syria need our advocacy and solidarity!), all while there's finally a temporary ceasefire and no end to the occupation in Palestine.

• LA fires, rekindling existential dread as we confront our fractured relationship with the land and the ongoing climate crisis.

• Political upheaval, left our neighbour country grappling with the absurdity of a tiktok ban, while contending with the reality of oligarchic control over us both.

• Red note migration, stirring of complex emotions within the Chinese diaspora, as past experiences of sinophobia has no room to process (this is called disenfranchised grief: grief that goes unacknowledged/unvalidated by social norms).

• An unshakable, overwhelming sense of falling behind—where even the algorithm pushes content on us so we feel stuck in an echo chamber.

Your tolerance for stress may be high. But is it sustainable?

 tolerating ≠ growing pains

Our brains are on overdrive, constantly bombarded by crises, notifications, and demands pulling us in every direction. When we operate outside our window of tolerance for too long, our nervous systems (aka. mind and body connection) can shut down, creating the illusion that we simply need to keep tolerating it.

But this constant urgency makes it harder to hear our true voices amid the noise. While distraction might offer temporary relief, it can deepen the cycle of disconnection.

Being good at carrying burdens and tolerating beyond our limits,
without understanding how much we can handle,
is part of the growing pains of healing.

 🌿 nature trusts its growing pains 

- can you trust yours?

Nature doesn’t second-guess, resist, or judge its cycles of growth. It simply adapts, evolves, and unfolds, remains steadfast in its rhythm.

Here's some good news, we ARE like nature: every week, we learn something new that helps us grow beyond who we thought we were—breaking free from the limits of systemic oppression and our own ego (they call them ego deaths for a reason!).

Oh, to be one with nature… or perhaps we can just mirror it

🪞 What if we mirrored nature’s trust in the self? 🤍✨

🌀 can we stay curious and present with our own unfolding?

🌀 can we value both the painful and joyful experiences that shape us?

🌀 can we learn to trust what we create and nurture our own seasons of growth?

Nature doesn’t rush or resist.

It embraces transformation with grace.

So what if we took our visceral cues from nature's elements?

Here’s an art as therapy prompt to step out of the noise and reconnect with your inner pacing

Journal, create art, poetry, or simply reflect and imagine:

🌿 If you were a part of nature, what realm would you belong to? 
☘︎ Would you embody the wisdom of an ancient forest? 
☘︎ The rhythmic energy and motion of oceanic waves? 
☘︎ The mystical germination of desert blooms?

🌿 What would it look, feel, and sound like?

from our newsletter, written by Linda Lin, RCC, CCC, RCAT

“When did life stop feeling like this”

In the face of rapid life changes, and in the age of escapism while witnessing brutality from dying systems, the specks of our past can feel like a cushion we lean onto, seemingly simpler, easier, and happier than today.

This tweet is what prompted me to write about nostalgia as coping:

Nostalgia feels like a temporal preservation within virtual spaces. Nostalgia acts as an island we retreat to, an anchor in the face of hopelessness and restlessness. It's as if it were a freeze response to our overwhelming reality—a coping mechanism, offering us a brief respite from the uncertainty of a better future.

In times of despair and hopelessness, I tend to rely on nostalgia as a coping** mechanism. In Mandarin, there’s this phrase, 舍不得 (shě bù dé), which roughly translates to 'reluctant to part with' — that's how nostalgia feels to me. 

I find myself bonding with friends over our childhood memories, indulging in art forms like my favourite shows, listening to music by my teenage idol at the time, BoA, and scrolling endlessly on Pinterest to curate old internet energy and Y2K aesthetics into a mood board. In these digital spaces, the collective nostalgia of shared experiences emerges, eliciting a contagious, creative energy.

*Nostalgia: Nostalgia is not necessarily remembering the reality. It’s a deep longing for space and time that has passed, people we loved and/or loved us, a version of ourselves that is no longer accessible to us. 

Sometimes, nostalgic feelings bring up feelings of hopelessness and deep sadness about current-day reality. Some people refer to this experience as nostalgic depression, where the sentimental longing for the past brings up grief and disturbance.

**Coping vs. vs. processing (watch this tiktok)

• Coping is like a bandaid, or first aid. It can be validating, brings awareness and tends to an emotional wound when it shows up. To cope is the attempt to stay functioning through emotional pain.

• Processing is accessing our nervous system (the language of our mind and body connection)’s wisdom. It recognizes overwhelming experiences will be stored in our body. It often times feels more intuitive, trusting, understanding with context of emotional wounds.

The charm and power of art making as processing nostalgia

As we make art (a collaboration between our intuitive nervous system, the environment we are in, and earthly materials), we are choosing to engage with the full moment and a fragment of our experience being preserved beyond thoughts and feelings.

Art making breeds nostalgia, eliciting a contagious, creative energy! Art making can help with release and express emotions, storing them in the image so we don’t have to carry it all.

Here’s an art as therapy prompt for you:

(the steps act as a gentle guide and are completely optional)

1. Choose a specific time period you want to revisit from your past. Choose art materials, a playlist, a space, a comfort item (eg. a stuffed toy), or a snack to pair with this time period.

2. First marks: Invite your younger self from that time period to make the first marks. Express through your inner child you want to connect with. Draw/paint/play as if your younger self is making the marks. These may be symbols that you used to draw, or describing a feeling you remember fondly from that time.
Alternative option- embodied time: Connect with a space in time and make your first marks as if you were embodying that space in time.

3. What your younger self prefers: work with art mediums, textures, colours etc. you would have chosen when you were younger. 
Alternative option: what symbols, textures, feelings, and beings inhabit this space/world?

4. An essence of support: Collaborate with your inner child by bringing in your current self. What are some symbols or imagery you engage with nowadays that you would like to add onto this artwork to bring in an essence of support and witnessing?
Alternative option: What does your space in time/world need as resource and support? Add images for this space to feel safe and comfy.

5. Gentle check-ins with yourself - with both your inner child (or the space in time), and your current self: stretch, notice your capacity to engage/disengage, go for a walk or recharge in another room whenever you need it.

You DO NOT have to finish/complete this artwork or prompt in one go. Heck, you don’t have to complete anything if it doesn’t sit right with you.

6. Honour your art piece and think of containment and storage. Does the image need borders? Maybe you can attach your artwork in a journal. Or put a frame around it, if the image wants to be seen by others and yourself often. Where does your art piece want to be?

7. Bring in community. Work with a peer you trust, someone you want to share this with or an art therapist to support your emotional health with this exercise. 

Hopefully this art as therapy exercise prompts you to engage in nostalgia as a coping practice. To bring in a time in space or reconnect and honour your younger self’s art expressions with the creativity from your current self.

Give this art as therapy prompt a try or gift this blog post to a friend who may enjoy it! :)

Many of us struggle with adult friendships and relationships where we feel depleted when our needs are not met,

grieving when our friendships aren't balanced,

when the energy out isn't being reciprocated.

🌐 True needs challenge the status quo: of assigned conditional rules and requirements for so called “love and care”

Sometimes “love and care” may be disguised as a series of conditions. We may have been taught to meet other's needs first before we get to pursue what we want. Over time, the more we perceive the needs of others, the more we struggle with people pleasing behaviours. Needs will be perceived as a zone for emotional burnout, and uber confusing. ‘Needs’ from conditions are not rooted from a place of love, respect, solidarity and reciprocity.
 

🌀 People pleasing is giving "I don’t know how to meet my needs”

People pleasing tends to lead us to become disingenuous with ourselves and with others around us. It takes us away from the present moment by predicting what others’ needs are before we know what ours are.

🍄 Needs contain multitudes. They come from a radical, unfixed and abstract space. 
 

We have the right to feel, to transform, to express a range of self to meet mutual understanding of these needs.

🪴 Our needs are true expressions of our identity.

I notice my body slowly ease up whenever I nurture and actively find ways to meet my own needs.

🤚🏼 Refusal for ‘uncomfortable performances’

I hope you will practice taking a few moments every time you are about to reply to a friend to figure out what your needs are with this friendship!

Is it love, appreciation, respect, autonomy, nurturance community, intimacy, safety, security, commitment, consistency, mutual understanding, connection…?

💗 We need culture and companionship that truly loves us.

Just as much we train to predict, foresee, and have gotten really good reading into what other's needs are…

⏰ When you find out what your needs are, what are the things you will have room for?

By working on bracketing out assumptions and decentering how you will be perceived, you get to make space for authenticity, rooted in humanizing responses towards yourself and can then be reflected back to your relationships.

🌳 Needs are not individualized and all needs are equally important! 
 

Our needs are not in the shape of a triangle/hierarchy.

Did you know Maslow, the person who ‘coined’ the hierarchy of needs took Blackfoot first nation’s knowledge and teachings when he spent 6 weeks there in 1938, and shaped human needs to reflect that of white supremacist culture (into a triangle) where needs are individualized.
 

🧭 If we haven’t even began to decolonize our human needs, no wonder it would be difficult to understand and ‘actualize’ what our needs are! 

It makes sense why so many of us are looking desperately for spaces where we feel a sense of community and belonging. And we end up blaming ourselves and the city for being the problem. We haven’t found ways to take care of each other to reach reciprocity yet.

🪨 Staying in care of our needs fuels our demands of a better world. And helps us reclaim the rest/ease our bodies need to thrive in.

There is no need to rush or get to perfection. Unlearning needs is going to be a lifelong process. There will always be time, to reimagine the relationship with needs to reach self-actualization (in my own words, to understand oneself).

🛟 This practice is expansive and life-saving ♡ 

So please keep coming back to your human needs!