Welcome to the last in my 2025 series for monthly self-care tips. Since December of 2024, I have been rounding up all the awareness days, slightly weird holidays, and dates of note to help remind you (and myself) of all the things we could try for self care, nourishment, and boundary setting. Here is a list of all the other 2025 self-care posts:

December Is Not A Performance Review. It’s A Reset.

December has an authenticity problem. It behaves like a quarterly earnings meeting dressed up as a soft focus holiday card. Perform joy. Perform productivity. Perform gratitude. Perform togetherness. Perform ease. In short, perform an entire personality that does not match the one you actually live inside.

Your body notices the mismatch long before your mind admits it. Muscles tense even when you smile. You promise yourself a gentle month and then agree to five things that drain you. You tell yourself you will slow down and then speed up because everyone else seems to be sprinting. December conditions you to evaluate your life like a report card. The problem is that your nervous system is not built for end of year performance reviews. It is built for cycles, rhythms, and resets.

This is not a failure of willpower. This is a failure of cultural messaging. You cannot override biology with a holiday playlist.

If December insists on treating you like a productivity machine, you need a counter strategy rooted in Compassion, Integrity, Resilience, Candor, and Acceptance. That is my CIRCA framework, not a seasonal suggestion. It is a skill set. December knows how to trigger the opposite. Your job is to match the cultural pressure with internal clarity.

Time to reset, not perform.

FYI: if you want to learn more about the CIRCA framework that I use with therapy clients, stay tuned for next week’s blog.

Accessibility is self care, not an add on

International Day of Persons with Disabilities, Wednesday, December 3
If you want to understand real self care, study accessibility. Sensory friendly holidays are healthy holidays. Lower the noise. Share the schedule. Ask before hugging. Reduce surprises. Increase agency.

Your trauma history did not arrive from nowhere. Your body protects itself by anticipating threat. Predictable environments reduce autonomic strain. That is not fragility. That is physiology.

If accessibility feels like a burden, check your conditioning. Productivity culture celebrates stress. Trauma informed care recognizes that stress is not strength. You deserve environments that meet your nervous system where it actually lives.

Awe as an antidote to urgency

Supermoon, Thursday, December 4

Have you ever looked at the full moon and just thought “wow!”? I certainly have, and I try to remember to look up at the sky as often as I can to see the sunset, stars, and the moon. To just check myself and where I am in this great big world at any given moment, make a mindful moment and breathe.

Step outside at moonrise for ten minutes (in Virginia, moonrise will be at 6:14 pm). Not for a spiritual makeover or a social media post. For nervous system physics. Awe interrupts urgency. Urgency drives performance. Performance fuels self criticism. Ten minutes of moonlight is not a cure, it is a recalibration.

Breathe in for four. Out for four (or more). Then name one thing you refuse to carry into the rest of the month. Say it out loud. Your brain encodes spoken intention differently than silent rumination.

This is not mindfulness with a moral agenda. It is mindfulness without judgment. Your nervous system appreciates that difference.

Boundaries are not confrontational, they are truthful

Human Rights Day, Wednesday, December 10
Few concepts collapse faster in December than bodily autonomy. Family gatherings, office parties, and social pressure create subtle coercion. Smile. Engage. Explain yourself. Participate. Pretend you have endless emotional capacity, even in the face of all the ills in the world.

Your rights include safety, privacy, and the ability to decline without becoming a holiday disappointment. Practice one boundary line before you need it. Something simple and steady. You are not responsible for managing the emotional fallout of other adults. You are responsible for telling the truth about your limits.

That is honesty and authenticity and compassion. Not aggression. Not withdrawal. Truth.

Movement as regulation, not morality

International Mountain Day, Thursday, December 11
If you cannot get to the mountains, take a park walk or climb a stairwell for a micro reset. Morning light helps mood and sleep because circadian biology still governs your brain even when holiday culture wants you to behave like a machine.

Movement does not earn food. Movement does not repair morality. Movement regulates physiology. That is it. Full stop.

If you struggle with an eating disorder history, move for your nervous system, not your self worth. You do not need a mountain. You need daylight and circulation.

Care is a right, not a privilege

Universal Health Coverage Day, Friday, December 12
Check your benefits. Refill your medications. Book January appointments before the calendar becomes a competitive sport. Look at telehealth options and sliding scale lists if access is difficult.

This is not productivity. This is Prevention. The P in PLEASED does not ask you to be perfect. It asks you to take your body seriously. You cannot regulate your mood if you neglect your health.

This is not glamorous self care. It is resilient self care.

Warmth without moralizing

National Cocoa Day, Saturday, December 13
Cozy is a skill. If your experience taught you that comfort must be earned, you might resist softness even when softness is the medicine. Pair a warm drink with a screen free hour before bed. Let your brain wind down like a living organism, not a device.

Warmth is not indulgence. Warmth lowers cortisol. Warmth signals safety. The holiday narrative often moralizes food. Leave that narrative outside. Drink what you enjoy.

Grief belongs in the room

Worldwide Candle Lighting Day, Sunday, December 14
Grief does not disappear because the calendar says it is time to be cheerful. Grief does not respond to cheerleading. Grief needs light, not platitudes.

At 7 p.m. local time, light a candle for the people or parts of yourself you miss. Sit for ten minutes. No performance. No forced insight. No pressure to feel anything in particular. Grief becomes tolerable when it has space. Not when it is rushed. Not when it is problem solved.

If you want to honor someone, begin with honesty. Your grief is real. You do not need to hide it to keep the month socially comfortable.

Honor the darkest night without turning on yourself

December Solstice, Sunday, December 21
Give yourself permission to sleep more. The darkest night of the year invites rest, so let’s shift focus from productivity. Dim your lights earlier. Keep your bedroom darker. Let your system settle into the season instead of resisting it.

Your body knows how to navigate darkness. Our culture forgot. Somewhere around the time we invented daylight savings time, I think.

Connection as regulation, not obligation

National Call a Friend Day, Sunday, December 28
Schedule two short phone calls now. Voice helps co regulation in ways that texts cannot. You do not need a long conversation. You need a human voice.

If that seems like too much, check in via text. Or email. Make plans. Whatever is comfortable.

Isolation feels protective for trauma survivors. It also increases nervous system load. Connection does not fix pain, but it buffers it. That is Compassion – for yourself and others. Reach for it before the month closes.

Focus is a kindness, not a corrective

No Interruptions Day, Wednesday, December 31
Block two hours for a quiet reset. Clear a surface. Close five open loops. Then stop. Your worth does not increase when your table becomes spotless. You reset your environment to reduce cognitive drag, not to achieve perfection.

This is you, acting in alignment with your energy, not your fear of falling behind.

Micro scripts for real life boundaries

“I want to be there, and I need to leave by eight.”
“I’m skipping that topic.”
“No hugs for me today.”
“I don’t have capacity for that.”
“I’m choosing quiet.”

These are not walls. These are permissions.

Check out the Boundaries RESET worksheet for a little more direction if you think this is an area you need more help with.

A tiny checklist you will actually finish

Light habit. Ten minutes outside after waking. Or go outside at lunch.
Sleep cue. Warm drink, dim lights, phone away. Make it easy on yourself.
Food plan. Simple, steady, guilt-free.
Movement. Short walk or stretch, not punishment.
People. Two phone calls scheduled. Or text two friends.
Space. One drawer or folder cleared on 12/31.

These are not resolutions. These are anchors. These are self-care. These are coping. These are simple and effective.

December does not need your performance

You do not owe anyone a polished version of yourself. The honest version is more stable, more grounded, and more authentic, even when it feels less impressive. The cultural pressure to sparkle through the season is a distraction from your actual needs. You cannot heal in a performance cycle. You can only maintain an illusion.

Pick what steadies you. Drop what drains you. Let the calendar offer the themes while you handle your nervous system with respect.

A year of self care without (most of) the clichés

Here is the honest truth after guiding people through a full year of monthly practices. Self care means something different to every person, yet the foundations remain consistent. Much like the Golden Rule (or the Platinum Rule), there are some basics that everyone needs that can be summed up with the acronym PLEASED (a DBT acronym – stands for Physical Health, List your resources, Eat balanced, Avoid mood altering substances, Sleep, and Exercise – but do them Daily to reap the benefits) and some that people need to figure out for themselves. PLEASED still works because it respects your biology, not your productivity. Physical health, resources, balanced nutrition, avoidance of substances that destabilize you, sleep that supports you, and movement that regulates you. Daily is ideal, but daily does not mean perfect. It means intentional.

Some of your personal practices will support daily functioning. Some will act as coping skills. Some will simply exist for pleasure or meaning. All of them matter. I share my list here: Making a Realistic Self Care Plan – April 2024.

If you feel stuck, revisit your values. Values clarify how you want to live, not how you think you should live. Set goals that match those values, not the performance expectations of the season. Quarterly reviews work well, but choose the rhythm that suits your energy.

You can treat December like a performance review or a RESET. Your choice, as always.

I will be moving 27 things on my desk and working through my annual planner RESET guide. That means recognizing what depleted me, evaluating what matters, shifting what no longer fits, engaging with rituals that hold me steady, and building trust by tracking what actually supports me. If you want support with your own RESET, there will be guides available soon in the Wind Water Wellness shop.