Coming Home to Yourself for the Holidays
“When we return to ourselves, we have already arrived at home."
-Thich Nhat Hanh
Dear friends,
As we enter into the holiday season, many of us find ourselves navigating a wide landscape. This time of year can be joyful, lively, and filled with connection. It can also be busy and stressful, as well as tender and lonely. For some, this season may carry fresh grief. Perhaps it is the first holiday after a loved one has passed, a relationship has ended, or another loss leaves an empty chair at the table or a tender place in the heart. The season may awaken old memories—some sweet, some painful.
There is often a great deal happening inside of us as December unfolds. Thoughts, emotions, memories, responsibilities, expectations—each one competing for our attention.
This month’s theme, The Gift of Awareness: Coming Home to Yourself for the Holidays, invites us to gently meet all that arises within and around us with presence, curiosity, kindness, and compassion.
Awareness as a Way of Coming Home
Mindfulness is a state of being that we live into moment-by-moment. It asks us to come home to the direct experience of our lives. As Jon Kabat-Zinn reminds us, mindfulness is “the awareness that arises when we pay attention, on purpose, with kindness and curiosity, and without judgment.”
Awareness and mindfulness are intimately linked because mindfulness is the ongoing practice of becoming aware of what is happening as it is happening. In the Pali language, similar to Sanskrit, the word for mindfulness means to remember—to remember to re-turn toward what is here and to awaken from the daze of automatic pilot back into present moment awareness. This remembering is a gift we offer ourselves, again and again.
We come into present moment awareness through the body. Because the brain cannot experience life directly, it relies on our senses to bring the world to it—and we have more senses than many of us realize. In Buddhist psychology, thoughts are considered a sixth sense because they filter our experience through memory and interpretation. We also have proprioception, which is the subtle knowing of where we are in space. It’s the way you can feel your hand moving even when you cannot see it, or the way your feet know how to walk without your watching them. And we have interoception, our ability to sense the internal landscape of the body—warmth or coolness, tension or ease, and the hum of emotion expressed physically.
Any one of these can be a doorway into awareness.
When we tune into the senses, even briefly, we interrupt the pull of rumination and re-enter what is actually here. We step out of the past or an imagined future and return—again and again—to this breath, this body, this moment. This returning—this remembering—is the practice AND the gift.
The Practice
A Simple Holiday Practice: Set Your Intention
The invitation for this month is to choose an intention for this holiday season. A simple, steadying intention can help you stay connected to what matters most.
To keep it simple (one of my words), the invitation is to choose one or two words that you can return to again and again.
Work with any words that resonate with you; however, here are a few suggestions: Joy. Sacred. Connection. Simplicity. Wonder. Play. Ease. Presence. Love.
Write your word(s) down, and place them somewhere you’ll see them. Let your word(s) serve as both a solid anchor and a gentle companion.
Throughout December, ask:
Am I in alignment with my intention right now?
If not, what’s one small shift that brings me closer?
As we explored over the summer, intention informs where we place our attention—what we notice, what we nourish—as well as shapes our attitude. Do we want to show up with judgment and fear or with curiosity, kindness, compassion, and ease? When we’re clear about our intention, we’re more able to recognize when we’ve drifted into reactivity or habit, and more able to gently guide ourselves back into the present.
This is the gift of awareness—using awareness and intention, as well as attention and attitude, to come home to yourself in the midst of all that the season holds.
As we move through this holiday season, my hope is that you use your intention, attention, and attitude to create space for moments of wonder to emerge—those small, unexpected awakenings that remind us that we’re alive, sensing, and connected. Be it a color, a sound, a bit of light, or a small act of kindness, may you meet each moment with awareness and let the wonder of this season reveal itself to you.
I want to express my deepest gratitude, appreciation and love to each of you.
Thank you for your presence—I’m so happy that you are here!
May you be filled with warmth and kindness.
May you be happy, healthy and safe.
May your heart know peace.
Wishing you presence, softness and clarity as this season unfolds.
With warmth,
Karen
8-Week MBCT Online Course
Spring 2026 Registration Is Now Open!
Do you want to meet difficult thoughts and emotions with more clarity, kindness, and ease? Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) offers supportive ways to pause, soften, and skillfully relate to your inner world with more spaciousness and compassion.
Over eight weeks, we'll explore practices that help you recognize unhelpful patterns, stay grounded in the present moment, and navigate stress, anxiety, low mood, and self-criticism with increased steadiness and choice. Through weekly sessions, guided meditations, mindful self-inquiry, and a half-day retreat, the course invites you into a more friendly, accepting relationship with your mind, emotions, and body.
Spring 2026 Session: March 5 – April 23
To learn more, visit the MBCT Course page on the website.
To register or ask questions, contact Karen directly: karen@drkarenwalant.com
If you know of anyone interested in deepening their mindfulness and meditation practices, please forward this email along and invite them to join as well! All are welcome and can sign up for the newsletter on my website.
About Dr. Karen Walant
Dr. Karen Walant has been a practicing psychotherapist for over three decades. She holds an MSW and PhD in Clinical Social Work from New York University and has long served as a supervisor for clinicians in private practice. Karen has presented at Harvard University’s Cambridge Health Alliance and lectured nationally on attachment, mindfulness, meditation, addiction and recovery, parenting with kindness, and cultivating compassionate relationships. She is the author of Creating the Capacity for Attachment: Treating Addictions and the Alienated Self.
Rooted in mindfulness and Buddhist psychology, Karen integrates contemporary clinical insight with contemplative practice. A long-time meditator and teacher, she is a graduate of the two-year Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield and is also a certified Mindfulness Meditation Mentor. She completed the Certificate in Mindfulness and Psychotherapy through the Institute for Mindfulness and Psychotherapy.
Karen is trained in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and is a certified MBCT Teacher through Brown University. Her 8-week MBCT course is recognized by Brown as eligible for entry into their Foundations training for those pursuing MBCT teacher certification.