CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - A Thanksgiving Pep Talk

Episode Date: November 27, 2025

Whether you're skipping the family gathering, still debating about whether to show up, locked in for a chair-arm-gripping dinner, or spending the day alone, Whitney has a few tips for getting through the next 24 hours.  Whitney Goodman is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and the founder of Calling Home, a membership community that helps people navigate complex family dynamics and break harmful cycles. Have a question for Whitney? Send a voice memo or email to [e-mail] Join the Family Cyclebreakers Club⁠⁠ Follow Whitney on Instagram | sitwithwhit Follow Whitney on YouTube | @whitneygoodmanlmft ⁠⁠Order Whitney’s book, Toxic Positivity Learn more about ad choices. Visit podcast.choices.com/adchoices This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice. 02:44 Shut the door on social media that will only make it worse 05:40 Practice radical acceptance of your situation 07:08 Expect people to be who they've always been 08:00 Protect your peace by only engaging where you need to 10:54 You're allowed to have a good time Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everyone and welcome back to the Calling On podcast. I am your host Whitney Goodman. This week, we are having a special Thanksgiving episode because it is Thanksgiving to all of my U.S. listeners. So happy Thanksgiving to those of you that are celebrating. I know that many of you have pretty mixed emotions about this holiday. Maybe you're skipping the family gathering or you're still debating if you're going to show up to dinner in a couple of hours at your mom's house. Maybe your partner, is working, or there's someone you love that can't come home because of complicated family dynamics, illness, or financial restrictions, or another type of issue. And maybe you are attending a lunch or a dinner or a breakfast today, but you're already preparing for how to manage your emotions when certain topics come up at the dinner table. Let's go ahead and get into it. I'm going to start with that pep talk that you might need. And you can listen to this on the way to Thanksgiving dinner.

dinner. You can listen to it if you're alone. Whatever you need today, I hope that you will take from this. I want to say this to you. I know that holidays feel like such a big deal, and they often are in dysfunctional families especially. Disfunctional families love the holidays. They love any chance they can get to pretend that things are normal, to put on a show, to have power over certain people. The holidays may have been the only time in your life where your family acted normal, got together, did anything special. They also might be the time in your life when your family was truly the most dysfunctional that they've ever been or maybe you fall somewhere in the middle. But it is okay to feel these really weird, confusing, ambivalent feelings

about a day like today because it probably means a lot of things to you. It can mean happy memories, fun things, getting to decorate and celebrate. And it can also be like, this is the worst day of my life because I have to spend it with these people. And so I think while yes, these days are heavy and they're big and they're meaningful, I want you to also remind yourself that it is 24 hours in a day. And you get through 24 hours all the time. You have survived days way worse than this in your life. I know that for a fact. And this day is not going to be any longer or any different than any of the other days. And you have survived some of your hardest days up to this point. And so sometimes we have to take like the air out of the holiday and stop

giving it so much power over us and realize that a lot of what we are injecting into our lives that is causing us stress is external pressure that we are allowed to, like, close the door on and remove from our orbit. So I want you to think about what makes this day feel so stressful. Is it the pressure on social media or seeing your friends with their families? Is it media campaigns and kind of looking around and being like, I should be doing this today? If it's that, you got to log off for today. You got to turn off your phone. If you find yourself scrolling and you see people like smiling happy with their family and a turkey and it is making you so angry, you need to close the door on that trigger and you need

to deal with it another day because I know that if I open up Instagram, TikTok, anything on Thanksgiving, I am going to see everyone I know and every influencer showing me like their table and what they're eating and getting ready with me for Thanksgiving dinner or taking happy pictures that look happy. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't with their family. And it could be upsetting to you. And it's like, why do I need to do that to myself today? Like, I'm already having a hard enough time. I don't need to do that to myself. And I think that that can be true for all the many reasons why you may not be with your family. We have to remember that some people are not with their families this year or not celebrating or doing something fun because they don't have the

money. They couldn't travel. Someone in their family is sick. Like there's all these reasons outside of just like family dysfunction that can make this day hard. And so I want you to give yourself permission that like I don't need to open my front door and allow all of this stuff in to disrupt me today. It doesn't mean that I'm being avoidant or, you know, ignoring my feelings or like not addressing what's coming up for me. It's just like, is today really the day to do that? when you're getting bombarded with all of this stuff, or would it be better to maybe try to compartmentalize this, get through the day, and deal with this another time? And we're going to be having groups all December long and content every week by me about getting through the holiday

season and the new year. And we're also going to be doing some great stuff in January about moving forward after all of this and healing and growing after estrangement or family dysfunction. So we have a lot of opportunities for you to work on this today on like Thanksgiving day on the day of the holiday it might not be the best time to do it and I'm giving you permission if you need it to say today is not the day for me to deal with this stuff it's not the day for me to feel my feelings and address all of this the other thing I want you to practice today is acceptance this is the family I have this is the situation I am in this is how I am spending my day I need you to get really real with yourself about the reality. Today, we are doing this. Today, I think that my mom

is going to scream at me at the Thanksgiving table, whatever it is. I am going to be honest with myself about the reality of my situation, and I'm going to take radical accountability and acceptance for the situations that I may be having to deal with today and the choices that I am making because that allows me to step into my adult self to be strong and to really acknowledge what options I have and what options I don't. Now, there are some of you that are spending time with people today and you have no choice because you live with them, you can't escape it. All of that can be true. And that's different than you deciding to leave the comfort of your own home maybe and go over to someone's house on your own volition. And so you need to

really apply some nuance to this in your own unique situation. But having acceptance is going to liberate you today and make you step out of that fantasy place of like, but so-and-so is doing this and I wish I was doing that and really just get real with yourself about what is happening. The other thing we need to practice today is expecting people to be who they've always been. I say this every year during the holiday season, do not expect your family members to be better versions of themselves today. If anything, expect them to be worse because the holidays make people crazy and they make people act in ways that they normally would not or it accentuates some of those qualities that they already

have. So if you know that you have a family member that does something really disruptive every holiday season. Don't go into this being like, this is the year they're not going to do it if you have absolutely no proof of that. Accept it, expect it, and make plans to deal with it that allow you to be empowered and in control of your situation. You are also allowed to opt out of stuff today. You don't have to respond to every weird thing that your relatives say to you. You can say, I don't want to talk about that, or I'm going to go over here. I need to go to the bathroom.

Like, to me, the most valuable skill that I've learned lately is that I don't let people that I don't respect or value their opinion steal my peace and my energy away, especially people that have routinely shown you that, like, no matter what you say and do to them, they don't change. And so especially on a holiday where I'm like, you know what, I want to have, I want to have peace today. I want to enjoy myself. This is not how I'm going to fight the fight. Like, I am going to try to stay so strong that I have like a force field around me and you cannot penetrate it. And it can almost be a game with yourself of like how much. can I just not allow this person to steal this from me today, not because I agree with them

or it doesn't affect me, but that I am not going to allow them to open up that force field around me. And I can process it later and talk about it and be affected by it because when people harm you, you should react. You should be affected by it. But it's about how much power do I want to give that person in this moment, in this situation, to dictate how the rest of my day goes. And I think this is where you have to be really honest with yourself about what you can handle right now. And if you are in this delicate place of like, I don't think that I could handle someone commenting on my body or what I'm eating or my health or my relationship right now because it would just ruin me, it would make me feel so vulnerable, then today is not a good day

to put yourself around people that cannot respect those limits and that don't have your best interest at heart. And sometimes those people are your family. Sometimes those people are your spouse or anybody that you might be around. And I want you to really be honest with yourself about that and know what you're walking into. And again, expect people to be how they use. usually are. And then from there, you can make empowered choices. And sometimes that means giving up certain things that you like. Maybe you actually really do enjoy seeing your grandmother on Thanksgiving and eating that pie that she makes. And it's something that you look forward to and that you want. But you also know that if you go over there and you see her and you eat that

pie, you have to deal with all these other things. And so what is more important to me this year? what would I like to choose? And the last thing I want to leave you with in this pep talk is that you are allowed to have a good time today. You're allowed to put yourself first. You're allowed to acknowledge your needs and wants and not just sacrifice everything for one person or the most dysfunctional person in the family unless that's something that you're actively choosing to do because this might be their last Thanksgiving or you have a family member that's sick or whatever it is. But there's a very big difference between catering to someone out of love and affection and desire and doing it because you feel like you don't matter. And you're not going to be able to

have a good day or keep yourself safe unless you do that. And so I want to give you permission that like if your day today looks like you sitting on the couch by yourself watching TV and like eating a piece of pumpkin pie alone and that sounds like peace and a great way to spend the day or maybe you're going to like I don't know not even eat food that's related to the holiday and you're doing something completely different or just ignore the holiday completely that's okay the way that you spend today is not a reflection of how you're going to spend every other holiday of your life. You don't have to project or make it mean anything more than this is what I have chosen to do today. I hope that wherever you land on this holiday that you

are able to have some love and good food and enjoyment and laughs and peace in your life and that tomorrow you can wake up and start again and take care of anything that happened to come up in this day. The Calling Home podcast is not engaged in providing therapy services, mental health advice, or other medical advice or services. It is not a substitute for advice from a qualified health care provider and does not create any therapist, patient, or other treatment relationship between you and Colling Home or Whitney Goodman.

For more information on this, please see Calling Home's terms of service linked in the show notes below. Thank you.