You Are Allowed To Take Up Space This Holiday Season
If you started telling yourself this one thing, you might get through the holidays in your pregnant or postpartum body with more peace:
My body is allowed to take up space in this season.
Before you rush past that sentence, pause for a moment.
Take a breath.
Because for so many parents, the holidays are not just festive—they’re loud. And when your body is already changing, that noise can feel overwhelming.
When the Holidays Amplify Body Image Struggles
This time of year tends to magnify everything you’re already navigating.
Your body may be changing because of pregnancy or postpartum recovery.
Your routines may feel different—or nonexistent—because you’re caring for a baby or young children.
And then, layered on top of all of that, come winter clothes, family gatherings, photos, comments, and food-centered traditions.
Even if you’ve done a lot of healing work around food and body image, the holidays can bring old thoughts rushing back. Thoughts like:
I should eat less today.
I’ll make up for this after the holidays.
I need to get back on track.
I shouldn’t look like this.
If this is happening for you, you’re not failing. You’re responding to a culture that becomes especially loud when bodies are most visible and most vulnerable.
A Reframe to Practice This Season
Here’s the reframe I want you to gently return to:
My body is allowed to take up space in this season.
Pregnancy changes your body.
Postpartum changes your body.
Winter changes your body.
None of these changes are moral failures. None of them mean you need to shrink, restrict, compensate, or punish your body in order to earn rest, joy, or celebration.
You don’t need to “deserve” holiday food.
You don’t need to apologize for your body.
You don’t need to fix yourself before you’re allowed to be cared for.
When the Urge to Compensate Shows Up
If you notice yourself planning how to eat less, move more, or “undo” the holidays once they’re over, pause.
That urge usually comes from fear, not failure.
Fear of being judged.
Fear of change.
Fear of losing control.
Fear of what it might mean if you let your body exist as it is.
But your body is not a problem to manage this season.
It is the place where you are:
growing or recovering from growing a baby
parenting and showing up for others
healing from things that may not be visible
surviving a season that can be tender and exhausting
Taking Up Space Is Part of Breaking the Cycle
Letting your body take up space—especially when it feels uncomfortable—is not giving up.
It’s an act of resistance in a culture that teaches parents, particularly mothers, to shrink themselves at all costs.
It’s part of breaking the cycle of food guilt, body shame, and compensatory behaviors that so many of us were taught—and that we don’t want to pass down.
And if you’re noticing how hard this feels, that awareness matters. Awareness is not weakness; it’s the beginning of change.
You Don’t Have to Do This Alone
The holidays can feel especially heavy when your body is changing and support feels scarce. If food and body image struggles are resurfacing, you don’t have to navigate that alone.
I support pregnant and postpartum parents in finding peace with food and their bodies—without passing the struggle down to the next generation.
If you’re ready for support this season, I’d be honored to walk alongside you. You can book an intro call through reaching out to me here.
And for now, let this be your reminder:
✨ Your body is allowed to take up space in this season.
