Over the years that I have been practicing therapy, I have had the honor of witnessing the variety of ways in which people experience the holiday season. Some clients have shared excitement and joy about the holidays, while others report feeling that the holidays amplify their existing struggles.
Based on similar experiences in their work, many of my therapist colleagues across the country have written powerful and helpful posts about navigating the holiday season. Because there is so much great content that I wanted to share with you, I obtained permission from some my colleagues to compile their links into this series of posts on my blog.
I’ve broken down the posts I am sharing by category in order to help you find the posts that are most relevant to what is on your mind this holiday season. There are three categories of links I am sharing in this series:
- Surviving the Holidays (These links are in this post!)
- Family, Relationships & The Holidays
- Children, Parenting & The Holidays
I hope you will find something that connects with you. Feel free to add comments at the end of my posts to let me know what you think of the links I have shared or to share additional links that have been helpful to you!
Sarah
Surviving the Holidays
5 Tips for Surviving the Holidays compliments of Denver therapist, Bethany Raab. These tips are easily implemented, but also things that are easy to let slide during the holiday season.
If you’ve been following my blog and know how passionate I am about self care, you may suspect that a post called A Self Care Holiday Guide was written by me, but that is not the case! Tennessee therapist, Jessica McCoy shares 10 self care presents you can give yourself to help manage your stress level this holiday season.
Laura Reagan’s post 3 Reasons You Might Not Be Feeling It During the Holidays touches on several of the themes of the posts I am sharing in this blog seires . Laura provides a great overview of the reasons why you may find the holidays difficult.
In their post Invest In Yourself, Hilary Kinavey and Dana Sturtevant invite us to invest in ourselves and provide 14 ideas about how to do so.
In her post the Ultimate Holiday Guide, Alison Crosthwait shares her reflections on the holiday season. It is hard to provide a brief summary of this post because it was thought provoking on several levels. Expectations, choice, awareness are a couple of the themes that stood out to me.
In his recent post Holiday Recovery…Can it Wait?, Dallas therapist Michael Salas addresses the issue of addiction and the holidays.
Amanda Patterson reminds us of three lessons from the holiday movie in her post, 3 Reasons Watching Elf is Good for Your Mental Health. Did you need an excuse to watch a holiday movie? Now you’ll have three!
Last but not least, I’d like to share my own post about Giving the Gift of Self Care. Gifts of self care can be given all year long!