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Key points
- Burnout, grief, and uncertainty are causing many people to feel sadness this holiday season.
- Going for walks, spending time with pets, and taking vacation can help battle the effects of burnout.
- Allowing oneself the experience of grief with compassion and intention is important.
- Journaling, meditation, and alone time can help those who are struggling emotionally during the holidays. Therapy is also a good option.
Whelp, it’s here. Holiday season 2021. Or 2022. Anyone else losing track of time? (Oh good, it’s not just me.) While I say this (mostly) in jest (because, really, sometimes we need to add a dose or two of lightness to make the heaviness feel more bearable), it’s been anything but a jovial almost two years. We’ve all been through a heck of a lot—and that’s an understatement, explaining why you might be finding yourself not able to get into the holiday spirit this year. You might even be wishing that the holidays were over already. And then maybe feeling sadness, anger, and loss that you feel this way about a time of the year that has often felt joyful to you.
If this has been your experience, I hope this post helps you find some solace in knowing that you are not alone as well as gives you some strategies to manage the challenging emotions that are coming up for you.
Not feeling the holidays has been a common theme in the therapy sessions I have done this past month—with both teens and adults. It seems so many of us are struggling right now, and that difficulty translates into tapping out of a season that has the expectation to be happy, jolly, and warm.
Other than the catchall of it still being a pandemic, here is a psychological breakdown of why you might be feeling extra down and blue this holiday season:
1. Prolonged stress often leads to burnout.
Burnout is a state of being in which individuals who are taxed too much for too long find themselves feeling empty and disconnected from what they are doing. Burnout can be a devastating thing to experience. While much talk of burnout has centered around work-related burnout, burnout often rears its head in far broader areas.
Parenting and caregiving are two areas people often find themselves feeling alone and burned out. As we near the end of 2021, and close to two years living with extreme uncertainty and instability, yielding prolonged and significant stress, many of us are suffering from pandemic-related burnout. We are not built to sustain long-term stress before it impacts our mental and physical well-being. Knowing this and naming it can help validate what you’re feeling—and why it's here.
There are ways of coping with burnout. Emphasize self-care, allow yourself to take breaks. Take a vacation, staycation, or mental vacation. Go for walks outside. Spend time with your pets. And, maybe most importantly, don’t judge or criticize yourself for how you are feeling. It makes sense.
2. You’re dealing with profound grief or loss.
This pandemic hit hard and differently for all of us (please note the dialectic here). Grief can come about when we lose someone—as sadly many did over the last two years. However, grief doesn’t only show itself in death. Grief can pop up when there is any sort of impactful loss and can have a cumulative effect—as more loss accrues, the more complex our grief can become.
Aside from death, the loss of a "normal" maskless life, including safety, stability, socialization, even the abstract feeling of the loss of time, is a lot to grieve over. Notice if grief is here for you, (it would make sense that it is). Name it. Validate its presence, Be compassionate towards yourself. If you find yourself grieving this holiday season, allow yourself to grieve in however you do so. I love the book Tear Soup by Pat Schwiebert and Chuck DeKlyen as a quick, cute, but powerful read on grief- and how we can allow ourselves to walk through this subjective experience of pain with compassion and intention.
3. Uncertainty.
There is still so much uncertainty out there. Will there be another wave of the pandemic? Will my vaccine protect me? How about my kids? Will things shut down again? Please don't have schools go remote again! All these questions are weighty and revolve around the basics of life—health, education, jobs, and so on.
Living with uncertainty is never easy (see my last post), but this kind of life or death uncertainty (or life or quarantine life uncertainty) has been one heck of an emotional and physical roller coaster, taking its toll on our mental and physical health. It is important to take a pause and acknowledge all the uncertainty you have been living with. Spending time in awe-inducing situations can help deal with uncertainty and a host of other things. I like to sit in my bedroom and look at the trees swaying in the wind. In fact, I’m doing that this very moment as I write and create some cozy me time. It’s hard to feel celebratory when there is still so much unknown, and you have been through so much. Take it easy and be kind to yourself. Make this season about giving to yourself—mentally, physically, and spiritually.
To manage the uncertainty that you’re living with, and maybe the stuckness and helplessness that often follow it, try creating your own movement. Invent a new tradition to create some energy this year (on your own or with others). Make a point of intentionally connecting to the things that used to bring you joy—experiencing them in a fresh way.
If it’s hard to think about mustering the energy or wherewithal to do these things, try visualizing how you will feel after doing them, and allow this to be the light that guides you to take the first step. Journal. Meditate. Spend time alone checking in with yourself and processing. Therapy is a good option if you notice you are struggling and feeling off. But, most importantly know that not only is it okay that you feel this way—it makes sense. That awareness and gentle acceptance alone will help you wondrously. Knowing all feelings pass, all seasons come to an end, offers at least a bit of reassurance in the stormier weather. Understanding why you feel this way is part one of the work. Part two is doing something about it, (and sometimes doing something means doing nothing *but* noticing and accepting) paired with more intentional behaviors like creating your own movement, connecting with social support, and doing things that provide you with meaning.
Look at yourself in the mirror. Maybe give yourself a wry smile (how often do you actually smile at yourself? Give it a try.) as you say out loud, “I’ve really been through the wringer, haven’t I?” and then remind yourself that of course, you are having a different sort of experience this year. After all, when literally everything in life has shifted and been topsy turvy these last two years, it’s only to be expected that the holidays will be too.
To find a therapist, please visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.
