When you’re missing a loved one and grieving, the holiday season can be especially tough. The first holiday season after my husband died was an absolute disaster. It’s a constant reminder that they are no longer with you and the emotions can be overwhelming – sadness, depression, loneliness, fear, anxiety, confusion and exhaustion. Can we just skip the season please?

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, this time is filled with remembrances of your loved one who is on your mind yet absent from your traditions and rituals.  You may have people in your life who mean well but don’t understand what you are going through which adds more pressure. Your emotions are all over the place, you don’t know what you need and you don’t know how to help others help you. You’d like to just take a long nap and wake up in the new year but feel you are supposed to behave like you’re fine so you don’t disappoint anyone. But you can’t do that because you’re NOT fine.

The good news is there are things we can do to make these days better for you and your family. It starts with acknowledging that these are tough days. Then we create a plan to help navigate everything you have to deal with – emotions, expectations from others and yourself, traditions, holiday meals, decorations, social gatherings, cards, shopping, just to name a few. I will give you strategies and tools so that you can figure out what is right for you.  Instead of the holidays crushing you, you will be in control of the holidays. It takes more energy to ignore them than confront them. You will discover the freedom to do what you want, feel what you feel and ways to honor your loved one and include them. It’s not about forgetting them. It’s about remembering them.

Join me as I guide you through creating your personalized plan to survive the holidays.   These holidays will be different. These holidays will be difficult. But these holidays can still be good.