How to Thrive and Survive The Holidays Happy Holidays Everyone! Well, the holiday season is here and if you’re anything like me, you’re feeling slightly overwhelmed and stressed because of all you have to do, and all of the emotions that go along with the holidays. This is a common time of the year where we can experience very high emotions such as joy, happiness and excitement, but we also experience a lot of difficult emotions such as fear, panic, depression, hopelessness, grief and loneliness. Given that this is such a universal experience during the holiday period, we thought it was a great opportunity to bring on Alison Seponara who is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the state of Pennsylvania to talk about How to Thrive and Survive the Holidays.  This episode is particularly important if you are also managing a mental illness or other psychological stressors. It is not uncommon for anxiety and depression to worsen during the holiday period, so we wanted to be sure to bring you multiple tools to help you Thrive and Survive the Holidays. In this interview Alison and I talk about important topics that can really impact our mental wellness during the Holiday season.  In this podcast, we address the following: Grief and how the holidays can bring up grief you were not expecting Anxiety and how it is often increased due to the stress of the holiday period and the presence of triggering family members Social anxiety and how it can cause us to dread the holiday period The fear of saying no to family members and events that you don’t think are healthy for you to attend The financial struggles that go along with the holidays The overwhelming expectation to feel nothing but joy and celebration The most important point Alison and I made during this episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit is that YOU DO NOT HAVE TO FEEL BAD IF YOU ARE NOT ENJOYING THE HOLIDAYS.  Alison made some great points in reassuring you that it is ok and totally normal to struggle instead of feeling festive.  I hope you find this podcast helpful and you now feel ready to thrive and survive the holidays. IG: @therapywithali FB: Alison Seponara https://www.alisonseponara.com/