Getting Through Is Enough This Week

There’s a quiet pressure that shows up every December — the idea that the holidays should feel meaningful, joyful, or at least emotionally tidy.

But for many people, especially women and caregivers, this week isn’t peaceful. It’s demanding. Loud. Full. Complicated.

And if you’re just trying to make it through, that’s not a failure.

That’s reality.

This Is a “Hold Yourself Together” Week

The days leading up to Christmas often come with invisible labor:

• managing schedules and expectations

• navigating family dynamics

• holding space for other people’s emotions

• pushing through exhaustion because “it’s just a few more days”

Even when things are “fine,” they can still be heavy.

This is not the week to grow, reflect deeply, or reinvent yourself.
This is a week for containment.

Sometimes the healthiest goal is simply:

Get through it.

Mixed Feelings Are Normal — Even Expected

You can feel grateful and resentful at the same time.
You can love your family and still feel drained by them.
You can appreciate the season and still want it to be over.

There’s nothing wrong with you if the holidays bring up sadness, grief, irritability, or numbness — even if everything looks good on the outside.

Many people carry more emotional weight this week than they let on.

You Don’t Have to Process Everything Right Now

There’s a subtle pressure to “use the break” to rest, reflect, or heal.

But emotional processing requires space and safety, and this week rarely offers either.

It’s okay to:

• put feelings on a shelf for now

• stay in practical mode

• save the deeper work for later

You are allowed to wait.

Emotional processing requires space and safety — and this week rarely offers either.

For many women, individual therapy can become a place to slow down and make sense of what’s been held, once the holidays pass.

Rest Can Come After

If you’re exhausted, overwhelmed, or counting the days until things slow down, that doesn’t mean you’re doing the holidays wrong.

It means you’re human.

There will be time — after the noise settles — to breathe, reflect, and figure out what you need next.

For now, getting through is enough.

A Gentle Note

If the holidays leave you feeling depleted, raw, or emotionally stretched thin, therapy can be a place to land afterward. You don’t have to unpack everything right now — support is available when you’re ready.

Making Space for Mixed Emotions During the Holidays

The holidays have a way of stirring up everything at once—joy, stress, nostalgia, grief, tenderness, resentment, overwhelm, love, loneliness. It’s all there, layered and real. And if you’re feeling pulled in ten different emotional directions right now, nothing is wrong with you. You’re human.

Most women I work with come into December already stretched thin. And then the season piles on more expectations, more decisions, more emotional labor, more pressure to “make it special” for everyone else. You’re carrying years of memories, family dynamics, losses, traditions, and invisible responsibilities that no one else sees.

So of course your emotions feel mixed.
Of course you feel both grateful and exhausted.
Of course you’re trying your best while also wishing someone would take something—anything—off your plate.

This season doesn’t require you to choose one emotional lane. You’re allowed to feel everything that’s true for you.

Here’s what it looks like to make space for mixed emotions:

• Letting yourself enjoy the good moments without pretending the hard ones aren’t there. Both can coexist.
• Noticing tension, resentment, or grief without judging yourself. Your feelings come from somewhere real.
• Allowing exhaustion to be a signal, not a failure. Your body is telling you it needs care.
• Remembering you don’t have to “perform” emotional cheerfulness for the world. Authenticity is easier to carry than perfection.

Mixed emotions don’t mean you’re doing the holidays wrong—they mean you’re showing up with your whole self. And that’s enough.

If this season feels heavy, tangled, or just too much, therapy can give you a place to slow down, breathe again, and feel supported instead of stretched.

If you’re craving steadiness and space to process everything you’re carrying, you can reach out anytime:
https://www.risegentlytherapy.com/contact

You Don’t Have to Be Grateful for Everything to Be Thankful

When Gratitude Starts to Feel Like Pressure

Real gratitude is grounding and spacious. Forced gratitude feels like guilt.

If you’ve ever tried to write a gratitude list while holding back tears or exhaustion, you know the difference. Many women tell me they feel like they’re “failing” if they can’t find something positive in every situation. That’s not gratitude — that’s emotional bypassing, and it’s especially common during the holidays when expectations skyrocket.

Signs you’re experiencing forced gratitude:

• Feeling guilty for having negative emotions

• Telling yourself, “I shouldn’t complain”

• Feeling pressure to “look on the bright side”

• Feeling disconnected from the gratitude you’re writing or saying

• Feeling like gratitude equals minimizing your own pain

If holidays tend to heighten stress or burnout for you, you might also find my post on setting boundaries during the holidays helpful.

The Truth: Gratitude Doesn’t Require Perfection

You don’t have to be grateful for the hard things to appreciate what’s good.

You don’t have to turn every struggle into a “lesson.”

You don’t have to spiritualize burnout or wrap your pain in a bow to make it more acceptable.

You get to be human.

You get to feel more than one thing at a time.

You get to choose the type of gratitude that feels nourishing — not forced.

Three Gentle Ways to Practice Gratitude (Without Pretending Everything Is Fine)

1. Name what feels supportive right now

Not your “blessings.” Not the big-picture stuff. Just what makes today feel 1% more bearable.

Examples:

• A quiet cup of coffee

• A moment of sunlight

• A kid who slept in

• A partner who took over a task

• Something that made you smile, even for a second

This kind of gratitude doesn’t deny your reality — it anchors you inside it.

2. Acknowledge what has been hard

Honest gratitude can only exist when we allow space for honesty.

Try this journal prompt:

“What has been hard lately… and what has helped me get through it?”

You’re not required to be grateful for the hard thing — only to recognize your resilience, support, or capacity around it.

3. Practice “gentle gratitude” — not “toxic positivity”

Gentle gratitude sounds like:

• “I’m grateful for this small moment of calm.”

• “I appreciate the people who helped me today.”

• “I’m thankful for the parts of myself that keep showing up.”

Toxic positivity sounds like:

• “It could be worse.”

• “At least…”

• “Just be grateful.”

• “Good vibes only.”

One honors your reality. One erases it.

If Gratitude Feels Complicated, You’re Normal

Many women carry an enormous emotional load — caregiving, holidays, expectations, grief, anxiety, and invisible labor. Feeling overwhelmed doesn’t mean you’re ungrateful. It means you’re human.

A Gentle Reminder for This Week

You don’t have to be grateful for everything.

You don’t have to find meaning in every hardship.

You don’t have to pretend this season is easier than it is.

You can be thankful and tired.

You can be appreciative and grieving.

You can be grateful and overwhelmed.

You can be hopeful and human.

If you’re craving a few simple practices to ground yourself during stressful moments, you can download my free “Gentle Reset Tools” here.

If the Holiday Season Feels Heavy, You’re Not Alone

If you’re craving space to breathe, reset, or untangle some of the overwhelm, therapy can help you create room for yourself again.

I support women in East Cobb/Marietta and across Georgia via telehealth who feel stretched thin and want a softer way to move through their days.

You deserve support too.