Getting Through the Holidays: Caring for Yourself in a Busy Season

The holiday season is often described as “the most wonderful time of the year,” but for many people, it’s also the most overwhelming. Between family dynamics, financial pressure, full calendars, emotional triggers, and the weight of expectations—both spoken and unspoken—it can be difficult to find your center.

This is why caring for yourself during this season isn’t a luxury; it’s a necessity. The holidays can be a beautiful opportunity for connection, joy, and reflection, but only when we create the internal space to actually experience them. In a holistic sense, our emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual well-being are deeply intertwined. When one area feels overextended, everything else can feel off balance.

If you’ve ever entered January feeling exhausted, resentful, disconnected, or disappointed, you’re not alone. What if this year could be different? What if you could move through the season with more peace, presence, and intention?

Here are supportive, nurturing ways to care for yourself during the holidays—so you can experience them with a deeper sense of wellness and alignment.

1. Start With Honest Reflection

Before heading into the holiday rush, take time to reflect on what you actually need. Many of us enter the season on autopilot—saying yes to everything, upholding traditions that no longer fit, and ignoring our own emotional bandwidth.

Ask yourself:

1. What do I truly want this season to feel like? 
2. What drains me? What nourishes me? 
3. Where did I feel stretched too thin last year? 
4. What boundaries would support my emotional wellness? 

This reflection helps you approach the holidays with clarity rather than chaos. Journaling, meditation, or talking these questions through with a therapist can help you see patterns you may not have noticed before.

2. Embrace a Holistic Approach to Holiday Wellness

Too often, self-care gets reduced to bubble baths or scented candles. While those can be lovely, holistic wellness invites you to care for all the pieces of you: body, mind, spirit, and emotions.

Here are some ways to bring a holistic perspective into your season:

Honor Your Body’s Needs 

1. Eat in ways that help you feel balanced—not guilty.
2. Stay hydrated (so simple, yet easy to overlook during back-to-back events).
3. Protect your sleep like it’s a sacred appointment.
4. Move your body in gentle, joyful ways—walks, stretching, yoga, dancing in your kitchen.

Tend to Your Emotional Health 

1. Give yourself permission to feel your feelings without judgment.
2. Remember: joy and grief can coexist.
3. Seek support instead of “pushing through.”

Support Your Spiritual Grounding 

1. Return to practices that help you feel connected and centered—prayer, journaling, therapy, time in nature, or quiet solitude.
2. Take intentional pauses during the day to breathe, slow down, and check in with yourself.

Holistic wellness isn’t about perfection. It’s about awareness, compassion, and integration.

3. Let Therapy Be a Supportive Anchor

The holidays can stir up old wounds and unresolved patterns, especially around family. Therapy offers a safe space to unpack the emotions that tend to surface this time of year—grief, loneliness, comparison, resentment, or overwhelm.

A therapist can help you:

1. Prepare for difficult conversations or family dynamics
2. Build boundaries that honor your emotional needs
3. Navigate seasonal sadness or anxiety
4. Process old holiday-related memories
5. Develop coping skills that actually work for you

Therapy isn’t just for when things fall apart. It can be an essential tool for prevention—helping you stay grounded, resourced, and supported before stress builds up.

If you’re already in therapy, this can be a powerful time to deepen the work. If not, this season might be the perfect time to start exploring it.

4. Give Yourself Permission to Set Boundaries

The holiday season often triggers people-pleasing tendencies. You may feel pressure to attend every gathering, buy every gift, maintain every tradition, or accommodate every request.

But boundaries are an act of self-care.

Some healthy boundaries might look like:

1. Limiting how long you stay at family events
2. Choosing one or two holiday activities, instead of all of them
3. Saying “I don’t have the emotional capacity for that this year”
4. Protecting your financial wellness by setting spending limits
5. Declining invitations that don’t align with your energy or values
6. Taking intentional breaks from social media

Your time, your energy, and your emotional landscape are precious. It’s okay—not only okay, but healthy—to protect them.

5. Create Moments of Intentional Rest

Rest often feels like a luxury during the holiday rush—but it’s actually essential for staying grounded.

Try adding small rituals of rest into your days, such as:

1. Five mindful breaths before walking into a gathering
2. Ten minutes of quiet reflection before bed
3. A slow morning once a week
4. Leaving open space in your schedule for spontaneity or emotional recovery
5. Taking a short walk to reset your nervous system

When you build rest into your season, everything else feels more manageable.

6. Release the Pressure to “Make Everything Perfect”

Holiday perfectionism steals joy.

Maybe you’ve felt the pressure to be the perfect host, buy the perfect gifts, maintain the perfect traditions, or create the perfect memories. But perfection is not connection. It’s okay if things are messy, simple, or different this year.

Try asking:

1. Is this expectation coming from me, or from someone else? 
2. If I let this go, what might I gain? 
3. What would a more relaxed version of this look like? 

Letting go of perfectionism creates more room for presence, laughter, and real connection—the things that actually matter.

7. Make Space for Grief and Tender Emotions

While the holidays can be joyful, they can also highlight what we’ve lost—people, relationships, routines, health, or the version of ourselves that once existed.

Instead of pushing grief aside, treat it with gentleness.

You might:

1. Light a candle for someone you miss
2. Share stories or memories
3. Allow yourself to cry
4. Talk to your therapist about what’s coming up
5. Make space for solitude or creative expression
6. Give yourself permission to opt out of traditions that feel too painful

Grief is part of being human. Making space for it does not take away joy—it creates capacity for deeper connection and authenticity.

8. Find Joy in Simple, Grounding Moments

Joy doesn’t have to be grand or Instagram-worthy. Often, the most restorative moments are the small ones.

1. Sipping warm tea
2. Watching lights twinkle
3. Saying no to something because your peace matters more
4. Listening to music that lifts your spirit
5. Taking a drive with no destination
6. Holding someone you love
7. Laughing at something silly
8. Giving yourself compassion when you feel overwhelmed

Let the simple moments be enough this year.

9. Cultivate Connection That Feels Real (Not Forced)

Not all connection is nourishing. Surround yourself with people who support your well-being, respect your boundaries, and understand your capacity.

You can also intentionally build connections that feel meaningful:

1. Spend time with people who feel safe and grounded
2. Plan smaller gatherings instead of draining large ones
3. Join a support group or wellness group
4. Engage in shared reflective or spiritual practices
5. Allow yourself to be vulnerable with someone you trust

Connection rooted in honesty and presence is far more healing than obligation-based togetherness.

10. Enter the New Year With Reflection Instead of Pressure

Instead of jumping straight into goals or resolutions, give yourself space in the quiet winter months to reflect:

1. What did this season teach me? 
2. Where did I grow? 
3. What did I learn about my boundaries, my capacity, my heart? 
4. What do I want to carry with me into the new year? 

Reflection helps you move forward intentionally, grounded in your values rather than pressured by expectation.

Final Thoughts: You Are Worth Caring For

Getting through the holidays doesn’t have to mean surviving them. With a holistic approach to wellness, intentional reflection, and support—whether through therapy, community, or personal practices—you can move through this season with more peace, clarity, and steadiness.

This year, let your well-being matter. Let your needs matter. Let your boundaries matter.

The holidays will still be there—but you’ll meet them with a grounded, supported version of yourself.