Individual Counseling Can Help Manage Holiday Changes Due To COVID-19

Individual counseling can help if you are feeling stressed, depressed, or anxious about necessary changes to your Christmas, Diwali, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and Yule plans this year. With the number of COVID-19 cases continuing to rise, many people are choosing to alter or skip their holiday traditions to keep themselves and their loved ones safe. The usual hustle and bustle stress of having too much to do during the holiday season is being replaced with uncertainty, isolation, and grief for the loss of routine and tradition.

For many people, the “loss” of the holiday season can plunge them into depression and add stress on top of an extremely anxiety-inducing year. But don’t lose hope. Individual counseling at Take Charge can help you learn to redirect your thinking, keep a glass half full attitude, and stay positive about the future.

If you opt to let tradition slide this year, it’s a good idea to express your choice as a personal one. As we often learn in individual counseling, using “I statements,” or statements that start with the first-person pronoun, clarifies to loved ones that your decision has nothing to do with them. “I don’t want to be a virus spreader and put others at risk” makes it clear that it’s not about you, it’s about protecting others.

There are plenty of other ways to get together with family members for a traditional holiday celebration this year. If you’re interested in pursuing alternatives, you can find something that works for everyone.

The simplest option is to follow in the footsteps of offices everywhere (and individual counseling via teletherapy) and embrace a virtual holiday. One family member can assume the role of planner and set up the meeting, send out invites, and serve as “host” for the live event. Everyone can have the virtual party running during their respective dinners, so it feels like they’re all sitting at the table together. Another option is to distribute prepackaged meals in advance, so everyone is eating the same thing at the same time, virtually together. You can even play online games while on zoom with sites such as Brightful Meeting Games. Or purchase a deck of meaningful questions to ask each other like the Icebreaker Deck at Best Self.  Watch a movie together with Teleparty and have a group chat while viewing the show together.  

Remember that a return to experiencing joys of life before COVID are just around the corner.  Utilize this time to enjoy music, listen to movies or series you have wanted to see, listen to podcasts which help you grow.  Read books, take an online course or cook foods that are better for your health.  Take the extra time and plan out some realistic goals you’d like to achieve in 2021 and focus on aspects of life you can control. 

For more information about individual counseling during the holidays and throughout the year, call Take Charge, Inc. at (913) 239-8255 or click here to schedule an appointment.