Dreading Christmas? 3 Mindset Shifts to Protect Your Mental Health During the Holidays

And you, you're thinking to yourself, OMG, when will it end?

Because you, my friend, are maybe feeling not so joyful, not so cheerful.

It's not because you don't enjoy Christmas.

It's not because you don't want to celebrate Christmas.

It's because the year's been rough.

Maybe you've gone through some stuff.

Maybe finances aren't so great.

Christmas just isn't looking like it used to.

And it's been hitting hard.

It's been making it really difficult to get into the Christmas spirit.

Well, my friend, we're only a week away from Christmas, and I wanted to help you out.

So if you're somebody who's been struggling, who's been really wishing that you could just sleep through Christmas, really hoping that December would just end, well, my friend, this is for you.

I've got you three strategies to try to help make Christmas a little bit easier, a little bit better.

And hopefully, if I do my job well enough, maybe it can just turn things around.

So if you're up for a perspective shift, three strategies to help you turn this Christmas around for the good.

Well, my friend, you're in the right place.

This is episode 424 of the podcast Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

And I'm your host, Kevin Low.

So, my friend, if you're ready for it, so am I.

So let's go ahead and dive in.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I got grit, grace, and inspiration on my mind.

SPEAKER_00: So, diving right into our three strategies, we're starting with strategy number one.

And that is, I want you to think about doing something different this year.

Maybe in the past, Christmas Eve has always looked the same.

You guys do dinner out with the family.

Maybe you go to a Christmas Eve church service.

And then maybe you end the night by everybody riding around looking at the Christmas lights.

It's something you've always done.

But now, this year, life looks different.

Maybe it was from divorce, maybe loss.

Something happened that has changed things, where it has Christmas looking different than it has in the past.

Well, my friend, this is a perfect opportunity for you to enter into a new season of life, a new chapter of life.

Because traditions are great until they're not.

When a tradition no longer serves you, no longer brings you joy, then it's time to adopt new.

So I'm giving you the encouragement, the permission to do something different.

If you've always done one thing that was related to your past life, well, you're a different person now.

And it's okay to try something new.

So I encourage you, whether it's Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, whether it's New Year's Eve or New Year's Day, to try something new.

Instead of going around and looking at Christmas lights, what about seeing what movie is playing at the movie theater?

And go get yourself a nice big large popcorn, a nice big soda, and just veg out, pig out while enjoying a fun movie for Christmas Eve.

Do something different.

That's what I'm encouraging you to do.

Now, in with that, like I said, maybe it's not a fact of life looking different because of loss or a divorce, but maybe finances are just tough this year.

Well, my friend, maybe you're all adults.

It's a situation in my family where this year, honestly, we've came to the reality.

What do we tend to do at Christmas?

We spend a bunch of money we don't have on a bunch of gifts that, yeah, they're nice to receive.

It's nice to give, but is it really necessary?

And instead, we've decided that we're just gonna go out for dinner.

That's gonna be our Christmas gift to one another.

So we've chosen one of our favorite restaurants, somewhere we only go to on those special occasions, and we made dinner reservations.

That's gonna be our Christmas gift to one another.

Is it like it used to be?

No, not at all.

Has it made Christmas a little less stressful, a little less expensive?

100%.

And that is a win.

Now, one thing that I want to encourage you not to do is a lot of people put too much weight on this idea because they look at it like they have to create a new tradition.

We want to do something different with the family.

We want to start a new tradition.

That puts way too much weight, way too much pressure on trying something new.

So, my friend, I don't want you to try something new thinking that this is gonna be the thing that you do from here on out.

No, that's just defeating the purpose.

I'm trying to take the stress off of you.

I want you to just try something new because it sounds good.

Not because it might become a family tradition, but because it just sounds good this year.

Maybe next Christmas, you do something different.

The Christmas after that, yet again, you do something different.

There is no reason you have to stay stuck in a rut doing the same thing year after year.

So, again, to summarize strategy number one, simply do something different.

It's okay to break the mold.

It's okay to not follow in pursuit of your past traditions.

I am giving you the permission to do something different.

Strategy number two, my friend, do not do the holidays alone.

Because I know one thing that you're thinking.

If you're already thinking to yourself that you'd rather sleep away the holiday, that you wish you could just blink and it'd all be over with.

And in that mindset, I guarantee one thing is true is that you're thinking you don't want to go to that Christmas party.

You don't want to go to your family's Christmas dinner.

And you're gonna have a tendency to just want to stay home, lying in bed in your PJs, sleeping the day away.

My friend, there is a time and place for that.

Christmas Day, New Year's Day, Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, the holidays are not a time for you being alone, especially if you're struggling.

If you are sad, if you're depressed, if you're just kind of struggling, being alone is the worst possible thing that you could do.

I'm gonna encourage you, urge you with everything I have to not be alone on the holidays.

Whether it's going to your family's dinner, or it's simply you just calling up your best friend and having them come over and hang out to sit with you.

I want you to be with somebody.

I don't want you to go through the holidays alone.

Again, you're gonna have this tendency.

You're gonna want to retreat, to draw in, to close out the world.

But my friend, please listen to me when I say we are not meant to do life alone.

And we're definitely not meant to do the holidays alone.

And here's the really cool thing.

Even though this Christmas might not look like you hoped, maybe those dreams of what it would be didn't pan out.

It doesn't mean that it still can't be great.

All you need is you and one other person to have a party.

Just the two of you can make it amazing.

The two of you can go out for a movie on Christmas Eve.

Just the two of you can enjoy Christmas morning cooking at home.

It doesn't have to be a big thing.

So again, I'm encouraging you.

Strategy number two for surviving the holidays, and more so, maybe making them more enjoyable than you thought they would be.

I want you to be with people you love, people who have your best interest in mind.

Be with the friends, the family who are always there for you.

Do not retreat, do not stay in your bed.

Please listen to me when I tell you.

That is not what you want to do.

And then strategy number three.

My friend, it's about getting real, raw, honest, vulnerable.

It's about feeling the feels, getting your emotions flowing.

I'm telling you, this is not the time of year to have that whole attitude, the mindset of suck it up.

Don't cry.

Don't let anybody know that you're upset.

No, this is a time of year when you're struggling.

And it's okay.

I want you to give yourself permission to feel the feels.

It's okay that you're not so joyful.

It's okay that you're not happy.

It's okay that you're finding it hard to smile.

You've been through some stuff.

It's why you're listening to this podcast episode, is because something resonated.

Something said, hey, you know what?

This is for me.

I need to listen to this.

So therefore, I don't want you to beat yourself up.

I want you to understand that it's okay to not be okay.

So basically, I want you to remember this.

If you cry, it doesn't undo healing.

If you're tired, it doesn't undo all that you've been working on.

It doesn't undo all the progress you've made.

And if joy just doesn't seem to come, it doesn't mean that there's something wrong with you.

It doesn't mean that you have forgotten about Christmas.

No, you're just in a tough spot right now.

We've all been there.

And I can promise you one thing.

It's gonna get easier.

It's gonna get better.

We just gotta get through the holidays.

You're almost there.

You've already gotten through Thanksgiving.

We're now coming up, gonna get through Christmas and New Year's.

And then it's a brand new start, a whole new year.

So, my friend, I encourage you to give yourself grace, to just give yourself a break.

And if you feel like crying, give yourself space and time to cry.

If you feel like screaming, well, my favorite thing so that you don't alert the neighbors, just scream into your pillow.

It works every time.

Muffles the scream, you get out that same amount of desire to scream and you don't scare anybody in the process.

I just want you to realize that it's okay to feel how you feel.

I want you to get through these holidays.

And I hope that one of these strategies is exactly what you needed to hear.

So to wrap it up, I want to remind you this year, I need you to be reminded that it's gonna be okay.

Sometimes maybe you just need to think about doing things a little bit different, trying something new.

Then I want you to be sure that you don't do the holidays alone.

I want you to be sure that you're spending them with at least somebody, if not at your family's dinner.

Have somebody you could count on who's there with you.

And then, of course, our third tip, our third little strategy was to just give yourself permission to feel the feels.

It's okay.

Sometimes when we are so sad, the best thing we can do is to let ourselves.

Sometimes just having a really good cry finally just lets it all out.

It kind of relieves all that pressure that's been building up inside of you.

Just kind of lets it out and lets you feel free.

You do all of this, and my friend, I hope that maybe the holiday season won't be quite as bad as you'd been thinking.

My friend, I'm gonna be taking the next couple of weeks off.

I'm gonna be sharing here on the podcast two of our fan favorite episodes from the year that was 2025.

So maybe you haven't caught all the episodes that have been released this year.

Well, please be sure that you stay tuned so that you have something good to listen to, the weeks of Christmas and New Year's.

And yes, I will be back with fresh new episodes beginning in January, all geared up to help you be sure that you make 2026 your breakout year.

So if you're tired of playing safe, if you're tired of another year passing without progress being made, well, baby, this is the podcast for you.

So please be sure, if not already, following slash subscribing to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you're listening, please be sure you hit that button so that you are notified every Tuesday morning when a new episode is released.

And my friend, lastly but not least, I want to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from my podcast studio to your earbuds.

I'm your host, Kevin Lowe, and this is Grit Grace and Inspiration.

SPEAKER_01: I've got Grit Grace and Inspiration on my mind.