For many, the Christmas season brings more grief and stress than joy. For those feeling the added weight, a mental health team in Winnipeg is putting on a few workshops to help.
Linda Vickers, a Certified Wellness Coach with Just Pause Coaching Practice, has teamed up with Recovery of Hope Counselling Services in Winnipeg to offer a series of workshops before the holidays.
“The first workshop is called ‘Let it Go: Reducing Stress at Christmas,’” says Vickers. “We all have enough stress. Many of us are working two jobs with our calendars full, and then Christmas comes along, and there’s all the extra.”
The first workshop will take place at Recovery of Hope in Winnipeg on November 22, from 10:00 a.m. to noon. The second workshop is happening on Dec. 6 and is called ‘A Silent Night: Grief and Grace in the Season of Christmas.’
“I call it a silent night because when we’re grieving for whatever reason, it seems like everything changes. So much of Christmas is with tradition, and we just don’t know how to do Christmas without the people we love. People can be missing for all kinds of reasons.”
Vickers shares that grief from losing people can come in the form of a death, or divorce in the family, or even people moving away.
“Everyone grieves differently. When we are together as a family, even if we’re grieving the same person or situation, we could be doing it completely different. It always seems strange because, we want to be with people, we don’t want to be with people. We want to talk about the person, we don’t want to talk about the person. Sometimes its difficult to recognize the person is grieving, they’re not just having a bad day.”
Giving Yourself Space through the Season
As a counsellor and the clinical director of Recovery of Hope, Terry Warburton has seen her fair share of people that find November and December incredibly difficult and wish that time would skip ahead to the new year.
“I like to talk about our family of origin versus our family of choice,” says Warburton. “Sometimes our families of origin are not the ones that are supportive or that we feel safe around. We can choose our family and that doesn’t have to be a lot of people. It can be one or two, but it matters to be together. The being together piece is such a big part of coping with all of this. We all need connection.”
One tip Vickers shares to help people during the busyness that is often correlated with Christmas is to slow down. She encourages people to go for a walk and listen to the world around them; whether it’s the crunch of the snow beneath their feet or their own breath. Another tip Warburton shares is to think of advice people would give to a friend, and then try to have grace for oneself.
“So often during Christmas we’ve got this big long list of things we need to do, and we’re running,” says Vickers. “But self-care isn’t selfish. I think we’ve thought of it that way but we need to look after ourselves so we have the energy and the ability to enjoy our families.”
Anyone interested in signing up for either workshop can find all the details here.