By  Melea Johnson, MA, LGPC, Staff Clinician, GW Resiliency & Well-being Center

As the leaves begin to fall and the weather shifts to crisp, cool mornings, we welcome the holiday season with gratitude and reflection on how the year has been for us all.
With the holidays come comforting traditions, such as delicious food, cozy gatherings, and the joy of decorating our spaces.

For many people, this time may also include stressors such as complex family dynamics, disruptions in routine, and financial problems. Not everyone may find it possible to celebrate traditionally or travel “home” to see loved ones. This season can also be filled with work and school deadlines, exams or budget submissions - so how do you manage through this time and continue to take care of yourself and each other?

An important part of taking care of yourself is being intentional about your time and approaching the holiday season with compassion and patience.
Here are a few strategies to help manage stress and ensure you continue to take care of yourself:

●    Ask for help from family and friends when you need it— allow yourself to be open and honest about what you can offer and limitations to time or energy.
●    Keep yourself moving and active—encourage those around you to join you if possible!
●    Protect your time to allow for mindfulness, reflection, and recharging. One way you can put this into practice is to set protected time for yourself daily to allow for: naps, reading, calling a friend, going on a run, or watching a comfort show.
●    Prioritize your sleep—when routines are disrupted, a lack of sleep may affect your ability to be social and engage fully with those around you.
●    Continue your healthy eating habits and limit alcohol and sweets.
●    Set boundaries with everyone—including yourself!

One of the most helpful ways to manage stress during the holidays is by setting clear and intentional boundaries aimed at protecting your time and emotional well-being. Knowing yourself and your personal needs increases your confidence to ask for what you need and may encourage others around you to do the same. Boundaries are individualized and personal, so reflect on what your needs are as a first step.

Setting boundaries with family and friends can be challenging, and it’s inevitable that you will encounter people or situations that may challenge your established boundaries. To stay grounded, utilize assertive communication and know when to engage or when it may be healthier to walk away.

The holiday season is your opportunity to slow down, take care of yourself, and enjoy time with family and loved ones, engaging in your most meaningful traditions. 

Learn more about managing family conflict from this infographic.

 

Welcome to the GW Resiliency & Well-being Center's Wellness Corner video series! Learn about and practice simple mind-body exercises with a member of our team! We have videos on different types of meditation, yoga, sound therapy, acupressure therapy, Qigong, and more.

Visit our website to access our resources and learn more about our upcoming events! The center takes an evidence-based, whole person approach to  the health and wellness (well-being) services it provides to all employees, trainees, and staff of the GW Medical Enterprise—the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS), GW Medical Faculty Associates (MFA), and GW Hospital with some services available to SMHS affiliates like Children’s National Hospital.

 

By Viktoriya Karakcheyeva, MD, MS, NCC, LCP, LCPC-SP, LCADS, Associate Director/Behavioral Health Director, GW Resiliency & Well-being Center

The holidays are supposed to be joyful. That’s what we’re told, anyway. Family, warmth, tradition, cheer - it’s everywhere, from commercials to conversations. But for anyone carrying grief, the holiday season can feel more like a minefield. A song, a smell, an empty chair at the table can hit you like a wave. Suddenly, you’re not in the room anymore - you’re in a memory, reliving the loss or a moment that never got to happen.

Francis Weller, author of The Wild Edge of Sorrow, understands this space well. He writes and speaks about grief not as a problem to fix, but as a sacred and necessary part of life. “Grief is not a distraction from life - it is life,” he says. It’s not just about mourning the death of someone we love. It could be other types of losses we’ve experienced: the childhood we didn’t get, the life we wish we lived, or the parts of ourselves we’ve had to leave behind.

During the holidays, all of that can come rushing up. And instead of making space for it, most of us are taught to push it down. Smile through it. Be grateful. Don’t ruin the mood. But Weller challenges that. Weller emphasizes “the need to tend grief”, not hide it. He calls this "apprenticeship with sorrow," a lifelong practice of learning to stay present with pain, rather than suppress or bypass it.  When we try to bypass it, we not only dishonor what we’ve lost - we rob ourselves of real connection and deepening our experience of being alive.

In a talk he gave on grief and ritual, Weller says something striking: “Grief needs a witness.” It’s not something we’re meant to carry alone. And yet, in our culture, we often do. We isolate. We compare pain. We try to "move on" too fast. But grief, especially during the holidays, is asking for something else: acknowledgment.

That might look like lighting a candle for someone who is not with you anymore. Or speaking their name at the dinner table. Or giving yourself permission to cry in the middle of a celebration. It doesn’t mean you’re stuck. It means you’re human.

Weller also reminds us that grief and gratitude are not opposites - they’re companions. “The work of the mature person,” he writes, “is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other, and to be stretched large by them.” That kind of emotional stretching hurts. But it also opens us up. It makes us more real. More tender. More able to love deeply, knowing loss is part of the deal.

So if you're grieving this holiday season, know this: you're not broken, and you’re not alone. Your sorrow is not an interruption—it belongs. Let it sit with you. Let it speak. Let it remind you of the love that made it so heavy in the first place.

 

Feelings of grief and loss can be heightened and may seem overwhelming during the holiday season.  Delia Chiaramonte, MD, Founder and CEO of the Institute for Integrative Palliative Medicine and host of the Integrative Palliative Podcast, gave a talk about coping with grief and loss, how to fill your emotional cup, during the holiday season during A Mindfulness Experience.  Dr. Chiaramonte is introduced by Mikhail "Misha" Kogan, MD, associate professor of Medicine at the GW School of Medicine & Health Sciences, chief medical officer of the GW Center for Integrative Medicine, and founder of AIM Health Institute (AIM), a nonprofit that provides Integrative Medicine services to patients who are terminally ill and/or face financial barriers to care.

A Mindfulness Experience is a free, weekly, online gathering for healthcare consumers and health professionals that includes a COVID Q&A, wellness talk, and 30-minute mind-body practice. The event is organized by SMHS' Resiliency & Well-being Center and the Office of Integrative Medicine & Health, in cooperation with AIM. 

 

Join the GW Resiliency and Well-being Center for a Women's Well-being Lecture Series talk at 12 p.m. ET on Friday, November 4, 2025, on “Moving to Your Zone of Genius: Breaking Self-Imposed Limits and Unlocking Your Highest Potential” presented by Joia Jefferson Nuri, PCC, executive leadership and public speaking coach and founder/CEO of In The Public Eye Coaching.

She has coached 14 TEDx Talks speakers, crafted compelling testimonies for Congress, and helped shape Ivy League commencement speeches. She was the first Black woman to serve as Technical Director for CBS Evening News and Face the Nation, as well as lead major productions for NPR, PBS, and C-SPAN. 

The Women's Well-being Lecture Series is supported by the Rosemary Bowes, PhD, Women's Mental Health Fund. Watch previous lectures on the GW Integrative Medicine YouTube channel. Learn more about the GW Women's Well-being Initiative.

Upcoming 2026 webinars:

 

Housed in the GW School of Medicine & Health Sciences, the Resiliency & Well-being Center (R&W Center) takes an evidence-based, whole person approach to the health and wellness (well-being) services it provides to the GW medical enterprise community. The R&W Center provides services at the individual, departmental, and institutional levels.  For more information about us, please go to our website or contact Janette Rodrigues, the R&WC's administrative director, at jrodrigues@gwu.edu. 

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