Every December when people all over are celebrating their assorted holidays, a great number of people feel anything but festive. The so-called Holiday Blues is a temporary state of mild depression that comes before Christmas and generally abates right after New Years. Just because the feelings are short lived doesn’t mean they aren’t miserable.

The holidays are expected to be fun, joyful and full of love and presents. That is rarely the case yet the expectations remain. These unfulfilled expectations cause pain. The end of the year reminds you of all the things you didn’t accomplish. If you are alone for the holidays, the feeling is even worse because this is supposed to be a time for togetherness.

Since you can’t avoid December, dealing proactively with the holiday blues is the best way to get through the month. Doing a few simple steps will help you get through this time a little more smoothly.

Acknowledge your feelings. Admit to yourself that you feel bad for all the reasons you are mulling over in your head. Don’t fight the feelings. They aren’t wrong or right. They just are. Don’t try to rationalize them away. Just accept them without shame, excuses or justifications. Sometimes just allowing yourself to feel the emotions takes the power away from them.

Realize you could be falling for the holiday hype. We all feel pressure to be joyous and merry this time of year but people rarely feel it to the degree we’ve been led forced to expect. We see so many movies and TV shows with happy, healthy kids opening their Christmas presents while their loving parents look on smiling. You can practically smell the ham baking in the oven. As is so often the case, Hollywood and Madison Avenue is lying to you. Life isn’t really like that. If you expect it to be that way, you are setting yourself up for never ending disappointments that extend way beyond December.

If you are away from or don’t have family or friends to hang out with, the pain of loneliness can feel even worse on Christmas because we are all expected to be with our families. You may start to feel bad about choices you’ve made that led to being alone on this day. You might feel like you are missing out on something. It’s times like this where the part of the EFT setup phrase that goes, “I deeply and completely love and accept myself” really shines. This is a time to really feel yourself loving and accepting yourself.

On a more mundane but very practical level, get some exercise. A twenty minute walk a few times a week will get your blood moving and lift your spirits.

Take time to feel gratitude for all the things you do have. Instead of ruminating over what you don’t have, think about the good things in your life.

Finally, learn The Emotional Freedom Technique. It’s a gentle, fast method for relieving unwanted emotions. Read about it in my ebook, Transform Your Life With EFT from Amazon.

It is also available in other formats for other ereaders from Smashwords.

My latest book, Manifesting From The Heart: Using Heart Energy to Achieve Reality Transformation is now out. If you have wondered why the Law of Attraction doesn’t seem to work for you, this book could have the answers you are looking for.

Manifesting From The Heart is also available in other formats from Smashwords.