As the holidays approach, or rather, the holiday retail season, there are a lot of expectations of joy, celebration, and happiness. When there are expectations of holiday cheer ringing from the 24-hour Christmas music station, it's easy to get sucked in without even knowing it's happened. 

Those expectations can be dangerous. Detrimental to having a good time. Detrimental to your health and well-being, and detrimental to those around you.

It seems like the U.S. version of the holidays doesn't make any room for emotions other than happiness and joy. Certainly not sadness, anger, or heaven forbid, grief. But this time of year, when there is so much pressure to be jolly, is often when those other emotions arise with important information. 

Sadness is about release, and rejuvenation. When you're feeling sad, you're feeling sad for a reason. When you can listen to your sadness and inquire what it is you're releasing, or what needs rejuvenating, then you have an action to take, a new piece of information.

Anger and expectations go hand in hand. If your expectations are unconscious, then you might feel frustrated for what feels like no reason when your circumstances don't live up to those expectations. Anger is really about your values and priorities. If you're feeling irritated, exasperated, or resentful during the holidays, it may be a sign that you need to reassess what you're doing and see if it's really what you want to be doing. 

Grief at feeling the loss of a loved one can arise during holiday celebrations, but grief can also come up because of what you can't celebrate, or because of who you no longer are. Grief mourns loss; it doesn't matter what state that loss is.

Grief is also about honoring what you've lost, in your own way.  It was important to you, and that is what matters. There is no rhyme or reason to loss or why things are important, but the honoring and remembering is the action that's needed. Once you relinquish the idea of control over your loss, then you can live more fully in your present, with all of your emotions by your side.

As you navigate among the many gatherings at the end of this year, see how you can make space for and welcome all of your emotions. It may make for a more meaningful and fulfilling time of year. 

If you’d like a method for welcoming your emotions, this video about Naming Emotions is a good place to start.