{"id":1170,"date":"2015-12-28T02:34:32","date_gmt":"2015-12-28T09:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/drmarkburdick.com\/?p=1170"},"modified":"2015-12-28T02:34:32","modified_gmt":"2015-12-28T09:34:32","slug":"after-holiday-blues-staying-ahead-of-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drburdick.com\/?p=1170","title":{"rendered":"After Holiday Blues: Staying Ahead of Them"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MomIt\u2019s not a diagnosis; it\u2019s not a syndrome. It just \u2018is\u2019. (Note I didn\u2019t use the term \u2018post\u2019 before the term \u2018holidays\u2019.) And as I said \u2018safe travels\u2019 to my son boarding his KLM flight back to the States at Schiphol airport, I felt it; and it was real. And for that day, my mood was more melancholy, more \u2018reserved\u2019. Inside, I felt kinda like a lyric in a country song: \u201cDid you feel it too? The \u2018After Holidays Blues\u2019\u201d. <\/p>\n

You don\u2019t have to be a psychologist to recognize the signs, or take steps to remedy the situation. You keep yourself busy, now, focusing on the \u2018tasks at hand\u2019: Get back to doing taxes, household chores, paying bills, clearing the last pieces of \u2018Christmas Cheer\u2019 from the kitchen counter. <\/p>\n

However, as a psychologist and one who tries to be reflective, I have to stop myself and ask: Am I ok? No. There\u2019s still unresolved feelings of \u2018in-between-ness\u2019 in saying \u2018welcome, Son, happy holidays\u2019 and then \u2018goodbye (for now), and see you next year\u2019. <\/p>\n

So, to practice what I preach, I wrote him a simple, heart felt letter \u2014- well, an email that he will receive upon landing LAX. Yes, it took a tear or two to write, and it\u2019s likely to disrupt my \u2018tasks at hand\u2019 planned day, but maybe not. In fact, I feel better and more grounded already, to put my \u2018energy\u2019 into something more meaningful. <\/p>\n

So, my advice? Keep the holiday spirit alive, even after loved ones leave by keeping in touch via one form or another. My way was to write a follow up email\u2014 yours may be a simple voice mail, or something else. But the sooner you do it, the quicker to resolve that feeling of ‘sitting in muck’ after saying goodbye.<\/p>\n

Tag Line: Don\u2019t let the \u2018After Holiday Blues\u2019 get to you, \u2019cause the holidays ain\u2019t over until we say so!\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not a diagnosis; it\u2019s not a syndrome. It just \u2018is\u2019. (Note I didn\u2019t use the term \u2018post\u2019 before the term \u2018holidays\u2019.) And as I said \u2018safe travels\u2019 to my son boarding his KLM flight back to the States at … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drburdick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drburdick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drburdick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drburdick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drburdick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1170"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/drburdick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1174,"href":"https:\/\/drburdick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170\/revisions\/1174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drburdick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drburdick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drburdick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}