Tagged With "Holidays"

There are many myths and “shoulds” about how families and holidays should be: Families should love each other. Families should get along. Holidays should be fun. Reality, however, does not reflect these “shoulds.” The facts are: many people do not have happy families, happy family memories or happy holidays. Therefore, holidays and families can trigger us into states of anxiety, shame, and misery. Perhaps your parent or child is mean to you, or you have an active alcoholic uncle that makes...

Lately, a lot of people who grew up with childhood trauma are going “no contact” with their families and loved ones. I hear people talking about it with relief and sometimes a sense of accomplishment. For many people, the abuse was egregious and may be ongoing; in these cases, walking away for good may be necessary and courageous. For others, going no-contact is an emergency form of self-protection that, over time, may not need to be permanent. So I want to share with you ten tips to protect...

Whether you celebrate or not, the holiday season can be stressful for many reasons. From experiencing difficult emotions like grief, anger, or resentment that seem to resurface out of nowhere, to the pressures of making everything perfect for everyone, there’s a lot of opportunity for emotional burnout. I’m no stranger to painful emotions re-emerging around this time of the year. Christmas used to trigger in me the feelings of loneliness and guilt for years, following my move across the...

Uplift Press is excited to announce… Our free new ebook for parents can put a sweet spin on the holidays. Self-Esteem: The Best Gift for Your Children...and Yourself is an excerpt from The Winning Family by Caven and thought leader Dr. Louise Hart. A new edition of bestseller The Winning Family is coming out in 2022. More positive parenting resources can be found at www.upliftpress.com . Self-Esteem: The Best Gift (for your children AND yourself!) A free ebook for parents Excerpt from The...

Latchkey Urchins & Friends is a podcast by me* and my co-host Anne Sherry, a therapist. We explore different topics within The Nurturance Void, the space left when we experienced childhood emotional neglect. Childhood emotional neglect happens between parents and their kids, within families, across generations, in communities, in nations, and in policies and programs. We seek to heal through humor and holding space. Each week a guest shares their childhood emotional neglect stories,...