December 2023 message: Give yourself a gift

Happy Holidays, Tampa Bay! We can’t believe how quickly 2023 has passed us by! As we navigate the last weeks of the year, we know that the holidays are often a time of heightened stress, which can have an impact on our mental health. Even if we have a solid support routine, it’s easy to lose track of our habits during the holidays due to other demands on our time and resources. Whether you’re dealing with grief, financial strain, or just struggling to manage your time amidst the obligations of the season, there are ways to support yourself through it. 

And because this is the time of year when our inbox is full of gift guides with the hottest items to purchase, we thought we’d make a little gift guide of our own. Now our gift suggestions don’t cost anything because we believe that the best gifts that you can give this holiday season are gifts of self-care. Remember, you need to fill your cup before you can pour into anyone else’s. So here are our top suggestions for caring for you this holiday season:

• • Curated resources to support your mental health: We know the holidays can be a tricky time of year for many people and so every year we do our best to send our favorite resources your way. Head to our blog to make your holiday plan, find tools to combat holiday loneliness, and more.
  • “Always available” tools: Our resident breathwork expert, Syd Rhodes, brings us a curated breathwork instruction every month, and this resource is perfect for the holiday season. These tools don’t cost anything or require fancy equipment to practice, they really work, and can go with you everywhere from a bathroom stall at a holiday party to a family dinner. Just look for the “Breathness with Syd” tag on our blog to find practices that work for you. Unsure of where to start? Syd recommends starting with the Infinity Breath.  
  • The gift of “no”: With invitations and obligations ramping up, strains on your budget, and all of those cute holiday movies that make “doing it all” look SO easy, it’s normal to feel overwhelmed this time of year. We can’t say “Yes” to everything, and you can get ahead of the game by practicing how to say “No”. This article details the benefits of healthy boundaries and even includes a simple, kind script to get you started.
  • Authentic Joy: While we’ve been taught to believe that joy is spontaneous and out of our control, this toolkit from Mental Health America suggests otherwise. It’s full of practical, actionable tips to move yourself towards joy when you’re feeling down. What’s more, they count joy as a factor in resilience, the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences. Try to seek out small moments of joy each day this holiday season. Try writing them down to end your year with a practice of gratitude.

And since we’re all about practicing what we preach, we’ll be making our own holiday mental health plans alongside you. As always, we are here to support Tampa Bay through this holiday season and beyond, just dial 844-YOU-OKAY to reach our free, confidential support line, and be paired with care resources that work for you. We are incredibly grateful to be a part of your mental health journey, and for the feedback, insight, and sharing you’ve done over the last year to help us spread our message. It’s truly been a gift (see what we did there?). 

We’ll see you next year, 

Your Team at Tampa Bay Thrives