236 - When the Holidays Don’t Feel Happy: Loneliness, Grief & Making the Season Your Own | Life Happens
Life Happens with Barb & Michelle
Michelle Maros & Barb Schmidt
4.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 16 December 2025
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What if a “successful” holiday wasn’t defined by perfect traditions, packed schedules, or being surrounded by family? What if this season could feel lighter—rooted in ease, presence, and honoring yourself? 💫
In this week’s episode of Life Happens with Barb & Michelle, we’re answering your holiday questions and talking openly about navigating loneliness, grief, unwanted traditions, and disappointment. From estranged relationships and embracing solitude to feeling nostalgic or simply not feeling festive at all, this episode invites you to redefine what the holidays can mean for you.
What We Talk About
- Navigating Loneliness — How to honor your feelings without getting stuck in them, and gentle ways to lift your spirits
- Creating New Memories — Loosening our grip on expectations and allowing new traditions to emerge
- Grieving During the Holidays — Making space for loss, estrangement, and difficult emotions; it’s okay if this season doesn’t feel joyful
- Navigating Disappointment — Offering yourself grace while taking small steps that empower you to shift your experience
Remember: you’re allowed to celebrate differently.
You’re allowed to choose rest over routine.
You’re allowed to release traditions that no longer serve you.
Whatever this season looks like, you deserve to move through it with gentleness, honesty, and authenticity.
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💛 Episode Topics
- Being alone during the holidays
- Redefining family, tradition, and what celebration means
- Grieving and making space for difficult emotions
- Navigating disappointment with compassion
- Giving yourself grace, care, and permission to choose what you need
💬 We’d love to hear from you! What insight or moment resonated most with you in this episode? Share in the comments—we truly read every one.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello everyone. Hi friends and welcome back to Life Happens with Barb and Michelle. We are so |
| 0:05.7 | happier here with us this week as we are nearing the end of 2025. It's the season, tis the season, |
| 0:14.9 | so many feelings and emotions and we've got an amazing Q&A episode for you all this week. |
| 0:27.2 | You all have sent in some of your questions, especially regarding the holiday season and the things that you all are going through. |
| 0:31.3 | And we're so excited to dive into them today and chat about it all. |
| 0:31.7 | Yeah. |
| 0:34.5 | Because we love the holidays, but they can be hard. |
| 0:36.2 | So we're here for you guys. |
| 0:37.6 | And let's have a Q&A party. |
| 0:44.0 | We're closing out the year. We're closing out the year in the most beautiful, my favorite episodes of our podcast. And that is, that are the Q&As. That is the Q&A. |
| 0:49.7 | What is the correct grammar? That are the Q&As? That is the Q&As? That is the Q&As? I don't know. A grammarian |
| 0:58.4 | will have to weigh in somewhere. Anyway, I'm very excited. I love answering all of your questions. |
| 1:03.4 | How are you feeling, Mom, this time of year? Actually, I'm feeling good. I feel, |
| 1:08.6 | I want to say I feel content. |
| 1:14.1 | Like I feel like I've dealt with a lot of stuff this year, |
| 1:17.1 | you know, with life in particular. |
| 1:19.2 | And it just feels like I'm moving into the end of the year |
| 1:23.5 | with a little bit of ease. |
| 1:25.5 | Ease. |
| 1:27.4 | You know what it is? |
| 1:28.2 | I kind of lowered, not lowered, that's the wrong word. |
| 1:31.3 | I've kind of purposely not had expectations or been attached to any of the expectations this year. |
... |
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