Welcome to episode 341 of Live Happy Now.

With the holiday season now officially in full swing, there are a lot of emotions swirling around.

And one that we don't talk about enough during this time of year is grief.

I'm your host, Paula Phelps, and this week I'm joined by Gina Moffa, a therapist who

specializes in mindfulness-based therapies and focuses heavily on grief counseling and trauma studies.

She's here today to talk about that hidden holiday guest named grief, and look at why it's

important to honor your grief and how to manage it in yourself or others

during this holiday season and beyond.

Gina, welcome to Live Happy Now.

Hi, Paula.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm so excited to be here.

This is going to be a fantastic conversation.

You and I were joking before we started about being excited to talk about grief,

but it's true because this is, it's a huge topic and everybody is dealing with grief on

some sort of level and maybe unaware of it and we'll dig into that. But, you know, especially as

the holidays approach, what we're hearing, all the messaging is about the joy of the season.

But this is also a time when grief is starting to become really difficult for a lot of people.

So as we begin, can you talk about what it is that makes grief so much more apparent at this time of year?

Sure. I think what you're saying is people are supposed to be feeling joy at this time.

But the truth is, is holidays really do bring out everything that we don't have. And they really do

highlight the voids in our lives and the losses we've endured this particular time of year.

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