"What would it look like if this year we were all just a little more open and honest about our grief over the holidays? And what if we stopped trying to prove how great things are or how perfect our holiday season looks and let our guards down a little bit?"

In this solo episode of Grief'd Up, host Rebecca Feinglos explores the pressure to perform perfection during the holidays when you're grieving. She shares the story of opening her mailbox to find something odd: a holiday card she sent four years ago, returned to sender. The card shows Rebecca and her dogs in matching Hanukkah pajamas, and on the back, she wrote the truth about her year: leaving a destructive relationship, starting Grieve Leave, cherishing time with her Nana before she died. It was the first time Rebecca stopped using the holidays to prove everything was fine.

Before that 2021 card, Rebecca spent years crying before holiday photo shoots with her ex-husband, whispering unkind words to each other while the camera clicked, then celebrating how great the pictures turned out. She used holiday cards and social media posts as proof points that her marriage was working when it absolutely wasn't. Proving she was okay mattered more than actually feeling okay.

Rebecca explores what can happen when we choose to stop performing during the holidays. She talks about holding joy and grief at the same time, choosing who gets the real answer when they ask how you're doing, and dealing with the 1 AM social media spiral when everyone else's holidays look perfect.

Join Rebecca as she challenges the idea that we need to hide our grief during the holidays and offers permission to show up authentically.

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