Free Mind Counselling

23/12/2025

Coping With Separation at Christmas: Looking After Your Emotional Wellbeing

Christmas is often portrayed as a time of togetherness, which can make separation feel even more painful. Whether you are experiencing relationship breakdown, family estrangement, or spending Christmas apart from loved ones, this season can intensify feelings of loneliness, grief, and anxiety.

Coping with separation at Christmas starts with acknowledging your emotions rather than suppressing them. It is normal to feel a mix of sadness, anger, or guilt during this time. Giving yourself permission to feel can be an important step towards emotional healing.

Creating new Christmas routines can also help. This might include spending time with supportive friends, volunteering, or planning meaningful activities that bring a sense of purpose. Maintaining structure through simple routines—such as regular meals, walks, or self-care practices—can provide stability when emotions feel overwhelming.

Limiting social media use may reduce comparison and unrealistic expectations around festive happiness. Focus instead on what feels manageable for you. Practising mindfulness, journalling, or gentle reflection can help ground your thoughts in the present moment.

If separation at Christmas feels too difficult to cope with alone, counselling can provide a safe and confidential space to explore your feelings. Professional support can help you process loss, rebuild confidence, and develop healthy coping strategies during the festive period and beyond.

Private counselling, mind counselling and Rewind therapy, CBT therapy, grief and infant loss grief therapy, are all provided in Nottinghamshire, Lincoln and Lincolnshire here at Free mind counselling.

23/12/2025

Private counselling, mind counselling and Rewind therapy, CBT therapy, grief and infant loss grief therapy, are all provided in Nottinghamshire, Lincoln and Lincolnshire here at Free mind counselling.

23/12/2025

At Christmas, grief can feel louder—woven into carols, traditions, and empty spaces at the table. Coping doesn’t mean forcing joy or pretending the pain isn’t there. Sometimes it means allowing both to exist: the sadness of who is missed and the quiet comfort of remembering them. Be gentle with yourself this season. Grief has no timetable, and coping may look like stepping back, changing traditions, or simply getting through the day. That, in itself, is enough.

Private counselling, mind counselling and Rewind therapy, CBT therapy, grief and infant loss grief therapy, are all provided in Nottinghamshire, Lincoln and Lincolnshire here at Free mind counselling.

23/12/2025

Some days you just need a gentle reminder… that you’re doing better than you think, growing more than you notice, and becoming someone your younger self would be so proud of. 🥰
We’re all changing, evolving, unfolding in our own ways and it’s okay if you’re not the person you used to be.
It’s okay if your journey looks different than you imagined.
It’s okay if you’re still figuring out who you’re becoming. That’s part of being human. 💛

And please remember this:
You are not “too much.”
You were never too loud, too emotional, too sensitive, too soft. You are exactly enough in the ways that matter.
There is room for your dreams here.
There is space for your heart, even on the days it feels heavy or complicated.

Something good is making its way toward you, quietly, slowly, but surely.
The kind of good you don’t have to chase or fight for.
The kind that feels like alignment, relief, and finally being held by life again. ✨

Your feelings? Valid. Even the messy ones. Even the ones you hide.
Even the ones that arrive without warning. They’re not signs of weakness, they’re signs you’re alive, aware, and growing.

So take a breath. Softly come back to yourself.
You’re not behind. You’re not late.
You’re just becoming. ❤️

23/12/2025

Being You 🍂

You may feel overwhelmed sometimes
And want to run away,
But know that you are capable
Of getting through each day.
So when things feel scary
And you can’t see your way through,
Know that you’re enough
And loved for simply being you.

With love,
Stacey 🦊🌙

See yourself through kinder eyes at www.foxunderthemoonart.com

23/12/2025

Experience matters in counselling.
With over 35 years working across health and social care, I bring real-world understanding into my work at Free Mind Counselling. This helps create a grounded, practical approach alongside compassionate listening.

Private counselling, mind counselling and Rewind therapy, CBT therapy, grief and infant loss grief therapy, are all provided in Nottinghamshire, Lincoln and Lincolnshire here at Free mind counselling.

22/12/2025

22/12/2025

🎄 Grief at Christmas 🎄

Christmas can be a difficult time for those experiencing grief. When the world feels festive, loss can feel even heavier — empty chairs, quiet moments and traditions that no longer feel the same.

There is no right or wrong way to grieve at Christmas. Some people keep traditions, others change them. Both are okay. What matters is allowing yourself permission to feel what you feel, without pressure or guilt.

If this season feels overwhelming, support can help. Talking things through — with someone you trust or a counsellor — can make the days feel more manageable.

You don’t have to face Christmas alone. 💛
Free Mind Counselling is here to support you.

Private counselling, mind counselling and Rewind therapy, CBT therapy, grief and infant loss grief therapy, are all provided in Nottinghamshire, Lincoln and Lincolnshire here at Free mind counselling.