Feeling the winter blues? You are not alone. This second part of January is usually challenging for people for several reasons. But we don’t have to let the blah mood, feelings, and energy take over, and make life more difficult for ourselves. We can increase our awareness of what is happening for us, instead of being steeped in it with no light in sight. Picking up our head and bringing more consciousness to our situation allows us to tap into our resources and snap ourselves out of it.
Here are 5 reasons we are feeling the winter blues, including seasonal affective disorder (SAD), and 3 powerful ways of addressing them to elevate ourselves into new beginnings, and our New Ideal Future…
5 Reasons for the Winter Blues
There is no shame or judgement about being afflicted by the winter blues. You might be experiencing some blahs and lack of motivation. Or you might be feeling straight up *depressed. Regardless of where you are on the spectrum, these will help you have your own back, feel better and get moving in the right direction for you and for your new future…
The Holidays are usually toughand their impact have a tendency to linger. You might have had a bit of momentum with the start of the New Year with stepping up your game to start the new year right. But soon after, any lingering and new negative feelings emerge as the accelerated pace, excitement, personal time, and availability for connection go back to normal and there is a sense of loss or let down.
Cold and Dark Winter Days
As there is a bit of hibernation, isolation, less sun light, fresh air, connection to nature, and shorter days that make it difficult to feel in the flow, bright and energized. Our circadian rhythm is off as we don’t properly align our life with sunup and sundown… And a lot of our biological systems get thrown off affecting our brain function and mood. Our mental healthis impacted.
Financial Strain
Around this time is when it becomes more obvious how much the holiday season had an impact on our finances. Even if we were intentional about our spending, there might still be a part of us that feels the impact of the additional spending.
Unfulfilled New Year’s Resolutions or Intentions
We all have the best of intentions to have our Best Year Yet, but nonetheless might be quick to fall into our usual routines, patterns, and lose sight of the changes we want to make. We let up on creating the new habits. And on addressing any frictions or obstacles to fully implementing any changes to our routines.
Lack of Motivation
We are already feeling depleted from all the above, and additionally don’t we might not have a dream, a vision, and goals to pull us forward, inspire us and excite us. It makes sense that we’d be lost, stuck or gloomy and not feel like tackling anything.
We can experience any combination of the above to some extent. The result is having a bumpy start to the new year and feeling like we are behind the 8ball. That we are not upleveling properly and timely for our best year yet. We might feel impostor syndrome, judgment, shame, fear, inertia at being in this place, making the whole thing even worse.
3 Empowering Ways to Beat the Winter Blues
The only thing to do is to be kind and compassionate with ourselves when we are not feeling well. To be gentle and loving, and to have our own back to get ourselves on the right track, and rocking it before we know it.
Manage Yourself and Your Feelings
The key is to self-soothe/regulate, self-care and energize ourselves.
Self-soothe – Use practices to manage and alleviate the feelings, change your mood, and uplevel your state: Meditation, breathing techniques, EFT, mindfulness, journaling, addressing limiting believes, cultivating joy, decreasing screen time, and focusing on things that are in our control (personal ownership and accountability).
Self-care – Aside from the above focus taking care of yourself: Proper sleep, nutrition, hydration, supplementation, exercise, personal care.
Step up the fun and connection – Be super intentional about having positive experiences and nurturing connection: Schedule connection time with your partner and other loved ones, intentionally participate in your networks, map out and schedule or book fun experiences, play at old or new hobbies.
Address Financial Distress
Regardless of your financial situation, the key here is to get a handle on where you are at and to make a plan to get back on track. Whether it’s to eliminate debt, replenish savings, start investing or some other goal. Of course, consider consulting a financial advisor to support you implement the right plan for you to achieve your financial goals.
Activate Your North Star
This one is my favorite. Aligning ourselves with our higher-self, our purpose, and what kind of life we want to live is the way to create that life. Identify what is your Grand Life Experience you are here to live… What is the vision, the purpose, the dream. Then identify specific goals against that vision to create it… And specific habits, tactics, and strategies to achieve them. Without a roadmap, a vehicle, and the gas you won’t get very far. This is the inspiration and motivation to propel you forward. You don’t need to depend on will power, discipline and grit. Tap into inspiration!
If even the above feel daunting, know that it is totally fine to move at your own pace, to honor where you are, to take care of yourself, and take tiny actions on the above to get yourself moving in the right direction. And, of course, get yourself support as needed!
Wishing you clear sunny days, and an amazing New Year and New Future…
Hope this information serves you and helps you get on the path to your Successful Relationship and Meaningful Life.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
We might feel stuck as in not progressing or going in circles in our relationship or in our life in general. Having repeating patterns, having the same old arguments, issues, or negative situations. Feeling at a loss or at an impasse. Feeling behind our peers or where we think we should be in life. We are not satisfied with the status quo but have no idea how to go about creating the change we desire. We’ve tried different things, but nothing seems to stick… We just can’t get ahead, change things, or make the progress we’d like. We might think there is something wrong with us, or we might think there is something wrong with our partner…
You might even think one or both of you have mental health issues… One or both of you might be diagnosable and might already have a mental health diagnosis… You might be experiencing challenges managing your life and you might be showing up to your relationship with a host of symptoms… You might be experiencing stunted growth or personal development, and lack of achievement in some or most areas of your life. The pain of this can feel unbearable and your situation feel completely hopeless.
Just know that having mental health challenges is more common than you might think…
And, having mental health challenges doesn’t make one less of a person, a bad person, or unworthy… Having mental health challenges impacts our overall wellbeing and health, our relationships, and our life in general…
Feeling excessively highs and lows, engaging in high-risk behaviors, having bizarre or strange thoughts, difficulty understanding and relating to situations or to people
Neglecting hygiene and performance
Having suicidal thoughts [call 988]
As you can see a lot of the above symptoms are very common for a lot of people in everyday life… Mental health issues do not just manifest as extreme cases we might see on T.V. where people are walking around naked in the streets talking to themselves and believing they are God.
Mental health issues can manifest in the simplest of forms in our day… And this doesn’t take away from who we are at the end of the day. We generally don’t judge ourselves or people for having other conditions or situations. Why should any mental health concerns be any different?
Our mental health is one of our greatest possessions, tools, benefits, gifts that we have in our life. It literally creates our reality… It behooves us to take good care of our mental health so that we can create the relationship and life we desire…
Understanding that we all glitch out (not intending to minimize serious and debilitating mental illness) and that struggling with our mental health doesn’t lessen us as a person, is a huge first step in having compassion and self-love. And towards investing in our resilience and wellbeing. Giving others affected by mental health concerns this courtesy and love is also paramount for us as a collective…
Any struggle with mental health is part of our journey and human experience. It’s part of our life and what makes us who we are. We are actually unique and special because of it. It gives us the flavor of who we are. Eh? How is that for a reframe on this struggle?
Let’s embrace the fullness of who we are. We don’t have to let this define us of course but we can definitely own how it contributes to who we are, and not in a negative way!
PSS: Do you need support taking yourself, your relationship, and your life to the next level- actually living a healthy, happy, harmonious and overall abundant life?
Copyright (c) 2024 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication? Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Couple Strategy™ that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly connection notes in your inbox with Personal Development and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
What is your tradition for wrapping up the year? What kind of bow do you like to put on it? Have you acknowledged all your accomplishments and experiences you’ve had this year? Have you wrapped up anything you don’t want to carry into the New Year? What else are you leaving behind? Do you have any other special transition practices to glide into the New Year? How are you having your Future Self’s back? How are you resetting and realigning for your New Beginning? Now is the time to give all this some thought to have a magnificent and smoother transition into the New Year…
And what does resetting and realigning mean?
~ They mean that you revisit what who you are and how you become more your true self… ~ They mean that you revisit what kind of partner you want to be and what kind of relationship you want to create… ~ They mean that you revisit what kind of lifestyle you want to live and what kind of life you want to create…
Tall order? Maybe, but this doesn’t have to be intimidating. You can focus only on the area that resonates most for you if you want to streamline your process. The key here is that what we focus on grows- or becomes, or we create… By giving attention to what we desire, not what we don’t desire mind you, we energize it and make it so… I know, not very scientific but I’ll spare you those insights for the sake of getting to the crux of it here for you.
Our Signature Planning Processcan help you get all this under your belt. A key concept as you do your planning is that it requires some dreaming. This is the fun part in my opinion, aside from setting up the actual strategyof course… (Yes, I can be nerdy- don’t judge me! LOL) Do dare to get in touch with your big dreams. Go big, why not? What would light up your heart should that thing come to be?
Remember, that accomplishing some part of a big dream is a lot more that accomplishing all of a small one or nothing from not having one… Don’t let your dream, or your partner’s intimidate you. The other thing is to then find a way of making those a shared dream. This is where the juice is- togetherness, meaning, purpose, synergy, joy, happiness… Have fun with this!
In today’s video, I share about Element 5 of our Successful Relationship Strategy™- Collaboration & Partnership, where we align with our partner to become a strong partnership and to create the life of our dreams…
PSS: Do you need support taking yourself, your relationship, and your life to the next level- actually living a healthy, happy, harmonious and overall abundant life?
Copyright (c) 2023 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication? Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Couple Strategy™ that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly connection notes in your inbox with Personal Development and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
As we wrap up the year, or period of our life, and are looking to make changes for a New Beginning, it is helpful first to get rid of and let go of the old… When our life, mind and consciousness are cluttered with things that no longer serve us, we get weighted down. It is difficult to see, create, or embrace anything new if there is no space for it. We can’t start a new beginning, uplevel our life and our relationship, if we are attached to the old ways…
We can very easily fill up our space, calendar, routines, lifestyle, and mind with extra stuff, commitments, to-dos, and thoughts… And, most of the time we are not really intentional about what we add in, we just fill up the spaces unconsciously and reactively… We do what we usually do, we do it by default, or with misconceptions…
If we really took the time to assess if all the stuff we add in serves us, honors us and enrich our lives, we might be surprised at the answers we find.
Most of the time more is not better.
More activities, sports, memberships, parties, habits, supplements, gifting, and so on, is not necessarily better… I find in the stories clients and others share, what a nightmare gets created by overdoing things…
The thing is that the nightmare feels natural: ~ That’s the way things are. ~ This is how our weekends go. ~ This is what happens during the holidays. ~ This is what the school year is about. ~ This is how we vacation.
But the thing is, that upon further inspection and reflection, and even after all these are carefully orchestrated and choreographed, it becomes obvious that they are still set up from a place of lack, attachment, and control. Defensive ego patternswe use to manage our feelings, states, and needs…
The approach is driven by unconscious processes not by intentionality and mindfulness, by our values and purpose… When we look at what we create with our approach we can see that it is ill informed. We can see stress, overwhelm, anxiety, friction, fighting, chaos, exhaustion, disconnection, acting out, anger, and the like…
We are creating the opposite of what we are after with this approach. We are not enriching our lives, we are overloading and suffocating it… We are squandering our life force, our energy…
I remember someone sharing how she was going to make the holidays magical with beautifully wrapped presents or put together toys, decorating for a winter wonderland, baking treats from scratch, writing Christmas cards, and a litany of other holidays to-dos. All to be done during the night so the children wouldn’t be in the way, and so they could be surprised when it all came together.
Sounds beautiful, except that she was so sleep deprived that she kept getting sick and couldn’t kick a cough, she was irritable to say the least and impatient with everyone, and had ongoing disagreements and fights with her husband because he “was useless” in alleviating all that needed to get done…
And I’m sure this list looks minor compared to yours… I know she is not alone. I have heard a version of this story over and over… Hey, I’ve been here myself. No judgement, just an observation for increased awareness, and lots of compassion for us all…
So, how do we turn this around and do our life differently going forward? It’s actually quite simple, though not necessarily easy if we are not committed to creating the relationship and life we desire…
FIRST– Decide what kind of relationship and life you want SECOND – Commit to this and to address any patterns that might undermine you THIRD – Stay the course and get support as needed
Note, that we have a story about ourselves, our relationship, our partner, and life in general that might need revising… How we see things, the meaning we assign things, and what we think of ourselves- the identity we create, drive what we create… Our narrative and scripts are the filters of our experience… For us to create a different experience, and a different relationship and different life, we have to change the story we keep writing…
When the story changes, we can align everything differently against it – our new identity, our focus, our responses, our choices, our habits, our routines, our lifestyle, our investments… For then we go about living the new story, and we create what we desire…
But be careful, you might think you are already doing this that’s why you planned your year, your holidays, and your life as you did… The key here is to check-in if you are healthy, energized, joyful, graceful, compassionate, patient, harmonious, peaceful, connected, loving… If not, what you created is probably driven by ego patterns and not from what your heart truly desires… Take a look, and realign accordingly…
Embrace a radical decluttering and letting goof all the extra… Keep only what aligns with your new story. And please, please, create spaciousness in your approach… This is the space where the surprises, blessings, miracles, and magic actually happen…
Wishing you a truly magical End-Of-Year, Holiday Season, and upcoming New Year; or New Beginning!
Wishing you all the joy, connection and love today and always…
With Much Love & Light!
PS: Do you need support taking yourself, your relationship, and your life to the next level- actually living a healthy, happy, harmonious and overall abundant life?
Copyright (c) 2023 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication? Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Couple Strategy™ that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly connection notes in your inbox with Personal Development and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
Some people love managing their money, others dread it. And this is usually the case for couples… One partner is great at doing the accounting and managing the finances, while the other prefers to bury their head in the sand. Sound familiar? There are a lot of reasons for why this happens ranging from subconscious programming around worthiness and deservingness to finding numbers, spreadsheets, and related details just too tedious. The thing is, regardless of our preference, finances still need to be managed and they need to be managed collaboratively if we are in a relationship.
Money is a very important aspect of our adult life that provides security and awesomeness for us now and in our future… And it is up to us to find a way to make the best out of our money management in our relationship.
The key is to have awareness into our own relationship with money and money programming that might affect its management, and to have insight and knowledge into our partner’s as well.
The partners should know about each other’s financial histories, money management styles and strengths, and overall relationship with money. This is especially important information if your relationship is fairly new, and you are increasing levels of commitment…
Full transparency and accountability are a must for the couple’s healthy financial life. Regardless of what financial plans and systems they put in place, the key is to device these respectfully, collaboratively, and intentionally to ensure a secure financial future.
The partners might have different expectations, wishes, preferences, and desires about their finances and their future. But as with anything else in the relationship, this has to do with getting on the same page and working together to achieve shared goals.
When money impasses are encountered, please know this is usually not about the money itself. This has to do with your personal programming and your relationship dynamics. To move forward, focus on addressing the underlying patterns and don’t get stuck on the details of the situation and the circumstances. And mind the meaning you are assigning to what’s happening!
This is why Christine Luken, our Podcast Guest in our latest episode, shares that money is emotional. She offers wonderful insights on how to manage money in your relationship. Check out its video below!
PSS: Do you need support taking yourself, your relationship, and your life to the next level- actually living a healthy, happy, harmonious and overall abundant life?
Copyright (c) 2023 Emma K. Viglucci. All rights reserved.
Want to Use this Article in Your Own Website or Publication? Be our guest! Here is how, you MUST include: Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Couple Strategy™ that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly connection notes in your inbox with Personal Development and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
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Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT has been in the mental health profession in varying capacities for the past 20+ years. She is the Founder and Director of metrorelationship.com a psychotherapy and coaching practice specializing in working with busy professional and entrepreneurial couples who are struggling getting on the same page and feeling connected. The work helps couples create a radiant and successful relationship and meaningful life by becoming a strong partnership and increasing their connection, intimacy, and fun. Emma is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Relationship Strategy™.
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