Why a Pre-Holiday Therapy Intensive Is the Best Gift You Can Give Yourself
The holidays are often described as the most wonderful time of the year—yet for many, they’re also the most emotionally demanding. Between family expectations, packed schedules, financial pressure, and the unspoken urge to make everything “perfect,” it’s easy to lose yourself in the chaos.
If you’ve been feeling emotionally drained, anxious, or simply stretched too thin, a pre-holiday therapy intensive can be the reset you didn’t know you needed. It’s not indulgent—it’s intentional. Before the holiday rush begins, you can take time to breathe, process, and reconnect with yourself so you can enter the season with clarity, calm, and genuine presence.
Why the Holidays Can Be Emotionally Challenging
Even when you love the holidays, they can stir up old emotional patterns and nervous system responses.
Maybe you feel pressure to meet everyone’s expectations, or guilt for wanting space. Maybe grief resurfaces—the absence of someone you love, or the memory of how things used to be.
Or perhaps you notice your people-pleasing or perfectionism ramp up, convincing you that you must hold it all together for everyone else.
These emotional demands can leave you running on empty before the season even begins. But you don’t have to wait until you’re overwhelmed to take care of yourself.
How a Therapy Intensive Can Help You Prepare
A holiday therapy intensive condenses weeks (or even months) of progress into a single, focused experience. Instead of spreading therapy over many shorter sessions, an intensive allows you to go deeper—addressing the emotional blocks, stress patterns, or relational wounds that tend to flare up this time of year.
During a pre-holiday intensive, you can:
Identify what triggers emotional exhaustion or resentment
Process grief, guilt, or unspoken family dynamics
Strengthen emotional regulation tools before stress peaks
Reconnect to a sense of internal safety and calm
At Reflective Pathways, therapy intensives integrate Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART)—a fast, evidence-based approach designed to help your brain reprocess distressing experiences so they no longer trigger the same emotional or physiological reaction.
With ART, you don’t have to retell every painful detail; instead, the process uses bilateral eye movements to calm the nervous system and rewire distressing memories into a state of resolution. Clients often describe feeling relief within hours rather than weeks.
When combined with Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Somatic Therapy, intensives create the ideal environment to release long-held stress, reestablish safety in your body, and prepare emotionally for whatever the season brings.
Learn more about therapy intensives here.
The Emotional Benefits of a Pre-Holiday Reset
Clients often describe leaving a therapy intensive feeling lighter, clearer, and more centered.
It’s like hitting the emotional “reset” button before life gets loud again.
You might notice:
A calmer response to family stress or triggers
A deeper ability to enjoy moments of connection and joy
Renewed energy and motivation
Relief from racing thoughts or emotional reactivity
ART helps shift your nervous system out of “survival mode,” so you can feel grounded and confident—even in situations that once left you overwhelmed.
When you make space to heal and restore before the holidays, you’re not just preparing for the season—you’re creating a foundation for peace and presence that lasts well beyond it.
Making Yourself a Priority
It’s easy to push your own needs aside when life gets busy. But tending to your emotional well-being is one of the most powerful ways to care for the people you love.
This holiday season, give yourself the gift of an emotional reset—not as an escape, but as a commitment to showing up as your calmest, clearest self.
You deserve to feel grounded before the chaos begins.
Schedule a consultation to learn more about how a pre-holiday therapy intensive can help you enter the season with balance and peace.
Melissa Cribb, MS, LADC, LPCC, is a licensed therapist with over 14 years of experience supporting clients in Osseo, Minnesota. She specializes in trauma, substance use, and high-functioning perfectionism. Melissa integrates evidence-based approaches such as Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART), Internal Family Systems (IFS), and somatic techniques to help clients reduce anxiety, break unhelpful patterns, and build a stronger sense of emotional safety and self-trust.
At Reflective Pathways, she is dedicated to providing compassionate, expert care—both in person and online—for clients across Minnesota.
