0:00

0:32:22

How Therapists Can Actually Rest During the Holidays: Letting Go of Guilt, Productivity, and Instagram-Worthy Expectations

Apple Podcasts Stitcher Spotify Subscribe on Android Download Leave a Review Keep me updated!

How Therapists Can Actually Rest During the Holidays: Letting Go of Guilt, Productivity, and Instagram-Worthy Expectations

Curt and Katie break down the pressures therapists face around the holidays. From performative rest to money anxiety to family dynamics; they offer grounded, realistic strategies for genuine restoration. They explore active vs. passive rest, permission to not fully unplug, emotional challenges of the season, and how therapists can drop the “self-care Olympics” and let themselves be human.

Transcript

Click here to scroll to the podcast transcript.

(Show notes provided in collaboration with Otter.ai and ChatGPT.)

In This Podcast Episode: Supporting Therapists Through the Realities of Holiday Downtime

Curt and Katie discuss how therapists can create a real (not performative) holiday break, even when caseloads shift, finances fluctuate, and emotional demands peak. They challenge cultural pressures for perfect vacations, explore why therapists struggle to unplug, and offer strategies for rest that actually restores rather than drains.

Key Takeaways for Therapists (Guilt-Free Holiday Rest Strategies)

“Stop trying to win the self-care Olympics.” – Curt Widhalm, LMFT

Therapists often feel pressure to have the perfect restorative break—resting “correctly,” reading the right books, getting outdoors, or avoiding work entirely. Let it go.
Rest is a process, not a switch. Many therapists need transition days to downshift from work mode and ease back in before returning.
Passive rest (scrolling, zoning out) is different from active rest (movement, nature, play, connection)—both have value, but only one restores your energy.
You’re allowed to be partially off. Many therapists feel guilty for checking email lightly or doing small admin tasks during vacation. Intentionality, not perfection, matters.
Anxiety, money scarcity, or family stress can drive overworking during the holidays—awareness of your “why” helps interrupt the cycle.
Systems help: boundaries with clients, removing email from your home screen, planning financially for time off, and reducing the mental load.
The holidays can be emotionally heavy—grief, family dynamics, or loneliness may need extra care and compassion.

“There’s not one right way to do this… it can be a really, really hard time of year for a lot of people.” – Katie Vernoy, LMFT

Resources on Holiday Rest and Therapist Well-Being

We’ve pulled together resources mentioned in this episode and put together some handy-dandy links. Some may be affiliate links, which help support the show.

Resources & References Mentioned

How Can Therapists Take a Real Vacation? – MTSG episode referenced in the conversation
Systems of Self-Care episodes (various)

Relevant Episodes of the MTSG Podcast

(Referenced directly or topically connected)

Meet the Hosts: Curt Widhalm & Katie Vernoy

Curt Widhalm, LMFT

Curt Widhalm is in private practice in the Los Angeles area. He is the cofounder of the Therapy Reimagined conference, an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University and CSUN, a former Subject Matter Expert for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, former CFO of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, and a loving husband and father. He is 1/2 great person, 1/2 provocateur, and 1/2 geek, in that order. He dabbles in the dark art of making “dad jokes” and usually has a half-empty cup of coffee somewhere nearby. Learn more at: http://www.curtwidhalm.com

Katie Vernoy, LMFT

Katie Vernoy is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, coach, and consultant supporting leaders, visionaries, executives, and helping professionals to create sustainable careers. Katie, with Curt, has developed workshops and a conference, Therapy Reimagined, to support therapists navigating through the modern challenges of this profession. Katie is also a former President of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. In her spare time, Katie is secretly siphoning off Curt’s youthful energy, so that she can take over the world. Learn more at: http://www.katievernoy.com

A Quick Note:

Our opinions are our own. We are only speaking for ourselves – except when we speak for each other, or over each other. We’re working on it.

Our guests are also only speaking for themselves and have their own opinions. We aren’t trying to take their voice, and no one speaks for us either. Mostly because they don’t want to, but hey.

Join the Modern Therapist Community:

Linktree

Patreon | Buy Me A Coffee

Podcast Homepage | Therapy Reimagined Homepage

Consultation services with Curt Widhalm or Katie Vernoy:

The Fifty-Minute Hour

Connect with the Modern Therapist Community:

Our Facebook Group – The Modern Therapists Group

Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide Creative Credits:

Voice Over by DW McCann https://www.facebook.com/McCannDW/

Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano https://groomsymusic.com/

Transcript for this episode of the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide podcast (Autogenerated):

Transcripts do not include advertisements just a reference to the advertising break (as such timing does not account for advertisements)

… 0:00
(Opening Advertisement)

Announcer 0:00
You’re listening to the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide, where therapists live, breathe and practice as human beings. To support you as a whole person and a therapist, here are your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy.

Curt Widhalm 0:13
Welcome back, modern therapists. This is the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide. I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy, and this is the podcast for therapists about the things that go on in our practices, the things that help us to be able to show up in those practices. And this is that magical time of year where sessions maybe slow down. We might take some holiday, we might trade our weighted blankets for party clothes and our empathy fatigue, for festive empathy fatigue. But really what our working title for this episode is is how to have a non Instagram worthy vacation as a holiday, sort of send off to the year here. And with the way that everything goes, society seemingly has mandated that we have new stressors, which is a pressure to show that we have fantastic downtime, and we’re not just now expected to rest, but we need to show that we have the perfect rest, and we want to dispel some of the myths, give some of the permissions to actually have rest and not just performatively rest. And we’re going to cut through the guilt and the shoulds and set some realistic holiday expectations for ourselves. That you don’t need to read the entire works of Nietzsche before we get to the end of the holidays here. We can actually emerge out of this and maybe be at peace with ourselves so we can return back to work. So Katie, on your holidays, what do you do to rest?

Katie Vernoy 2:00
Oftentimes, I try to get out into nature, if I can. Obviously, being in California, that’s a little bit easier, because if I’m in snow, it’s not feet and feet of snow. It can be even just cold, rainy weather, if the time allows for it. But I try to get away from what you were talking about, the reading all the works of Nietzsche, not having a productive holiday, not having that be the goal, to get caught up on all the things. Obviously, if there, there are things that need to happen for the business, like financial or those types of things that need to happen before December 31, I do take care of that. I try to do it before I sign off. But if I haven’t, I give myself a break to not worry about it. But otherwise, I try to limit expectations as much as possible, to only the things that are kind of the family responsibilities, the things that I want to do for celebratory purposes. Otherwise, I try to really just, this is going to sound like such a therapist-y thing to say. But otherwise, I try to just feel into it and see what might be on the docket for the day, getting some rest, trying to be active when I feel good in my body, to feel active. I try to spend time with family, but not so much time with family that all the stuff comes up, all the family of origin and family dynamic stuff gets up, comes up and becomes too hard. I try to give myself space for grief, for the people who are not able to be with us on the holidays and be okay to cover myself, or my therapist therapy practice, so if I need to do all the stuff we talked about in that previous episode, about when you’re busy and be able to get as much downtime as I can without trying to put too much pressure on it. So I try to do what we’re talking about. But that’s, that’s my, I think, honest answer about how I spend the time at the end of the year.

Curt Widhalm 4:14
Think for me with, I don’t know if this is partially getting older, partially being busier, a combination of both, but it’s something where I learned at a certain point in my life that when I’m coming back from vacations, I need to have a day back at home before going back to work, that it used to be that I could fly in on Sunday and go back to work on Monday. Now I’m very intentional about playing back in on Saturday and having Sunday to kind of reorient myself back into work mode. But as I get older and busier, I also realize that I need some of those days on the front end of my vacation, too. That it’s not just like a, it’s not just a switch that turns on and I’m in vacation mode, but it feels like, it feels as if I need a couple of days to unmask from work and being able to just kind of settle in. So I try to be really intentional about having lowered expectations for myself around what I’m supposed to accomplish on my days off, because this is really embracing that rest and reset is a process. It’s not just something that is going to happen just because I don’t have work scheduled. And breaking out of my routine really makes it to where I have to let some of that mental energy catch up and to be able to let go of all of the things on my list that I didn’t get done before I closed up for the end of the year. You know, you’re mentioning getting financials and stuff done, the winter holidays at the end of December, sure those things are going to get done, but having social media stuff ready for when I come back in January. That all right, it’s not the end of the worlds that if that is things that I have to get back to when I come back in January, giving myself the permission to let go.

Katie Vernoy 6:28
I think I start letting go of that stuff, probably the beginning of December, where I then continue to refine my to do list, to only the things I absolutely have to do before the end of the year, and I make sure that I get through those things that I absolutely have to, but sometimes my definition of what I absolutely have to get through changes as the month continues. So I think that’s that’s a part of my process too, is letting go of what hasn’t happened and really trying to turn off. One of the things you said before we hit record really resonated for me, and I want to make sure that we spend enough time on it, which is not feeling guilty about only being partially off and not fully off the grid, and then also going beyond avoiding work to actively resting and so I guess those are two different points. I want to make sure we hit both of them. But I think it is easier for me to feel okay with only being partially off during the holidays, because I know that most people at the end of the year are covering their own practices, and there’s not I can’t be off grid. I need to at least have some availability to clients, like we talked about in the crisis response one, and there’s no pressure to get stuff done on any particular timeline, so it doesn’t feel onerous to be able to do it. But there are points at which I feel bad that I’m not 100% off grid, because it feels like that is that is the pinnacle of achievement on downtime.

Curt Widhalm 8:04
Let’s just be realistic and say that’s okay. It’s okay that some of us are going to check some work emails, do a little bit of light admin. This might be what our transition process is, our unmasking from work mode into vacation mode might actually entail doing a little bit of work. And I think consistent with what I was just talking about, as far as it’s a process, not a switch. That…

Katie Vernoy 8:35
Yes

Curt Widhalm 8:36
…you can do a little bit of work, some of us feel comforted by having a little bit of work and productivity. Some of us might even need it as an excuse to get away from family for 15 minutes. You do you and do it with intention, but some of us aren’t going to be able to completely just shut everything down and having some of the space, the overall goal is do less work, be rested. But if you have to do some work, that’s fine, and if it creates more stress for you, trying to do this perfectly and in a way that you can say, I have the most you know, wonderful holiday, because I just turned all work away. This is what this episode is about. This is the don’t do it for the gram episode. This is do it just kind of well enough. Because the other point that you’re bringing up here is there’s a major difference between active rest and avoidance of work. Now, in a previous lifetime, I was a marathon runner. I was a marathon coach, and one of the really important things in training your body and your mind for running that kind of a distance is the importance of rest. And even within that part of my life, there was a big distinction between active rest and just complete, just not doing stuff, passive rest sorts of things. Passive rest would be okay it’s time to kick up my feet and watch Netflix. Active rest for marathon runners is stretching. It’s doing light cross training to be able to avoid injuries. It’s things to actively do to help replenish yourself, not just avoid the training. And I hold the same principles for how we should have our downtime is you can avoid work and stress yourself out, or you can do things that help you to be able to tend to yourself in a way that still can kind of regenerate some energy and feel restful for yourself.

… 11:00
(Advertisement Break)

Katie Vernoy 11:02
For me, what that looks like is when I’m not thoughtful, or I don’t have anything planned and I don’t have the energy to try to shift into more of an active rest mode. Sometimes it feels like I’m just waiting, I’m scrolling through my phone, or I’m watching something, and it isn’t really serving any purpose for me. There are times when I need that type of rest, where it’s mindless, it’s whatever it is, right? I do know that. But when it gets to be too much, it doesn’t necessarily stress me out, and I’m okay with being bored. It just doesn’t feel restorative. It doesn’t feel like there’s anything happening, and time just passes without really I think any functionally positive stuff. Will I remove that from my schedule completely? Probably not. But the types of times when downtime has been especially good for me is finding those things that rest, that I that rest, that helped me rest in a way that I think is what I need. So I talked about getting outside. I think part of it’s getting outside, part of it’s also potentially being able to move my body, which, with a very sedentary job, it just feels like a, you know, a breath of fresh air for my body. I think being able to read books that inspire me or help me to, I guess, vacate, you know, fun books. And I think it’s doing things that address some of those depletions, is that even a word the areas than which I’m depleted, so that I’m able to feel more rested fully. But I worry that even in saying that, it feels like, well, then you should make sure that you’ve read this book, this kind of book, and you have to have this many hikes, and you know, whatever it is, I don’t, I don’t think that it should have some sort of a recipe or a required level of productivity. But I think in choosing my activities, there’s definitely, there are definitely days that I can find myself doing more of the things that feel nourishing to me, to my body, to my mental health. And there are definitely days when I’m a bump on a log, and about midday, I start feeling angsty and not very good, and I can continue on and basically feel like I’m in a waiting room or on a on a plane, just doing whatever I can to pass time. And that doesn’t feel good.

Curt Widhalm 13:33
I’m thinking about some of the vacations that I’ve taken in the past, and including my most recent one, where sometimes have a week off and we’ll get out of town for a little bit. And the goal is we’re going to go there and we’re going to do nothing. And we’ll kind of have the first couple of days where we sleep in and we read and we watch TV and we play board games, and we don’t have to get anything done.

Katie Vernoy 14:08
Sure.

Curt Widhalm 14:08
And I know for me that it’s about the point in whatever getaway or something like this, where it’s okay, now I’m feeling like I need to go and do something. And maybe it’s before that angsty point that you’re describing that is, oh, now I’m moving from just catching up and getting some restorative energy into now I’m actively wanting to go for the hike, get out, go explore. That it’s not something that is assigned to do. It’s not a checklist to get done right away, but it’s listening and attuning to my own energy as far as, okay, this is how I’m feeding my energy now. It’s not necessarily just booking a week where I’m going to shut the curtains and tune out the rest of the world, but it’s being able to give myself the permission to be able to adapt and change and do something to be able to find all of the ways to restore myself not just locking in and becoming just as rigid during my downtime as it is when I have my work schedule.

Katie Vernoy 15:28
It seems like we’re both talking about, maybe not Instagram worthy, but pretty darn good vacations, where we’re giving ourselves permission to work a little bit, to relax a little bit, to do fun things, to not be productive and not hold ourselves to what actually is Instagram worthy, but actually doing the things that help us feel good. What I worry about are the folks on the other extreme who are very anxious or over committed or unable to really enjoy time off. And I think there’s a few different reasons why people might have that as well, whether it’s financial, there’s a lot more expenses oftentimes at the end of the year, as well as lower income coming in for folks in private practice, there are things that are potentially hanging that we’re we have trouble letting go of. So there’s not necessarily, hey, I’m totally off grid, but I’m not off grid at all. And I’m checking my email every time I open my phone, even though I’ve got my out of office on or whatever it is. It’s, you know, the folks who are buckling in, and if you’re working this is, we’re not necessarily talking about that, but the people who are buckling in saying this is, this is our, you know, this is our Super Bowl, and therapists are ready to go and those types of things, and potentially scheduling additional sessions or doing things that are hopefully clinically required, and and aligned, but maybe due to some of these worries about finances or difficulty not working, and so I wanted to spend maybe a minute or two on this as well, because there are times when my not Instagram worthy holiday is because I can’t stop checking my email. And this was especially bad for for me in the years that we had a conference, because it would be something where people are making budgetary decisions and they wouldn’t get back to me, and it’s, you know, there’s all the jokes that are like, we’re at that circle back next year time, but there were still folks who would continue to work, and I would get emails between Christmas and New Year’s, for example, on my schedule, that would be, can we talk about sponsorship or whatever it is, right? So there’s, there are folks who also have a really hard time unplugging, and actually don’t expect themselves to be off the grid and have an amazing, restful vacation. And so what advice do you have for folks who are having trouble unplugging complete even at all?

Curt Widhalm 18:06
Stop it.

Katie Vernoy 18:06
That’s an easy one. Just stop it. Stop it.

Curt Widhalm 18:13
I think it really comes down to being able to try to attune to yourself and look at your Why? Why are you going through this? Because I know, for me, especially towards the end of the year, through the New Year’s holidays, for some reason, school districts around me take three weeks off every year at this time. So a lot of my clients are out of town. I’ve got my own kids at home for several weeks, and what starts to creep into my mind is, oh, no, what if the clients never come back? I’m not working as much as I used to, and it becomes kind of a money scarcity kind of mindset that ends up happening that is being able to that is something that can end up driving a lot of this kind of emphasis for me, and if I actually stop and look at this is my motivation for doing these things, I’m better able to attend to what’s actually causing these feelings, to to address the behavior, rather than just busying myself and kind of rearranging chairs on the Titanic. This is where, if other motivations are coming up, I’m busy because I’m trying to avoid family, or I’m busy because I’m doing whatever your reasons are, address it at the core of the problem, so that way you can actually stop it versus just being busy for the sake of being busy.

… 19:52
(Advertisement Break)

Katie Vernoy 19:54
I want to also highlight the anxiety piece of that, because I think if we can use our coping skills to recognize that the consistent checking or the different things that you’re scheduling are coming from a place of anxiety, we can try to address those things as well, both coping in the moment but also planning ahead. And this is where I think we have an episode on can therapists ever take a vacation? So I’ll link to that in the show notes over at mtsgpodcast.com, but there’s this element of making sure that you’ve accounted for this time off and so that not making money isn’t actually hurting your bottom line, that that you’re you’re able to counter those intrusive thoughts with cold, hard numbers that, hey, I met my I met my numbers for this year and next year. I’ve already set it up so that I know that I’m going to continue to have targets that make sense while having this time off. I think the other thing is being able to put systems in place to minimize the desire, the capacity to be able to check things. There’s a lot of apps on our phone so that we can, I mean, you could even take the email off your phone if you really want to, but that doesn’t allow you to do that quick check in to make sure everything’s okay and calm yourself down and move back into your vacation. But you can limit the time in different apps, you can put your apps on a different screen, so it’s not in the same place. So it’s not this kind of habit that you’ve built up. I think there’s making sure that for yourself, if you were in private practice and you’ve created the the dynamic, that you don’t have expectations, that there’s going there, there’s going to be communication during the holidays. If you’re in a agency company that does have that expectation that people work when they’re off, determine how you set the boundaries about that for yourself, so that you are only on when you’re supposed to be on, that there’s not that mental load that you’re carrying the whole time. It’s it’s more challenging if you’re not your own boss or not able to have some sort of impact on it, but I think there’s this element of being able to set systems in place to offset that anxiety, offset that urgency that can come up during any time that you’re off work. And of course, if you can’t stop thinking about work, if it’s too overwhelming, maybe you should talk to somebody and be able to process that.

Curt Widhalm 22:28
We’re both really talking about dealing with your own internal critic of productivity, and especially if that’s where you’re operating for 50 weeks out of year. This is what this time is for is to be able to bounce back and have that productivity. I tell a lot of my clients about the Zen saying that you should practice mindfulness for 10 minutes every day, unless you’re too busy, and then you should practice for an hour. And it really does speak to the needs to attend to what that internal critic is really driving and why it’s really there, and being able to deal with it. And if this is one of the things to add to your to do list when you get back from vacation, is to seek out therapy or consultation, then go ahead and do that. I think that, you know, there’s only so many ways that we can say, Yeah, take naps, wear comfy clothes, do you know things that are fulfilling, but this is also really kind of the, you know, we can’t be on for our clients all year long and not ever attend to ourselves. And I’ve heard some various discussions. I think I saw a post on Reddit here somewhat recently that you know, is actually going into the field of working in mental health, a form of self harm, and this is something where we’re really trying to emphasize that the rest is for you. It’s not for your followers. It’s not it is for your clients, in a certain way that you are taking care of yourself, but the being able to have non goal oriented time is a mindset shift, and it’s something that you turn it up and down, like it’s like, it’s a, you know, a light on a dimmer switch, as opposed to a light switch that’s on and off. And ideally, if you listen to our systems of self care episodes every so often, then you can build this into a more regular part of your month to month and week to week practice, rather than it just being something that you expect to get all done in two weeks at the end of the year.

Katie Vernoy 24:59
Yeah, before we wrap up, I just want to honor that this can be a very, very hard time for for many folks. There’s a lot of things that come up I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, grief or family of origin dynamics, or even just family dynamics that can come up. And it is so important as a human, but I think especially as a therapist, to be able to honor that this is going to be time when you may have to have extra self care or extra compassion for yourself because of how challenging it is, and depending on what holidays you celebrate, part of the messaging around the holidays can be about It’s the most wonderful time of the year. It’s festive, it’s wonderful, it’s amazing. And so feeling misaligned with that, or unaligned with that can feel really bad. And I know this is stuff that we’ve talked about with a lot of different folks and a lot of different episodes, especially around grief, but even around all the other pieces, where it is okay if you don’t like this time of year and you’re hunkering down and doing what you can to take care of yourself. It is okay if you love this time of year and you’re overdoing and you know that you’re going to have an emotional hangover and a physical hangover at the end of the at the end of the season, because you’ve done so much. So there’s not one right way to do this, is what I’m saying. But there is a lot of challenges that I think folks sweep under the rug because of how happy we’re supposed to be, how connected we’re supposed to be, and I want that to also be some of the expectations that we maybe drop or soften, because it’s gonna be a really, really hard time of year for a lot of people.

Curt Widhalm 26:59
So stop trying to win the self care Olympics and…

Katie Vernoy 27:03
Or at least some self-care.

Curt Widhalm 27:04
At least, at least the performative self care Olympics.

Katie Vernoy 27:07
Yes, but, but still, do some self care, because it it is an opportunity when case loads are a little bit smaller, things are potentially slowing down.

Curt Widhalm 27:16
And your worth as a therapist and as a human being is not measured by the quality of your holiday table or the number of likes that you get. This is really about being able to get rid of the guilt. If you are feeling the urge to post, you know, tag us and hashtag it with low glamor holiday, and we will absolutely love and adore and embrace all of that. If you’re up for the challenge this holiday season.

Katie Vernoy 27:51
And we may not respond to it immediately, let’s be honest.

Curt Widhalm 27:53
Exactly so if, if your holiday…

Katie Vernoy 27:55
Sometime mid January, we will love that post.

Curt Widhalm 27:58
Yes, if your holiday break is you wearing the same sweatpants for 72 hours or having a stack of way too much takeout? That’s fine. Do it with Yeah, while you’re not talking about clients and congratulations, hopefully that’s actually genuine, authentic rest. So follow us on our social media. Go over to mtsgpodcast.com for our show notes. Continue on with this conversation in our Facebook group, the Modern Therapist Group, and until next time, I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy.

… 28:33
(Advertisement Break)

Announcer 28:20
Thank you for listening to the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide. Learn more about who we are and what we do at mtsgpodcast.com. You can also join us on Facebook and Twitter, and please don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss any of our episodes.