Coping with Happiness Guilt Around the Holidays
Lindsay Knake
| 3 min read
Lindsay Knake is a brand journalist for Blue Cross B...
Key Takeaways
- Happiness guilt refers to a complex emotion involving knowing people are struggling during the holidays while you are feeling joyful.
- Feeling guilty about your own happiness may make you feel isolated from other people.
- Acknowledging your circumstances and emotions, practicing gratitude and engaging in acts of kindness can help you take the feeling and turn it into good.
While the holidays are often a season of giving and joy, they can also be difficult for some because of financial stress, mental illness and grief, among other things.
About 60% of people say the holidays negatively affect their mental health, according to the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI), and about 66% of Americans say they experience financial stress during the holidays. For some, the challenges people face can lead to a complex emotion called happiness guilt. Let’s learn more about it and a few ways to manage it.
What is happiness guilt?
Knowing people are struggling can make it difficult for some to feel joy during the holidays. This is called happiness guilt. Examples of happiness guilt could include:
- Exchanging gifts while other people are struggling financially.
- Enjoying holiday meals when others face food insecurity.
- Spending time with loved ones while others are grieving.
Guilt can make us feel bad about ourselves and change our behaviors. You may not feel like you deserve the good fortune or know loved ones don’t deserve the challenges they are dealing with. If you feel guilty, you may feel isolated from others. This may only make your emotions and your sense of isolation worse.
How to manage happiness guilt
Happiness, however, isn’t a zero-sum game. Feeling happy about one event does not change another person’s circumstances, and it doesn’t help them feel better. Here are a few tips to work through your emotions and manage happiness guilt.
Acknowledge your feelings
Identifying and acknowledging your emotions is one way you can begin to work through the tangle of feelings. Take some time to sit with your feelings; you could write in a journal or go for a walk. NAMI suggests naming the emotions you feel and not judging them or yourself.
With happiness guilt, you may feel a combination of joy, pride, gratitude, guilt and pain, for example. You can try to get comfortable with the full spectrum of these emotions without judgment and without pushing the emotions away.
Practice gratitude
Life is full of complexities, joy and challenges. Feeling bad because of good things in your life does not help anyone else who is struggling, and it reduces your own joy and happiness.
A gratitude practice can improve life satisfaction, reduce stress and anxiety, strengthen relationships and even improve your physical health. Spending a little time each day to focus on what you are grateful for can help you clarify what is important to you and how you might help those you care about.
You could make a short list of things you are grateful for on your phone, write in a journal or on a sticky note or share them with a loved one.
Take action
When you understand what you are feeling and what you are grateful for, you may be able to channel your emotions a little more easily.
If your holiday table is full, for example, you may want to donate to a food bank or help a loved one with their own holiday meal. You may want to donate warm clothes or toys to a family in need. If you know someone who is struggling with grief during the holiday season, you may reach out to offer support.
Practicing kindness can promote connection with others and improve well-being. It’s an antidote to the feelings of guilt that may keep you stuck and isolated from others.
Images: Getty Images
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