Holiday Tips from Therapist Charlanne Wolff 12-29-2025

Do you get the Holiday Blues? Rachann talks with Charlanne Wolff, a licensed mental health therapist with Rooted Souls Therapy in Frederick, about the stress that the holidays can bring and some coping mechanisms we can use to help ourselves.

Transcript

Audio file

RCP Podcast Rooted Souls Total Release Date 12-29-25.mp3

Transcript

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Enjoy your program.

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Welcome to Raising Connections, connecting your community to others through critters, companions, commerce, and agriculture.

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I'm Ray Shan Mayer.

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Let's raise some connections.

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Here we go.

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This morning, as always, we have a fun and interesting guest.

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Welcome, Sharlann Wolf.

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How are you?

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I'm doing all right, thanks.

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How about you, Roshan?

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I'm doing well.

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Usually guests don't ask that question.

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You are such a Hoosier, and I so appreciate that.

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I'm doing really well.

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I'm really grateful that you're here.

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Rooted Souls Therapy in Frederick is your company that you and your spouse have founded, and it is a counseling and therapy group.

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Correct.

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What is the difference between counseling and therapy?

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You know, I find it's one of the

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those terms that really end up being interchangeable for people.

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So most often it's, I think, preference-based for people.

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What is your background?

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Can you give our listeners a bit of who you are in your own voice?

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Sure.

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I am a mental health therapist who is licensed in the state of Maryland, and I like to tell people that I really hope to provide a redemptive experience that their therapy option or possibility

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with me could be the type of place where they get to explore new things or they get to consider new ways of processing and new ways of being.

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When you say processing, is that something physical or is that something mental and emotional or all of it?

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Yeah, it would be all of the above.

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It's a way to incorporate the entire nervous system into that process.

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So considering the physical, mental, and emotional components would

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all be important in that process for sure.

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One of the questions I've always had, and I'm sure some of our listeners have the same question, talk therapy was what had been popular a few years back.

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When you say encompass the entire nervous system, is that different than talk therapy?

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Have we matured in our understandings?

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I would say that's a really great distinction to make, because I think talk therapy was this idea that if I just talk things through and have someone to maybe

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support me in the things I need to talk about, that that's the way to find healing.

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And there's an element of that that's really important because of the relational nature of us as people.

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However, our nervous systems, we've been learning so much more in recent years about how they store things.

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They store experiences, memories, and emotions.

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And so being able to actually kind of learn strategies, maybe sometimes even in the session, doing certain strategies

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that are going to address certain parts specifically of the nervous system, learning how to move through different states of the nervous system, getting re-regulated, so to speak.

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So it's different than just, oh, I just need to get this out in talk therapy.

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Sometimes it's, I need to get something out and learn how to take new things in, might be another way of putting it, as well as I need to get things out and allow my nervous system

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system to re-regulate or recover, so to speak.

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When you talk about the nervous system, it takes me a little bit aback and it causes me to process.

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So when I think of nervous system, I think of anxious butterflies in my belly.

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I think of fight or flight.

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I think of being ready, the hairs on the back of your neck.

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Those to me speak of nervous system.

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But the emotion and the reactions our bodies have are tied from our thoughts to

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our nervous system to our bodies.

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Correct.

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They all are working really in an intertwined kind of way.

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So while we often hear about the fight-or-flight mode of the nervous system, we forget that the nervous system also has a mode of actually being in a regulated state, which is the place in which we actually feel able to experience the full range of thoughts and emotions and be able to actually navigate them.

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This navigation

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Is that the research supported intervention that you offer that's both ethical and clinical and a competent care model?

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That would definitely be what that is referencing so that it's not just, well, I guess going back to that talk therapy phrase, it's not simply coming to receive support, which is something that happens, but you're coming to receive, again, strategies that are going to come from that research supported place that's coming from learning more

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are about the brain and the body and the emotions and all of the ways that they work together.

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The holidays are coming up and many people have memories associated with the holidays.

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Some bring joy, some bring fear, and some bring strategies.

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Can you help us when we're looking at those strategies, understanding the alphabet soup that goes around choosing someone professionally to help us with the holidays?

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Mm-hmm.

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Because when you look up finding a therapist, you're going to see people that are psychologists and counselors or social workers, right?

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So anything, I guess the main thing that you would want to look for is someone who's licensed.

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So whether they're a licensed psychologist and they would have PsyD after their name, a licensed social worker, they're going to have LCSW after their names, or like myself, a licensed counselor, and that's going to be the LCPC after their name.

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So really, anyone who is licensed in those realms will be able to provide competent therapy, whether this time of year or any time of year.

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That alphabet soup, I know many times I've hopped on the internet and I've asked Google all kinds of questions.

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And boy, thank you for clarifying that because holy moly, that can be really the first step that stops people is finding someone to help.

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For sure.

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We all have experienced holidays of various different kinds, and we're getting into that holiday season.

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It starts about October, and it ends typically after the new year.

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It is an emotional time.

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There are high emotions, there are low emotions, and there's really no good or bad.

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It's just kind of how you're feeling.

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I know in my own family, and our listeners are aware of this, we've had some transitions.

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My father has passed.

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And as times change and our children grow,

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and loved ones change and go different ways and go different places, and lives start and stop and new ones come along.

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There's all of these memories and all of these things, and it can be so overwhelming.

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Where do we even start?

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Once we get past Google, how do we even start this process of enjoying our holidays without baggage?

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Lot of it goes along with putting into perspective that we do a lot of shoulding around emotions.

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We can think I'm supposed to, or I should feel a certain way, or I shouldn't feel this other way, especially when there's those heightened emotions you mentioned around memories or baggage.

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I

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I remember the first year after my dad had died and experienced that change of the calendar page from October to November, which is when I consider that start of the holiday season.

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There was that sense of, oh, I'm so excited because I love this time of year.

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And there was at the same time a sense of

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of tenderness, a not necessarily heaviness, for some people it can be a heaviness, but a sense of a tenderness of, Wow, I'm remembering a lot more.

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And so making space for all of the emotions to be allowed is one of the first places to really begin.

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Taking out that good, bad, positive, negative kind of vocabulary that we can put with, Oh, this is a good emotion, or That's a bad emotion, but rather

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Just allowing, oh, this is how I'm feeling.

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And making space for it is really a great place to begin.

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I have to ask this because, and it may seem a bit rude, but it's a very genuine question.

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Making space, I almost hear Saturday Night Live playing in the back of my head with, oh my gosh, I'm having a moment.

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Is that what you're referring?

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I suppose for some, it could be like that.

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And for others, for some moments, I don't just mean for some people, for some moments, it can be

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be that, oh my goodness, I'm having a moment.

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For other times, it's simply, oh, wow, I'm having an emotion and I need to simply acknowledge it.

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Sometimes we just rush past them.

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We don't actually name what we're feeling, or maybe we are kind of aware of it, but we assume I'm too busy.

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I just need to go on to the next thing, the next item on the to-do list, which is often, I think, the focus that can happen to so many at this time of year.

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And so to actually

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give it a moment where we can have a transition that isn't just, oh, next on my calendar, next on my list, but rather, oh, hey, this is actually what I'm experiencing, and let me just identify it for a second.

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Is that something that requires safe space, safe walls, compensated time to move off and do that, much like the Saturday Night Lift skit that I'm referring to?

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Or is that something that can be done quietly in your own way and then

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then move through your day, what might that look like?

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I would say yes to all of the above.

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So depending on your context, depending on maybe even the level of height to that emotion that you're experiencing.

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So one of the simplest things I love to teach people about is deep breathing because it's so accessible that you can do anywhere.

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If you need to simply name an emotion to yourself, acknowledge an experience you're having in the moment, this could be

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out Christmas shopping or grocery shopping for a meal and, oh, wow, I'm remembering something really intensely.

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I'm noticing some experiences in my body letting me know that something's going on in my emotions or in my thoughts.

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So doing some deep breaths can actually be a great way to just, I'm acknowledging what's going on and it may give me a little more ease to the intensity of that moment because it can happen anywhere.

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That would be, I think, an example of like the

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simplest, most accessible type of thing.

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The kind of experience, maybe you're naming of, do I need a little more safety?

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Do I need a little more time or other strategies?

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Yeah, that might be something that requires a little extra time and some extra strategies, which I'm more than willing to talk about as well.

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I think we might need to.

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talk about those, especially around the holidays.

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When we come back, let's delve into the holidays and tips and tricks and just good old-fashioned coping to get us through and have a joyful or satisfying experience.

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Welcome back to Raising Connections.

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I'm your host, Rae Shan Mayer.

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We're talking with Charl-Ann Wolfe from Rooted Souls Therapy in Frederick.

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Welcome back.

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Thank you.

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What do you think listeners need to know about counseling and the holidays?

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I think counseling around the holidays, it's really important for people to know what a resource it can be.

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I think some people are so prone to assume, you know what, I just need to get through, right?

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I just need to hunker down, maybe put my head down and get through the holidays.

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And the idea that counseling can actually be a way to get to have more of an optimal experience.

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What if I can more than get through?

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What if I can actually thrive rather than just survive?

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One of the reasons I tell people that I tend to specialize in dealing with anxiety or people dealing with burnout, people dealing with grief, is because those are things that I have experienced myself and I so want to be able to offer to other people that there are additional ways

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to move through those experiences rather than just having to get through.

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Absolutely.

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The holidays often can be full of triggers and touch buttons and memories.

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There's things that we pull out during this time of year from storage areas and smells and special meals and recipes and gatherings or lack of those things that can really cause feelings and emotions to come forward.

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For me, this is a lovely part of the year and I think

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I think for you, this is one of your favorite times of the year.

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It is true.

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I tell people it literally is my absolute favorite time of year.

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Why is it your favorite time?

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I think that it connects so much to family gatherings and faith community experiences for me as far as meaningful connecting times with people, meaningful celebrating times with people.

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So I guess there's a lot of the with others element that goes along with that for me.

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For some people, like we have

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said, that part of the year can be very triggering or full of anxiety.

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What are some ways that you coach clients to deal with this time of year?

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It's so important to be able to recognize what resources are available.

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And it's easy to think of resources as something external to ourselves, right?

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We think of maybe support networks or a place that we go.

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But resources are also something that we can find internally.

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We don't always consider the idea of internal resources, but they exist.

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And that could be in places like as much as we have triggering memories, we also have memories in which we find calm, in which we find peace.

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And they may not be memories that are associated with the holidays, but we can always bring those forward to support ourselves if we're experiencing memories or emotions that we find more heightened or more anxiety or grief-produced.

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Is that a way to ground ourselves?

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Yeah, it's a great way of grounding.

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And anything grounding would be something that brings us back into that state of the nervous system where we feel more regulated, where we feel more able to navigate what we're thinking or what we're feeling.

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So grounding would especially be anything connected with the five senses.

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I think that's a reason even that memories become really grounding because typically we

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associate memories with things that we hear or smell or taste, which so many of those things go along with the holidays for sure.

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Absolutely.

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I think I can eat my own weight in holiday cookies thriving on one scent and that being just this, well, I guess it's two senses, the smell and the taste.

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And it's like for me eating a memory and consuming actual happiness.

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Yeah.

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And then I realized that I've eaten dozens of them and I have a different feeling, but that's, you know.

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That's a whole different.

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Different feeling.

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Feelings and emotions.

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During this time, do you avoid them or do you experience them or do you put them in a pack and wait to open them later?

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That's a really good question because the more that we avoid emotions, they're going to get stuck and love to come out perhaps sideways somewhere else.

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So it's much better to do something that acknowledges them, even if you're tuning into them in such a way that's saying, you know what, I'm acknowledging you, I see you, I hear you.

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And I may have to come back to you a little more later, right?

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Depending on what scenario you're finding yourself in at that moment, you might need to put a pin in it, so to speak.

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But making sure to actually acknowledge them is going to be better for the system as a whole, rather than doing the avoidance.

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If one finds themselves in the holidays caught in a place where things have become too much, whether it's too much joy, too much grief, just too much.

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Too much of a good thing, too much of a bad thing, it's still a thing.

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What are some ways to help us realize that and stick the pen in it so that we're not exploding or overjoying or shoulding somebody at the wrong time?

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It's a great question to be able to consider what resources do I have at my disposal in the moment?

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And sometimes it could be, I'm going to need to write that down so that I remember it later.

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Some people consider that journaling.

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Some people consider it bullet journaling if they're just maybe writing some phrases.

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so that they know to come back to it later.

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Some do that literally with pen and paper and some use a Notes app on their phone.

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I'm a fan of both personally.

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Using things like deep breathing that I mentioned earlier, things related to the five senses.

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There's one activity that you might hear even a number of therapists talk about of a five or three, two, one process of considering all five senses and looking at five

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things I can see, naming four things to myself I can hear, three things that I can touch, two that I can smell, and one that I can taste.

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And depending on your scenario, you may not have as much to smell or taste in a given setting.

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But even just starting with five things that I can see, what things can I hear, what things can I put to the touch is going to be a way that I can get present and get back into some regulation.

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Again, whether that there's been too much

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joy and excitement, or too much grief or sadness or anxiety.

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I just need to get back into the present for a moment, knowing that I can come back to those things later when needed.

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One of the things that I always enjoyed doing, and having grown up on a farm, it always comes screaming back at the holidays, because animals need feeding and loving and cared for.

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Regardless of the day of the week, the animals need care and attention and love and husbandry.

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It was always grounded

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something for me to go out and clean the stall, feed the critters, give them their pets, give them their love, because it reminds me that it's just another day and every day is a little special.

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Can we use our critters in a way to help us through?

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I love when pets and critters get to become part of the grounding opportunity for people, because there's actually a number of ways.

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What you just described is that resource that we all have of routines and rhythms.

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Routines and rhythms get to be a great way

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this time of year when we can get out of routine and rhythm, but we know, yep, every day I'm going to feed the dog.

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Every day I'm going to take care of my cat or give one of my critters a snuggle.

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Like that becomes something that we lean into in such a meaningful way.

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But all of the things related to the senses, I love the sense of touch when it comes to critters.

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Being able to just sit down, notice the texture or the sensation of our critter's fur or skin, for example, is a way to do

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just get back into a moment of being present.

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All I'm doing is noticing that thing right here, right now.

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And it's cozy, right?

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Coziness is also a great way with our critters to be able to just be present and lean into our routines and rhythms.

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I love that.

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Oftentimes we would be traveling between multiple states and that pups would go into the car with us.

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We never really traveled with the cat because the cat really wasn't a traveler, but we would be going along and we would be singing Christmas tunes or whatever would be on the radio and the dog

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would be howling along with us.

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So sharing the joy, sharing the grief, then we get quiet after too many Christmas cookies and just kind of let the driver have some peace while the rest of us napped.

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I love it.

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Always fun stuff.

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If we find ourselves in a situation where the too much has gotten to be too much, there is a hotline we can reach out to.

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What is that?

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That is the National Crisis Hotline, which people can text or call.

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It is 988, and it's available 24/7.

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And what not

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everybody realizes is this is a crisis hotline meant for anyone.

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So any type of overwhelm or experience of really needing support and needing additional resources.

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So it wouldn't just be for someone maybe struggling with suicidal ideation or thoughts.

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This can be any type of overwhelm and needing to talk to someone.

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So again, that's 988 that you can text or call 24/7.

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Am I going to be asked for my name, where I am, my engine,

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insurance card, what's that going to be like when that first contact's made?

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So you would be asked where you're located because they would want to make sure that if they needed to connect with any like emergency services, that kind of thing, that you would not be asked for insurance information or those kinds of details, but just what they would need to get any type of additional resource that you might need in the moment.

00:21:38 Speaker 1

If we want to think about giving the gift of grounding to each other, where would we find you or

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services like yours.

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You can check out our website, which would be rootedsoulstherapy.com.

00:21:51 Speaker 2

And other ways to find therapists that might be in your area specifically, Psychology Today has a great therapist search tool.

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We're looking in your specific area can let you know who specializes in certain things, what types of insurance they accept, and what kinds of counseling therapy styles they incorporate if you're

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looking for a specific type of work or a specific type of therapy strategy that they use.

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I love the genuineness.

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I love the honor that we've given to this time of year.

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It's one of my favorite times.

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It's one of your favorite times.

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But it always in my world requires a cup of coffee and a little bit to sit back and gain perspective and grab the dog.

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Certainly.

00:22:36 Speaker 1

Charlie-Ann, thank you for being part of us here on Raising Connections.

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And thank you, all of our listeners, for being part of us as well.

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I hope the connections we've raised today stay with you as you engage your community through critters, companions, commerce, and agriculture.

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Join me again next week.

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We'll make some more connections.

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This program is a production of Raising Connections Media Company, hosted and produced by Roshan Mayer.

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And edited and mixed by Robin Temple.