welcome everyone to the get real get love show I am your host arely Washburn and

today we're talking about holiday stress and specifically the holiday stress that happens when you have happened to be a

single person and you're getting invited to a bunch of parties or you're going to

go see family you're traveling excetera and so I just want to give you some quick

tips on how to navigate these times so first let's start with you you might be

getting invited to holiday parties for work I highly recommend that you do not skip those parties

because a you might meet someone there that could be a potential match for you and then of course you

want to you know you have your bosses and people there are and your colleagues and you don't

want to come across as someone who's not social so if you have trepidation about going alone maybe come up

with some ideas of some you know small talk that you might want to engage in with some of your

co-workers but definitely do your best to attend these parties because you never know who

you might meet and it's just a good way to potentially I don't know gain more insight

about the people that work with you and and all that good stuff so so I

highly recommend do not skip those parties the second thing I would say is if you're going

to go visit family I know sometimes when you're single could be challenging because year-over-year

you're getting the same questions from family members you know or you're dating what's going

on when you're going to meet someone and what I would recommend is that you

come prepared with specifics of kind of person that you want to meet okay and so when your family

asks questions about why you know why aren't you with someone excetera you can say I am

totally open to meeting someone and I'm looking for and just be very specific about the type of

person that you want to meet and let's put the onus on them let them figure it

out let them be the ones who help you to meet someone I would say turn everybody into your

Matchmaker but be very very specific about it I think it's also really important to make sure that that you're

taking good care of yourself you know self care is very important during these stressful times in the holidays

sometimes people have to travel and I always I don't know about you but when I travel I try

to take the first flight out especially these days with delays and and cancellations and things like that

at least if you take if you have to get to the first flight if

it gets cancelled or postponed you have some options you know that come after that as opposed to

taking a later flight and then front you know finding out that you can't get another flight so

that will lower and minimize the stress you know just be mindful of what you can do proactively

to avoid stress and just take good care of yourself as far as self love

and self care I just this morning decided you know what I need a bath I

want to just bathe in relax and feel good and that's okay you need to take that time out for

yourself to enjoy you know the moments that you have you know put some nice music on

some candles take a nice bath if you want to have a cocktail whatever it takes to get you

to feel your best and then by all means you know I know we spend a lot of

money and energy on other people throughout the holidays but do something nice for yourself you know buy yourself

something nice and and treat yourself because that's part of the self love and self care

don't go crazy but if there's something that you've been meaning to get and you really haven't done it up

to this point maybe this is this is the time of year that you can do that

so those are just a few tips about what you can do to be more successful you know

in terms of avoiding the stress and minimizing stress is what I should say so go

to the parties you know be prepared to do some small talk and potentially who knows

you might meet someone there and then make sure that if you're going to go see family

and also avoid any conversations that are going to be difficult you know the politics I

think some of that might be dying down still but you know don't bring up conversations

that are just going to create more stress and if they bring up why are you

still single give them whole you know Darcy are of the kind of person you looking

to meet and that way you can put the onus on them so that's what I have to share with

you today as my phone is ringing and if you have any questions or you need any support through this

holiday season please feel free to reach out I'm at Arlene Washburn on all social media

and I'd be happy to support you bye for now and remember everyone deserves to love and

be loved so never give up on love cheers