Coping with holiday stress

A woman with long brown hair holds her head with a stressed expression against a calming gradient background. Text reads "Coping with Holiday Stress" along with a message offering helpful tips during the holiday season. The Seaside Counseling & Wellness logo appears at the top left.

The holidays often bring pressure, expectations, family dynamics, financial worry, and emotional exhaustion. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, you’re not alone. Explore practical tools, mindset shifts, and coping strategies to help you stay grounded and supported during the holiday season.

The Anxiety of Change

Two people in conversation outdoors, reflecting together about life transitions and emotional growth — representing the anxiety and adaptation that come with change.

Change — even when it’s positive — can awaken deep anxiety. Our minds crave stability, and when life shifts, it can feel like the ground is moving beneath us. Learn how to understand these emotions, find balance through uncertainty, and embrace growth with compassion and clarity at Seaside Counseling & Wellness.

Finding Stability

In a world that feels constantly in motion, finding stability can seem out of reach. Therapy offers a space to pause — to steady your footing, breathe deeply, and rediscover balance when life feels uncertain. It’s not about control; it’s about learning how to move with life’s changes while staying anchored within yourself.

Responding vs. Reacting: Choosing a Healthier Path

Responding vs. Reacting

Life constantly throws challenges our way — from stressful conversations to unexpected obstacles. In those moments, we often act on impulse. That’s reacting. But when we pause, reflect, and choose our words or actions with intention, we are responding. This difference may sound subtle, but it can completely transform how we move through relationships, work, and personal struggles.

Finding Calm in Everyday Stress

Stress touches all of us—whether it’s the pressure of work, family responsibilities, or the constant noise of daily life. Left unchecked, stress can feel overwhelming and affect both your mental and physical health. But with the right tools, you can begin to shift from surviving each day to moving through life with more calm and balance.

Questions, Support or Guidance

Angela Ordyniec, MA/LISW-CP

Clinical Social Worker

Angi was drawn to become a therapist by her desire to walk alongside people as they navigate life’s twists and turns. Her approach is authentic, dynamic, and uplifting, and she never loses sight of each individual’s capacity to persevere, create, and transform.

With 20 years of experience working with individuals from diverse and complex backgrounds in both non-profit and private practice settings, Angi brings a warm, relational style to her work—often sprinkled with humor. She specializes in supporting adults through life transitions, grief and loss, relationship challenges, and symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Angi integrates various therapeutic approaches, including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). She is also passionate about the connection between nutrition and mental health, having earned a certificate in Nutrition and Integrative Medicine for Mental Health from Adelphi University.

She embraces working with people from all backgrounds, religions, orientations, cultures, and ideologies. In her free time, Angi enjoys cooking savory meals, relaxing at the beach, reading, connecting with loved ones, and maintaining a balanced self-care routine.