How this year has run away! Today is St. Nicholas Day, a great time for the Christmas column on mental health. Let’s pause and take a deep breath together.
It’s the end-of-year rally in so many companies right now – what else do we want or need to get done this year? Then there’s the normal everyday hustle and bustle, not to mention Christmas parties and preparations. In between, light a candle for contemplation, drink tea, nibble on (home-baked) cookies, relax. Phew – quite a program. Are you even able to stop and realize how you are feeling? I wish you would, from the bottom of my heart.
What does Christmas stand for, what does it mean to you? There is a light in the dark night. It shows the way, gives hope, creates community. Christmas, the festival of love. But also the festival of great expectations, of commerce, of meeting up with the family (of origin). Moments of harmony, of togetherness, of joy. Moments of tension or loud arguments. For too many people, no matter how they spend their days on the outside: Anxiety. Sadness. Loneliness. For others, poverty, homelessness. Illness. Despair.
Christmas, so dazzling, so wonderful, at the same time a challenge. And yet an opportunity for inner reflection and connection. Resilience, or psychological resistance, can get us through these days better, and it can be trained. That’s why resilience and recovery – i.e. dealing with mental challenges and illnesses in a healthy way – are at the heart of this column.
There’s good news on top of that: The “Give depression a face” campaign has been continued since November (the obituary for founder Mike Adamczak was featured in the last column), and Claudia Mecklenburg is the new contact person.
Take courage. For life.
At Christmas time and every single day.
Nora
This content awaits you:
- What does resilience mean and how can I strengthen it during the Christmas season?
- Tips for your resilience
- What does recovery mean?
- “Give depression a face” campaign continues
- Participate in “Give depression a face”.
- My Christmas wishes for you
What does resilience mean and how can I strengthen it during the Christmas season?
Resilience is our mental resistance. It can be trained like a muscle. On the one hand, we can do a lot to strengthen our own resilience (see below for tips). On the other hand, we can consciously pay attention to how we treat our fellow human beings, especially these days. We can give a smile that comes from the heart. Share our attention. Give someone a hug. In doing so, we strengthen each other.
If we dare and are open to going out into the world with love and kindness, something always comes back to us. Not always immediately, not always in a direct way.
But energy is not lost, I learned that in fifth grade physics class and have noticed it more and more often in recent years.
Tips for your resilience
- Make sure you take breaks during the day, for example, you can arrange to have a cup of tea with yourself.
- Soak up daylight, preferably in the morning or during your lunch break, preferably in combination with exercise or sport.
- Prioritize and select:
- What would I like to do myself that is good for me?
- Which dates are required?
- Check: Do they really have to be every single one?
- Which (professional, private or Christmas commitments) can I cancel? Yes, there is a deliberate redundancy here with the previous point because we too often think “I have to” instead of a conscious and reflective “I want to” or “I don’t want to”.
- Writing a diary or lists can help you feel more organized and better able to let go of pending tasks in the evening.
- Take enough time to sleep.
- Breathing exercises help to calm the autonomic nervous system in times of stress. Basic rule: exhaling should take significantly longer than inhaling. In my experience, S.O.S breathing, also known as physiological sighing, is particularly effective for inner tension and anxiety (inhale deeply into the abdomen, take another small breath on top, exhale slowly through the mouth, repeat several times). The 4-7-8 breathing (inhale deeply into the abdomen for 4 seconds, hold the breath for 7 seconds, exhale slowly for 8 seconds, repeat several times) helps me to fall asleep.
If you are currently lonely, emotionally distressed or desperate, please do not remain alone with these feelings, but confide in someone. Contact someone close to you, the telephone counseling service, the local crisis service or a contact person in the healthcare system for mental health crises.)
What does recovery mean?
Resilience, i.e. our mental resilience, is closely related to the concept of recovery, which is relevant for people with mental illness because it is an incredibly encouraging and empowering concept. The following quote from Andreas Knuf, psychologist and psychotherapist, author and director of the SeeSeminare training institute, helped me to understand this complex concept. And as a person who lives with daily psychological symptoms, it made me completely enthusiastic about this path of personal development: “In the recovery approach, recovery is placed at the center of […] work, whereby recovery is not understood as freedom from symptoms, but as a path towards a more joyful and satisfying life.”[1] Whether sufferers confide in individuals in their environment, in self-help or in psychotherapy, or at some point take the step of going public – dealing with mental health challenges, especially in dialog, can be an important step on the path to recovery.
“Give depression a face” campaign continues
For many people with experience of depression, the “Give depression a face” campaign has been such a step towards self-empowerment since 2021. By summer 2025, over 4,000 people had taken part with their photo and name. I was one of them. When I published the obituary of Mike Adamczak, founder of “Give Depression a Face”, in the last FemalExperts column, one of my Instagram contacts intensified. Then the wonderful news: the campaign will continue! Claudia Mecklenburg is the new contact person for this.
Claudia and I have known each other since the summer of this year via Instagram. She also writes about mental health on her blog “Raus aus dem Drama”. She also supports people who are affected by mental illness or crises professionally as a so-called peer. Peer means that Claudia herself has had profound experiences with depression and other mental challenges, but is now so stable and has built up so much knowledge that she can accompany others on their path to recovery.
Why is this voluntary work so important to her, I want to know? “When I joined the campaign, I had only publicly admitted my depression on Facebook six months earlier. Looking back, this new openness, as much courage and effort as it took, was an immensely important step on my own road to recovery. Because it enabled me to overcome the shame and fear of rejection because of my mental illness. With my voluntary work for the continuation of the ‘Give depression a face’ campaign, I want to address precisely these two points: To end the (self-)stigmatization of mental illness. And to show those affected that they are not alone with their challenges and that there is no reason to be ashamed of them.”
Participate in “Give depression a face”.
If you are affected by depression yourself, you can become an encourager and send in your photo together with the online participation form. Claudia will be happy to answer any questions about the campaign, which will be published on Instagram and Facebook, via the contact form on the website.
You can find out more about Claudia Mecklenburg, her blog, the peer support services and her own story on her homepage.
My Christmas wishes for you
Yes, there are probably enough reasons to take a differentiated view of Christmas or even to reject it. Our modern buzzword “consumer society” was already a point of criticism of this festival 200 years ago:
Christmas is the great time of too much.
Leigh Hunt (1784-1859, English writer)
How much nicer if we gently approach the original idea of Christmas again, regardless of consumerism, beliefs or non-beliefs and possible mental challenges. We may succeed by following this quote:
Giving a little love every day means having a little Christmas every day.
Monika Minder (*1961, Swiss poet)
Love.
In times of crisis, we may not be able to feel it. But it can come alive again even after years of darkness.
It is everywhere. In our interactions. In our view of the world. You may feel it intensely. Or it may be nesting in your heart right now as a tender flame, unnoticed. We can give it to ourselves and thus strengthen our mental health so much.
I wish you all the best for Christmas.
All the best
Nora
[1] Knuf, Andreas: Recovery and empowerment, 2020, 12f
About the author
Nora Hille was born in 1975, is happily married and has two children. She studied history, literature and media studies, worked in communications/public relations for 12 years and has now retired for health reasons. Today she writes articles on the topics of mental health and mental illness as a sufferer and experience expert. She also writes literary essays, poems (preferably haikus) and short prose. She regularly publishes her mental health column here at FemalExperts Magazine and is Editor of eXperimenta - the magazine for literature, art and society. Anti-stigma work is close to her heart: she is an encourager at Mutmachleute e.V. and is committed to Anti-Stigma-Texts against the stigmatization (exclusion) of the mentally ill in our society for more togetherness, tolerance and equality. In autumn 2023 her book "When Light Defeats Darkness" will be published by Palomaa Publishing. A book of encouragement about how to live a good and rich life despite bipolar illness - and the enormous challenge that this means every day for the inner balance of those affected.
