When Thanksgiving Hurts: Finding Connection and Healing
As the Thanksgiving season approaches, we’re reminded of images filled with warmth, tables brimming with food, families gathering, laughter echoing through shared spaces. And yet, beneath these cultural ideals often lies another emotional reality: one of tension, loneliness, disconnection, or deep longing.
At Canopy Cove Counselling, we know that for many individuals, couples, and families, Thanksgiving isn’t always a joyful celebration. It can stir up unresolved pain, amplify relationship struggles, and expose attachment wounds that often remain buried throughout the year.
Let’s slow down together, take a breath, and hold space for what this season really brings up, and how healing and connection are still possible, even in the hard moments.
For Individuals: The Loneliness Beneath the Noise
If you’re facing Thanksgiving alone, or feeling unseen even while surrounded by others, you are not broken. You are human. We are, all of us, wired for connection. When that bond is missing, or feels uncertain or unsafe, it’s no surprise that our hearts ache. Our nervous systems know what we need. They call out through sadness, anxiety and grief.
The pressure to “feel thankful” when your heart feels heavy can deepen shame and self-criticism.
Maybe you're grieving a loved one, estranged from family, or surrounded by others who don't see your true self. Perhaps family is far away, emotionally unavailable, or has become a source of pain. Or perhaps you're sitting at a table where no one really knows the you that longs to be known.
At Canopy Cove Counselling, our team understands this emotional isolation not as a problem to be fixed, but as a message to be heard. These feelings are not weakness, they are signals. They speak to the most essential part of you: the part that longs to feel safe, loved, and connected.
Through Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT), our therapists offer a space where those signals can finally be understood. Together, we explore the protective strategies you’ve developed to manage pain, and gently begin to uncover the softer emotions underneath. The ones that speak to your need for closeness, for comfort, for someone to truly be there. In therapy, we begin creating new pathways to emotional safety, resilience, and connection, from the inside out.
"Emotional balance doesn’t come from avoiding pain—it comes from having a safe space to hold it."
— Dr. Sue Johnson
For Couples: When Distance Shows Up at the Table
Holidays often magnify the patterns couples get stuck in. That old dance, pursue and withdraw, criticize and defend, shut down and lash out, can play out even as you pass the mashed potatoes.
You might find yourselves arguing over where to spend the holiday, who feels left out, or why one of you “doesn’t seem present.” But underneath these surface conflicts is often something much deeper: a longing to feel important to one another, to feel safe and loved again.
In Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT), we help couples slow these patterns down, tune into the emotions beneath, and reach for one another in new ways, ways that say: “You matter to me. I need you. I want us to feel close again.”
For Families: Old Wounds at the Holiday Table
Thanksgiving has a way of reviving unresolved family dynamics. You may find yourself slipping into old roles, navigating unspoken tensions, or bracing for political arguments or emotional blow-ups.
Families are emotional systems, and without safe emotional engagement, these systems often default to disconnection, judgment, or silence. At the heart of family conflict is usually a cry to be seen, to be valued, to belong.
Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EEFT), offers families a path back to this emotional safety. It helps loved ones begin to repair the relational injuries of the past and build a new experience of connection, one where each person’s emotional reality can be heard and held with compassion.
Holding Hope in the Hard Seasons
As Emotionally Focused Therapists, we witness the pain that holidays can bring. But we also witness something else: resilience, courage, and the healing power of love.
We believe that even in the messiness of Thanksgiving, there is a sacred opportunity to repair and reconnect. Whether you're navigating this season solo, as a couple, or within a family system, we are here to walk with you, gently, respectfully, and always in honour of your attachment needs.
Every day, we see the power of emotional bonding and the bravery it takes to reach out, to self, to partner, to family, with vulnerability.
This Thanksgiving, We Invite You To Remember:
You are not alone. Your emotions make sense. They are signals, not flaws.
You are wired for connection. Your need for love, comfort, and emotional closeness is human, not selfish.
Change is possible. With safety, presence, and attuned emotional engagement, healing can begin.
Whether you’re seeking support as an individual through Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT), as a couple through Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT), or as a family through Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EFFT), we’re here to walk alongside you.
If This Season Feels Heavy, Let’s Talk.
You don’t have to carry the weight of Thanksgiving alone. Reach out to our team at Canopy Cove Counselling to begin your EFCT, EFFT or EFIT therapy journey, and take the first step toward healing, connection, and the love you long for.
Schedule a free 15-minute consultation to see if Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFCT)is right for you. Let this season, even with all its struggles, be a doorway to new conversations, deeper understanding, and perhaps, new beginnings in your most important relationships.