How to Cope With Your End-of-Summer Blues

This weekend many of you will be Instagramming your last toes-in-the-sand beach selfie of the summer.

Or maybe just bitter.

Okay, I get a little dramatic this time of year.

Its just that the end of summer hits some of us so hard.

So what do we do?

We cant just hunker down under a bearskin throw with a flask of whiskey until June.

There has to be a way to get through this transition with our dignity and wits intact.

Really its a process, she says, one thats accessible to all of us.

So the question is when and how it manifests.

There are three things you’re free to do to make that happen.

So reflect on other changes youve endured well, and what you did that helped.

Those coping tactics are going to be different for each of us.

For others, Metzl says, it may be more about relationships.

Youll want to connect with others who feel the same way you do.

And many others of us may want to focus more on how we regulate our emotions during a transition.

Im talking self-care here, not self-medicating via rose.

Express Yourself Creatively

Heres where Metzl brings in her experience as an art therapist.

That can be through music, drama, dance, craft, even going out for a run.

Anything that engages our body, mind, soul.

Dont think youre creative?

Thats just a story youve been telling yourself, Metzl says.

Put away other peoples judgment, and your own judgment of yourself.

shut the drapes, turn on some music, and dance alone.

Doodle a drawing of yourself saying goodbye to summer.

Put on a shadow puppet show.

Hey, dont make me come up with ideas for you.

Everybody does have the capacity to think creatively, flexibly, originally, Metzl says.

Whos to say getting the end-of-summer blues is necessarily a bad thing, anyway?

Metzl says this mindset comes down again to our misconceptions about resilience.

Change and growth are often not linear, she says.

Well, that means you have to acknowledge there will be times in your life when you feel down.

Youve been impacted by something in your environment, and thats a good thing.

People who are hearty [i.e.

unphased by changes] may not be in touch with whats happening around them, Metzl says.

So that sense of loss is a testament to how connected you were to summer.

Honor that in yourself, Metzl says.

Dont get so caught up in the fact that youre struggling.

Thats a much more empowering way to support yourself through the process.

Okay my sensitive flowers, were going to get through this transition together.

I may or may not be spending the weekend cooking all of the summer produce.

And if things taste a little salty, its definitely not because Im crying straight into the blueberry crumble.