Coping With Grief During The Holidays: 7 Ways To Keep It Together
It was 1993. October. I was in my first semester of graduate school. I was on campus getting ready to enter my Educational Statistics class when I got the call that my grandmother died from a massive heart attack. I was between feeling shocked and distraught. I went to my instructor's office and blurted out, "I just learned my grandmother died. I need to go home." I went to my apartment, informed my manager, packed a bag, and got on the next train home to Maryland. I cried the entire 3-hour train ride home.
I arrived at my grandparents' home later that evening. I remember how lonely it felt while walking to their home and wondering, “What will I be walking into?” When I entered, my mother, uncle, my uncle's wife, great aunt, and grandfather were all there. I sat down and asked what happened. As soon as I did, everything slowed, and I hung onto every word spoken. It was as if I was so tuned in that nothing else mattered. From that point forward, the semester became the longest one I had ever experienced.
The holidays were never the same. My grandmother loved the holidays, enjoyed decorating, cooking, and hosting. Her voice, her laugh, her initiative, and her energy were noticeably absent. There was never any doubt that she was the matriarch of the family. There was no formal ritual to acknowledge her passing beyond the wake and funeral. We shared stories about how she was as a child through to the present day. We talked about how she was the healthiest in our family and that we all thought my grandfather would be the first to die due to the significant health concerns he managed (we always have a good laugh about that). We all shake our heads in agreement when someone says they miss her. Moving forward we continued to talk about her at family gatherings and wished she was still with us. Over time, the sadness dissipated, the tears stopped flowing, the days got easier, and the void remains. To this day I miss her and regret not having had the chance to say goodbye.
In my family at that time, each of us grieved individually. We didn't have ways to help us grieve as a family. Perhaps if we had more tools, we would have done some things differently and been of better support to each other.
It's 2021 and the pandemic has made grief part of the "new normal" for many of us. The loss of a loved one can feel daunting at the best of times, and during the holidays, with an empty seat at the dinner table and the absence of Christmas shopping and parties, you may feel even more alone. For these reasons, it is particularly important that we have tools to help us cope when we have waves of grief.
When it comes to how to healthily cope with grief, we're often underprepared by society. Many of the unhealthy ways we use to manage difficult feelings we also apply to cope with grief. One of the aspects that makes a coping strategy unhealthy is that it salts the wound. By that I mean the strategy adds to the pain and difficult emotions already present. For example, a common difficulty with grief is accepting our experience without judgment. We deny ourselves permission to grieve or have positive experiences out of a sense of disloyalty. Another strategy is to push the feelings outside of our awareness by staying distracted, containing any expression (especially a spontaneous one) of grief, and/or avoiding anything that might trigger sadness, anger, or other difficult feelings. We hide our grief and don't ask for help because "we don't want to be a burden."
Over time, these avoidance efforts result in the grief returning more intensely or affecting us in unknown ways (i.e., an unexplained depressed mood) because we're no longer tracking it. We cannot manage what we choose not to feel. When we accept our grief, we are more willing to experience it, allowing us to better manage it.
To effectively cope with grief during the holidays, we need to anticipate that we will experience grief at some point, be prepared and flexible to grieve, and have a safe place we can go when we need time alone. I recommend seven ways to help you keep it together during the holidays.
Create An Inner Sanctuary
Tools that help us through challenging times are compassion, encouragement, hope, wisdom, and strength. To apply these tools, it's helpful to create an internal space where we can be with our grief, feel safe doing so without censure and negative self-judgment, identify our needs, and experience our inner strength and self-compassion to meet those needs. This Sanctuary is where we commune with our grief and the loved one who passed to endure the loss and eventually grow from up. I have created a handout on developing an inner Sanctuary. Read through it and begin practicing it today.
Let Go of the "Shoulds"
Grief is a multidimensional, psychological reaction to loss. Contrary to popular desire, grief doesn't last for a few days to a couple of weeks. It is a lifelong process where the goal is learning to live through it.
Have you ever heard any of the statements below or some version of them?
"Why are you grieving that person? You weren't close."
"It's been 6 months. Shouldn't you be done grieving?"
"It shouldn't affect you THAT badly."
"You should only have to cry so much."
"One loss has nothing to do with another loss because that happened long ago."
"She died 5 years ago and I'm still crying. There must be something wrong with me."
"You're grieving your dead dog?"
If others haven't made these statements towards you, there's a likelihood that you've heard them in some other context. These notions manifest in our thoughts as "should" statements that distort our experience and can result in guilt, anxiety, self-loathing, or fear.
People who have difficulty with their grief often have high, unrealistic, and rigid expectations based on some of the notions. They try to force grief to conform to the pace and intensity that they desire. Grief is best treated with flexibility and openness by lowering your expectations about how well you're going to function during the holidays.
Anticipate that your grief will manifest in both predictable and unpredictable ways.
Let go of "shoulds" about your grief experience and replace them with "shades of grey" and nonjudgmentally allow yourself to have your grief experience whatever it may be.
Replace your "shoulds" with "choose" such as "I choose to be present with my grief and not judge it" "I choose to grieve the loss of my pet because they were a source of love and comfort for me" "I choose to live through my grief and not bury it" "I choose to be open to whatever way my grief manifests" "I choose to get help coping with my grief."
Be willing to create more space and flexibility in your life to grieve by setting aside time to intentionally grieve.
When waves of grief hit, decide if you need to be alone, and, if so, excuse yourself from what you're doing and find a place where you can express it, compose yourself, and return to what you were doing.
Gift Yourself Permission to Grieve
Many of us struggle with allowing ourselves to grieve. We tell ourselves that we need to be strong for others, we must be effective at work, we cannot afford to feel our grief or some other reason to block the experience of grieving. In some cases, these concerns are legitimate; however, it's also likely we don't want to experience the pain of grief.
Whenever we push away an unwanted feeling, it always returns - often more intensely. With grief, it's common to fear being overwhelmed by it and never recovering. Grief can be intensely experienced. Allowing ourselves to express it and eventually reflect on it is how we can prevent grief from taking over our life. Gifting ourselves permission to grieve is about honoring our emotional experience including the love and admiration we feel toward our loved ones. It can help to have a mantra to focus on and remind us to grieve.
"Grieving is how I show my love for ____."
"I give myself permission to grieve the loss of _____ because I want to honor my loved one."
"When I grieve, I'm releasing my feelings to prevent them from becoming toxic."
"I can use breathing techniques to express my grief in a controlled manner."
"If my grief gets too overwhelming, I can seek help."
Decide on whether grieving alone or in the company of others helps you to grieve the best. If grieving alone works, then schedule a time where you can be undisturbed. If grieving with others works, then schedule a gathering with others to remember your loved one(s) and check in about how each of you is doing.
Exercise Your Gratitude Muscle
Along with the desire to withdraw from others, grief can negatively skew our perspective by overshadowing other meaningful relationships and experiences. Gratitude is a helpful way of balancing the negative effects of grief. Gratitude can be experienced by reminding yourself of the good aspects of your life and how you have effectively managed adversity in the past.
Make it a daily, morning habit of writing down 3-5 things that you are grateful for in your life related to the loved one who passed, your health, family and friends, and the world.
Identify 3 difficult experiences in your life. What were they? What was it like for you to have each experience? How did you survive them? What do you appreciate about the efforts you took? Read over what you wrote down 2-3 times per week or as needed.
Embrace Your Feelings
Allow yourself to feel your feelings without judgment, taking care not to judge your feelings as bad or wrong. Feel your feelings but understand that your feelings are not the root cause of your grief. Learn to understand your emotions, not become afraid of them.
Research shows that just identifying our feelings helps to reduce our distress. Validate each feeling you experience. For example, just acknowledge what you are feeling such as "I am feeling sad" or "I am feeling angry." Phrasing it as "I am feeling sad" as opposed to "I'm sad" helps us to identify less with our feelings, reduce the experience of being consumed by them, and allow us to experience greater control over them.
Identify what you're needing based on your feelings. If you're feeling sad, you need to be comforted. Feeling overwhelmed? You need alone time to engage in self-care activities. Feeling lonely? You can benefit from feeling wanted and connected to others. If you're feeling angry, you could use a safe way of expressing it like journaling or expressing it in a rage room. Identify resources in your life that can meet your needs. If you don't have them, seek out a grief support group online or in your community.
Decide On A Ritual Ahead of Time
It's healthy to continue your relationship with your loved one. You can talk to them every day. You can write them letters/notes, listen to their voicemail messages, or make donations in their name. You can visit their favorite places and engage in their favorite activities. You can ask them for advice.
And you can do these things as individuals or as a family/community. Work with your family to decide how you will recognize your loved one during the holidays. Try to come to an agreement on an appropriate form of recognition such as leaving an empty seat, creating a memorial, having your loved one's favorite meal, or releasing balloons or paper lanterns. Whatever you choose, do so ahead of time and with as many people's input as possible. Decide not only what you will do and when, but who will be responsible for getting necessary supplies, reservations, etc. If others are not willing or able to assist in determining an idea, do it for yourself.
Connect With Others
It's very easy to isolate when experiencing intense feelings like the ones that comprise grief. Balance the time you spend alone with the time you spend with others. Grief can be isolating, so try to spend time with people including pets. Reach out and connect with people to do activities, help with a task, support them in their struggles, and share your struggles and progress with grieving.
Most importantly, ask for help. If you need people to listen to you, validate your experience, and offer comfort and support, then reach out. If you're cooking/hosting for the holidays, ask for help with planning or setting up, so that you can step away to grieve if necessary.
Having these interactions will help to remind you that you can have meaningful connections with others despite your loss. Social support helps with living through your grief without neglecting those other connections that give meaning to your life.
The suggestions provided today are with the intention of expanding your coping toolbox. It does not mean that you can't rely on avoiding experiencing grief sometimes. You just need to balance out your blocking efforts with efforts to be present with it.
Grief has a bad rap. It's often seen as this unwanted reaction that interferes with our life, celebrations, and gatherings. Grief is so much more than that. It's a process where we can get in touch with the meaning of connection, loss, mortality, and appreciate how fragile yet fulfilling our bonds with loved ones can be once we open our hearts to being seen, felt, and affected.