A Therapist’s Reflections on Grief at the Holidays
Grief has been a theme coming up this month, not surprisingly. This year has given us all the added the layer of being far apart and isolated. It can be challenging to cope with grief in a typical holiday season but 2020 is a whole new level up that we didn’t want to unlock.
Lately I’ve found myself remembering my grandma who embodied the holidays with her red and white plaid apron, crafts galore and the warmest hugs. I remember how she infused the holidays with love, traditions and a lot of sugar of course! As I write this I may or may not be eating gingerbread cookies…
She’s been gone now for a decade but it feels fresh this year and the memories more vivid. For me it’s a tolerable grief ten years later; a reminder that she lives on through me in my own family traditions and there is warmth there when I close my eyes.
I do appreciate how now when I grieve it’s not overwhelming, I can tearfully smile as the memories pop up.
Sometimes memories sneak out of my eyes and roll down my cheeks
The holidays can be unbearable for those grieving no matter how much time has passed and sadly there isn’t a fast forward button for anyone to skip grief. Holidays naturally bring up memories of loved ones lost because it’s a time centered on family togetherness, the absence of what or who is lost is felt distinctly.
The holidays also often involve joy and those grieving may feel less able to be supported when their feelings are a stark contrast to happiness. And if they do celebrate there can come waves of guilt or shame for being happy even briefly while grieving.
Grief is hard to encapsulate because it’s unique, there are many types of grief and there is no one path to coping with it and it is not linear (more like a scribble!).
Grief can happen from concrete events that involve loss such as miscarriage, divorce, a job ending, and death of a loved one and from less clearly defined things called ambiguous loss.
We collectively have experienced a variety of types of grief for ten months now and mourned things that we hoped could happen but did not. For some that means grieving this year is dulled or they feel numb; they’ve spent all their available emotional energy already that there isn’t much left.
We likely will all have some delayed grief once the world reopens; when our bodies feel safe and able to process those feelings. So much has changed and parts will be irreversibly. See my survival mode post here.
My wish for you is to be gentle with yourself whether you feel you are drowning in grief or feeling frozen and unable to grieve yet. If you’re in need of tips about coping with grief there is a wonderful robust list of 64 ideas that I recommend checking out here.
Do I need therapy for grief?
Grief is a normal part of life and is not a medical or mental health condition. However, it can blend into things like anxiety and depression as well as exacerbate existing issues and just be plain hard to bear. And for some there is trauma attached on top of the grief and they may have reoccuring distressing dreams or feel on edge a lot.
Therapy can offer support, connection and coping strategies. Seeing a professional is a lovely act of self-care and is tailored to you and your needs. A therapist can help you deal with not just the loss itself but how to re-configure your life after, release guilt and shame, reduce anxiety, manage setbacks that come up and help you build a support system.
Therapy won’t solve every problem related to your grief of course and it also doesn’t bypass the pain or make you forget it about your loss. It may take time to find the right person and the type that fits for you since there are a lot of options for grief work (talk or process based therapy, art or music therapy, group therapy, equine therapy and more).
In therapy often I sit with people in grief of all shapes, help them name the losses and give space for those feelings to come however they need to. My job in those moments is both simple sounding and some of the most deep and meaningful work I can imagine.
Creating a safe emotional container for intense emotions is something I’m honored to do for someone. There is no right or wrong way to mourn and however you grieve is valid.
I hope if you’ve been struggling with grief, mourning or loss you know you’re not alone. NAMI has a resource list is available here.
Leave a comment with your thoughts or memories related to grief and the holidays if you’d like.
Counseling is a great way to sort emotions, especially during the holidays where they can indeed become intensified.
People do go alot and a need of help and counselling can help that particular person.Especially a year like this alot has happened. Awesome article you have here.
Such an important post, so many people have had the unexpected loss of their loved ones, jobs and businesses.
This is beautifully stated, “Sometimes memories sneak out of my eyes and roll down my cheeks”. Grief especially for long past events can certainly seem to sneak up on you in the moment. Memory can be tied to a song, a smell, or taste and surprise you. Thank you for sharing on this topic.
So many memories tied to smells for me and those can be the strongest sometimes.
I used to be an Administrator of a mental health center and the holidays were our busiest time. It is so important to work through your feelings!
It is a busy time of year for mental health workers for so many reasons.
We suddenly lost our family tradition 10 years ago right before Christmas because my grandparents were in the hospital. They passed not long after Christmas and for years we dealt with the grief at the holidays. A year ago we had a miscarriage right before the holidays and again struggled with grief. Thank you for this post1 Therapy and learning to cope and manage new traditions at this time of year has been our main focus now.
Sending you some love! I hope the new traditions can help ease some pain from loss around the holidays.
You touch on some great points here. For those that are grieving, the holidays can be a very stressful and sad time.
Nathalia | NathaliaFit – Fitness & Wellness Blog
A very useful blog. It is always a very difficult period and the guidance here is very useful.
When memories creep up I like to remind myself how lucky I am to have made them and shared time with the person. I like to spend a day during the holidays to remember myself and along with family, fond memories and cherished moments with those now gone. They really live on through memory ♥️
They really do live on through us. I also love food memories and getting to make recipes passed down.