Coping With Grief During The Holidays
For some of us, the holidays are a time of merriment, cheer, and family; a time to gather together with loved ones, exchange love and presents, and enjoy the comforts of family, food, and festivities. For others of us, the holidays are a time of mourning, grief, and remembrance. The loss of a loved one is often much more intense and near to us during the holidays. If you are among those who experience grief during the holiday season, please, do not feel that you are alone. There are many people who go through varying levels of grief as the holidays draw near. Within this blog post, we’ll explore ways to embrace our grief and find ways to cope with the difficult emotions it brings.
Address Holiday Grief
An important aspect when it comes to grief is allowing time and space for feelings (a therapy blog that talks about feelings—shocker!). Grief can bring about big feelings and it’s crucial that we have ways to express those. Feelings such as sadness, anxiety, anger, and confusion that make up the emotion we call grief can take up a lot of space in our mind and weigh heavy on our body. There are times that these emotions can become so overwhelming that it seems like the only choice is to stuff them down and not think about them. While this may work for a while, in the long run it can cause emotions and mental health symptoms to become worse and can possibly even lead to physical symptoms as well.
How do you let out big feelings? How do you cope when things feel overwhelming? There’s no right or wrong way to grieve someone and the coping skills we use are no different. Always, we hope that the coping skills we choose to use help to bring us healing and move us towards growth and happiness. This may look like connecting with family and friends, engaging in activities you enjoy, or joining a support group. Expressing difficult and powerful emotions may take the form of journaling, baking, prayer, exercise, or many other activities.
Strengthen Your Coping Skills
When it comes to finding coping skills, what I find myself telling my clients is this: find something that’s important and impactful to you, something that you can practice on a daily basis (if not more), something that allows for feelings to flow out and into what you are doing, and something that allows those feelings to be worked with. If you’re not religious, then prayer probably isn’t going to be important or impactful to you. Going out and getting a drink with friends is a great way to relax, connect, and take your mind off of things, but is it something that you can do every day? Working extra hours may keep you from thinking about your grief and help you feel productive, but does this allow you to feel and work with those important feelings? Journaling is an excellent way to gain perspective and find catharsis, and how are you working with those feelings once they’re down on paper?
As for myself, I find a daily yoga and exercise practice to be effective for moving through difficult feelings. Exercise has always been an important part of my life, it’s something I’ve found I can schedule every day, and the emotions I’m working through can be brought up and then (literally) exercised, allowing me to surrender those feelings to the movements and gain better self-awareness of where they live in my body.
Handling Holiday Traditions
Traditions are something that we often think about during the holiday season. For my family and me, it’s our Christmas dinner around the family table, presents, and watching Christmas Vacation together. When loved ones pass away, it can be difficult to carry out the old traditions that they were a part of. I’ve had countless friends and clients who have told me stories about how they have had to change up their long-held traditions because an essential person was no longer with them to complete their role. A childhood friend of mine, upon losing their grandmother, talked to me about how they no longer had apple pie at their Christmas dinner because it was what she was famous for (they now served pecan pie instead). Changing or altering a tradition is often an effective way to roll with the changes of someone’s passing. Sometimes the changes are big (one client, who had gone to their uncle’s house since childhood was now required to change the venue of their Hanukkah party), and sometimes the changes are small; my family often jokes about what my grandfather would say about the gifts we received as a way of keeping his memory alive.
When thinking about the tradition in question, it can be helpful to ask yourself, “is this something we want to keep, change, or discard?” It may be that you want to keep the tradition the way it is—not out of a sense of denial, but rather of remembrance. Sometimes it’s that change is inevitable—perhaps a family member always read The Night Before Christmas and now they are no longer present—and sometimes (as in the example of my friend and their grandmother’s apple pie) it’s best to discard the tradition as it’s too painful or complex to carry on.
Keep open the option of creating new traditions, perhaps one’s that celebrate this particular person. A client once told me that they put out a ‘memory box’ along with their holiday decorations and family members could go about putting in memories of the person, things they wished they could share with them, or other sentiments of the same sort. During their holiday gathering, they would all gather around and read aloud what they had put into the memory box. It’s tradition in my family, during Christmas dinner, for a family member to say grace, remarking on what we are grateful for, reminiscing on the past year, and what we—as a family—are looking forward to in the year ahead. Traditionally, it’s begun with a line similar to “Thank you for our family and friends”. We have now updated it to, “Thank you for our family and friends, both those with us and those who have passed on”. Even this slight change in our tradition helps to keep those we love and have lost alive in our hearts.
Utilizing Support Groups And Individual Therapy
When it comes to big emotions—grief especially—connection becomes hugely important; this is where support groups come in. Many support groups see an increase in attendance during the holidays and that’s because grief and stress are more easily dealt with as part of a group. While nothing can fill the void caused by someone’s passing, a grief support group can help carry the burden of loss. Various studies and institutions show the value of support groups. Groups help individuals find like-minded connections, reduce isolation, increase positive peer interaction, help to normalize feelings, experiences, and situations, provide education and new coping skills, and provide a safe space to express, digest, and work through difficult feelings with community support.
Attending a support group can be a scary thing though. Walking into a room with a bunch of people you don’t know and opening up about something that is terribly difficult is not an easy task. Remember that the first time is always the hardest. It can be helpful to email or call the group leader before hand and explain your anxieties about joining. I often find that the response I receive from others tells me a lot about if I will enjoy the group. Doing your research is important also. Good questions to ask are: who leads the group and what experience/credentialing do they have? How long has the group been meeting for? Is this a closed group where you are with the same people each time or is it an open group where members come and go? Is this a talking group where you go to open up about your emotions in a safe space or does the group have a focus for each meeting with teachings, or is it a bit of both? How does the group welcome and incorporate new members? These questions can help you decide if a particular group is right for you.
Along with support groups, therapy can be an effective tool in working to process and move through grief. Much like support groups, therapy can give you space and coping skills that allow you to process grief and sadness, in a setting that is private and individually catered to you. For some, this feels less vulnerable and public than a support group and so choose to do therapy first. Others feel that private therapy is more intense and so choose to utilize support groups as a stepping-stone towards therapy. Neither one is more right than the other, it’s important to focus on what feels right for you. The main difference between personal therapy and a support group is the customization that comes with therapy. The therapist is focused on treating you and only you: accomplishing your goals, working through complex emotions, and concentrating on your healing and happiness. Many therapists, such as marriage and family therapists, are also trained in seeing spouses and family members—including children—that may come to therapy with an individual, moving the whole family towards healing. Much like a support group, going to therapy can be scary at first and doing your research is important; like a support group though, therapy is proven to be effective at resolving grief and bringing about inner peace.
I hope that this blog was helpful to you and that you are able to utilize what it offers to move you towards peace and healing this holiday season. For more life tips to reference, please visit Healing House’s Honesty Hour Blog today.
Meet The Author
Hi there! I’m Derek Whitney; a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist based in Wichita, Kansas. My clients appreciate my authenticity, my optimism, and overall growth-oriented attitude. From helping individuals discover their inner happiness to guiding families to a healthy household, I am experienced in bringing hope and healing to those that walk through my door. Together, we will work to achieve a life full of joy, love, and contentment.