Grief and Loss: When the Holiday Season isn’t filled with Gratitude and Joy

We know it’s coming.  Every sense of our being is activated.  We feel the cool air.  We smell the pumpkin, apple spice, and cranberry.  We see homes decorated and store aisles filled with turkeys and cornucopias (unless they’ve already clearanced out Thanksgiving?!), trees, lights, and all things jolly.

The holiday season is here, and with it comes the reminders of what has changed and the memories of what and who we’ve lost this last year, and years before.  The memories stir up the pain, sadness, anger, and longing we’ve tried to avoid or thought we already dealt with.  Why do feelings have to be so hard, so heavy?

Loss is more than the death of someone we care about.  We experience loss and grief when:    

relationships end or change, 

we are betrayed, 

we lose a job or change jobs, 

we say “no” to something we want to do, but aren’t able to do because of our priorities, 

we couldn’t take the trip we had planned, 

we can’t afford a trip we deserve or would like to take, 

our child is born with a disability or has medical complications, 

we can’t have a child, 

our family/friends/employer doesn’t accept us for who we are, 

we, or someone we care about, receive a medical diagnosis.  

And the list goes on, because we are human and because grief and loss experiences happen to all of us.  

The magnitude of our loss ripples through time.  There is no healthy vacation from the reality of our emotions, even during the holiday season.  The weight of our grief makes it hard to breathe, hard to see clearly, hard to think rationally.  And with so many people around us, or on TV, or on social media, in the “holiday spirit,” we can start feeling the pressure to “be grateful,” “be happy,” “move on.”  Others can feel uncomfortable with tough emotions and try to fix it, make it better (fix us, make us better).  We can be swallowed by denial or depression, avoiding the truth and depth of our feelings.  We don’t give ourselves the same grace and kindness we might extend to someone else.  And we can’t process, or continue to process, what we don’t let ourselves acknowledge and feel.

If you’re caught in the web of comparison, gently remind yourself that grief is not a competition.  One person’s experience or loss will never be the same as someone else’s because each person’s history, life events, and relationships are different.  Minimizing our feelings (or someone else’s feelings) is a form of avoidance.  Your feelings are real.  

If you’re finding yourself trying to talk yourself out of your feelings showing up, trying to shove your feelings back down, or trying to avoid your feelings through sleep, substances, or disconnection, kindly remind yourself that pain and uncertainty are part of the human experience.  We don’t have to live in the pain forever (that’s exhausting and debilitating), but we can’t avoid it forever, either (it finds a way to show up, usually in the form of physiological symptoms, anxiety, anger, running on autopilot, mentally checking out, etc.).

Visualize a path.  We don’t get to where we are going if we’re camped out in one spot, stagnant or refusing to acknowledge what is and the journey we are on.  We need movement.  We need connection.  We need others who can make space for us as we process the grief we carry.  We need to allow ourselves the space to safely feel what is already there, so that as we feel the pain, sadness, anger, and longing, we also create space for ourselves to experience gratitude and joy.  

Let’s honor our feelings, each other’s feelings.  Let’s build connection, and foster healing and growth, by understanding that we can’t feel grateful or joyful, without also creating space to feel the feelings that come with grief and loss.