Living with grief… it gets a bit spicier around the festive period.
Whether you’re widowed, mourning the loss of a parent, sibling, child, friend, colleague, pet, job, lifestyle, relationship or anything else, grief weighs a little heavier in the holiday season.
The empty chair, the absence of a special gift, the lack of someone to ‘cheers’, the expectation to always be ‘on’ and happy and merry… it’s hard and if it’s not the grief itself that’s making us tired, it’s the expectation we put on ourself to mask our grief so not to enhance the discomfort of others.
Living with grief is hard… every…single…day…of…the…year… but we can get really good at nurturing that grief, embracing it, growing with it and flourishing—opening ourselves up to incredible love and achievements. That’s a just a little harder to around Christmas time.
I get it… it’s been my truth since 1994—my first Christmas without my Dad. My Dad died in the previous April and by December it felt like any need I may have had for grief support (which I never received) in the way I needed it had been completely dismissed. So I suppressed all those hard emotions… because that’s what we do isn’t it? Minimise our own pain to make other people feel more comfortable.
I’ve had decades of practise and my reality of 1994 was reignited since 2018 after my husband Simon died one month before the Christmas festivities were due to begin. BUT… and this was a huge gamechanger… that year I had the most amazing friends around me who gave me permission to be sad and cry all whilst being connected and celebrating. It was a hard Christmas day due to the rollercoaster of emotions… but it was good to feel that my grief was honoured, allowed and expected and I was able to still have fun.
As a widow, I acknowledge that emotions can feel heavier at Christmas time so I make space for them. Here’s 3 of my tips for how you can make space for your grief this Christmas time.
- Have a date with your grief! Make time for your grief by setting aside some designated time to have some controlled crying or quietness. Now this doesn’t mean sitting with your real-life sadness but rather using other fictional or non-fictional stories as an aid. I know there are certain movies (especially cheesy Hallmark ones!), TV shows (usually USA medical dramas but also a Neflix show called ‘from Scratch’), books or storylines that will resonate with me and make me cry. So I watch them purposefully in a way to release those trapped emotions, do some ugly crying and release exactly what needs to be released. It’s really freeing.
- Include the loved one you have lost. I know, sounds kind of weird but bring something into your celebrations that they would love or get involved in if they were still here – you can make it a new tradition. My husband Simon had the greatest repertoire of crap jokes known to man so every year we have the ‘Kerwin Crackers’ full of jokes he used to tell. It brings hilarity and acts as a conversation starter for funny stories and memories of Simon, which is joyous.
- Make time for you. It is so easy to think we have to make Christmas amazing for everyone else, but in the process of doing that it’s very easy to forget about ourselves and our needs. Schedule some non-negotiable time for you to do something YOU love. This one isn’t about releasing emotions or honouring the person or thing you’re grieving. This one is about increasing all YOUR happiness hormones and spending time doing something YOU love for YOU… because YOU deserve it.
If you are learning to live with your grief then check out my carefully curated resources over at www.theperformexperience.com – click on the learning platform and find the ‘Living with Grief’ course…
… and if you’re looking to move forwards and flourish with your grief, check out the ‘Growing with Grief’ course…
Much Love
Tabby x
Image: @xomeganashley on Instagram
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