Hope at the Edges of Holiday Grief

For a significant portion of my life, I dreaded the holidays, but not so anymore. Still, this time of year often has me holding the layers of my experience: what was, what is, and what will be. While I look expectantly towards the holidays this year, I can’t help but remember a younger version of me secretly crying in my car between family visits. I don’t recall when exactly I started feeling a dread for the holidays. There wasn’t a particular year where it went from joyous to ominous. In fact, I don’t have many memories of childhood holidays. What I do remember are the heavy feelings, and the way those feelings showed up with greater intensity each year as I grew up. 

I think for many complex trauma survivors the holidays are incredibly complicated and layered, with so much expectation for joy and love yet burdened with stress and apprehension. For some, like me, a sense of dread. Through the course of my healing, I’ve gotten curious, “What have I dreaded?” And from within heard answers like: the inevitable let down, the disappointment, the lack-luster feelings, the over-stimulation, the unspoken relational tension, the not-good-enoughness, the too-muchness, the sadness, the grief. And looming inside of it all - the harshness and heaviness of a relentless inner critic.

In my experience, the holidays have acted like a magnifying glass to what was an already ever-present, unnamed loss and grief. A loss and grief that was so deep and wide that for many years it was impossible to face. A grief that expressed its loss in the form of wishes and exhaustions:

• I wish I looked forward to the holidays.

• I’m tired of trying so hard.

• I wish the holidays felt warm and inviting.

• I’m tired of feeling so sad and depressed.

• I wish the holidays were filled with abundance and gratitude.

• I’m tired of feeling disappointed.

• I wish I felt wanted and appreciated around the holidays.

• I’m tired of feeling so lonely.

• I wish I looked forward to going home for the holidays.

• I’m tired of not feeling good enough.

• I wish my relationships weren’t so strained during the holidays.

• I’m tired of feeling too much.

• I wish I had a place I belonged during the holidays.

• What would you add?

Inside each and every wish and exhaustion were longings, yearnings, so sharp it was difficult to bear. Something inside me still wished, still hoped, that a warm and beautiful holiday could happen, while another something inside of me was tired of trying and feeling weighed down. To manage the conflict between my hope and grief, my inner critic would grow louder, become even more harsh, shaming me into a numbness of going through the motions.

• You should be grateful.

• Why can’t you just be happy?

• You’re bringing everyone else down.

• You’re such a burden.

• Why isn’t anything good enough for you?

• Why must you make such a big deal about everything?

• You’re so difficult.

Francis Weller, in The Wild Edges of Sorrow, names why this tug of war between wishing and exhaustion, between grief and hope is so difficult: “These are the places within us that have been wrapped in shame and banished to the farthest shores of our lives…These neglected pieces of soul live in utter despair…The proper response to any loss is grief, but we cannot grieve for something that we feel is outside the circle of worth.”

That is our predicament - we chronically sense the presence of sorrow, but we are unable to truly grieve, because we feel in our body that this piece of who we are is unworthy of grief.”

Inner critics deem grief unworthy. The longing, the wishes, the exhaustions aren’t worth our time, attention, and care. To the critic, grief is an endless place of sadness, where we burden others and cease functioning. Grief will end us. Grief is an enemy. Grief is a monster. On a deeper level, our inner critics sever us from grieving and hopeful parts of ourselves because of fear, the fear of welcoming in a part of us that has been so deeply rejected by whom and what we love.

And so, for years, I buried my wishes, my exhaustion, my loss, my disappointment, my grief.

Unprocessed emotion, especially unfelt grief, is energetically heavy. Not just mentally, but physically. It weighs us down, slowing our movements, dimming our light. The paradox of grief is when we don’t allow ourselves to grieve, the more dead we feel on the inside. And conversely, when we allow ourselves to grieve, the more we can access our aliveness.

“It was through the dark waters of grief that I came to touch my unlived life…There is some strange intimacy between grief and aliveness, some sacred exchange between what seems unbearable and what is most exquisitely alive.”

One of the most essential skills we need to develop in our apprenticeship is our ability to stay present in our adult selves when grief arises.”

(Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief)

How can we stay present in our adult selves when grief arises? We can begin by understanding the true nature of grief.

Imagine a pipe with free-flowing water. The water is our emotions - our joy, our anger, our contentment, our sadness, our peace, our fear, our inspiration, our devastation, our hope, our grief. Now imagine that pipe gradually being plugged up, so gradually it is hard to even notice it is happening. Slowly layers are forming that block the flow of the water, till eventually there is little to no room for the water to flow. Pressure begins to build behind the blockage. The pressure pushes against the pipe, water continues to be backed up. Often the blockage has gone on for so long, we don’t even recognize it anymore. This is how years of unprocessed emotion, specifically grief, felt to my mind and body.

That emotional blockage is born from how we learned to manage our grief: avoidance, suppression, dissociation, denial, minimization, shame, and criticism. When we heal, we learn a new way to meet our grief.

Where my inner critic envisions grief as a monster, I’ve come to see grief as an emotional plumber. Grief plumbs. Grief explores and experiences the depths of our inner experience. Grief unclogs emotional pipes. Grief is wise, ancient, and steady. Grief is my ally. Grief invites me to name what I have lost and healthy anger allows me to honor it as worthy of time, attention, and care. To grieve in a way that heals, in a way that unclogs the emotional drain, requires a sense of worthiness. To believe that what has been lost matters, because it mattered to you. It held meaning for you. And for this reason, you validate it. You hold it tenderly and compassionately as you mourn.

Last night, I stayed up and watched the last grainy live stream of Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour, crying and reminiscing. I woke up that morning unexpectedly weepy. When I went to share the latest post from Taylor Nation about the tour ending with Jeff, I could barely read it aloud without getting choked up. I felt very silly for how emotional I was feeling - it was just a tour - but it really isn’t silly at all. The Eras Tour has been intertwined with many of my life events over the past two years, some of which were very difficult. Taylor’s music and lyrics have resonated with me through so many layers of my healing and helped me feel less alone. Attending The Eras Tour with my daughter was one of the most beautiful experiences I’ve had with her. It was such a gift to witness her pure joy and excitement. I have also enjoyed watching the collective joy and connection the tour has brought to others. Maybe it is a bit silly to be grieving the end of the tour, but there is a lot of meaning in this experience and it matters to me.

Your grief matters too. Your wishes and exhaustions. Your longings and losses. Both what feels big and what feels small. It matters because it means something important to you.

Grief is not a single event. Grief is the relationship we have with what we have lost, what we are losing, and what we will lose. Grief isn’t a one and done moment in time. Grief is being in process with our humanity, with our mortality, with change, with what ebbs and flows, with what comes and goes, with vulnerability.

As I’ve gotten to know grief, the way it works, the way it shows up, the way it helps me heal, I’ve discovered that often at the edges of grief, at the fringes of the layers of loss, is hope. I’ve found possibility. I’ve found aliveness.

“Through our ability to acknowledge the layers of loss, we can truly discover our capacity to respond, to protect, and to restore what has been damaged.”

Grieving the holidays has transformed my wishes and longings into invitations and opportunities to create what I most desired. Grief also freed up the energy to put those desires into actions.

• What would help me look forward to the holidays?

• What would make the holidays warm and inviting?

• For what do I feel gratitude? Where am I experiencing abundance?

• Who helps me feel wanted during the holidays?

• Who helps me feel appreciated during the holidays?

• How can I make my home a place I want to be during the holidays?

• How would I like to authentically show up for the holidays?

• What would help me feel loved over the holidays?

• How can I nourish my relationships over the holidays?

• How can I create a sense of belonging over the holidays? Who helps me feel that I belong?

Today, I genuinely look forward to what I have created. It isn’t perfect, and it isn’t grief-free. Grief is here because grief is what allowed me to create it. Grief and hope are partners. If you’re grieving this holiday season, I invite you to see your grief, not as a monster coming to ruin your experience, but rather as an ally calling you to heal and come alive.

How can you gently approach your grief?

I invite you to name one or two of your grief wishes and exhaustions. Consider why they matter to you. What meaning do they hold? As you listen, try using this phrase, "Tell me more", until you land in the true meaning of your loss and grief. And then (this is probably the most difficult part) practice validating and compassionately holding the loss and grief. Try using phrases like, "That is real." or "That makes sense." or "I can see why I'd be grieving that loss." or "That loss does matter."

If you're curious about a deeper understanding of grief and a model for how to approach it in a healing way, then I'd invite you to consider my Befriending Your Body Video Guide. One way to describe this guide is a slow and gentle walk towards developing a healing relationship with emotion and grief. This guide is a model for building compassionate containers to process the layers of our grief somatically. We work with inner protectors and critics to shift the way we approach ourselves and our inner experience, bringing compassion and support to what we are feeling.

Right now, Befriending Your Body is 30% off until December 23rd using code SUPPORT30.

My digital downloadable workbooks are also 30% off until December 23rd using code SUPPORT30.