Holiday Grief

Wow what a year right? I never thought that in my years in the mental health profession that I would be experiencing so much holiday grief. I am always educating my clients on how to deal with their grief in a healthy way and ways to get through their grief without being in a place of isolation, depression, and most importantly silence. Today I have come to share some encouragement as I am able to identify with being a griever and  a person that helps with grief. It's amazing how all the things that you learned about the area of grief is hard to apply when you are in the process of grief. Now before I go into my encouragement let me just educate you on grief. Grief happens everyday in your life. If you lose your keys and they are not where you thought you put them when you are ready for them you go through the stages of grief which are: Denial, Barging, Anger,Depression, Acceptance. This is not a step by step process you can go from denial straight into acceptance skipping the others then back to barging.  But how does losing keys even come close to grief. Well let me explain... Say you were looking for your keys and they are not where you put them, because you are convince that they should be there you are in denial that they could be any where else. After you realize they are not where you put them you go searching in different places analyzing where they could be this is your barging stage. After looking and searching for what seems to be hours you start entering into your anger state.  Once you get over your anger you now start to be in a depression moment thinking you will never find your keys again, then it happens either you stumble upon them or someone finds them for you and when this happen you enter your acceptance stage. Get it?!? Good now let's apply that same concept to the lost of a love one or thing (i.e. job, relationship, self-confidence, etc.) Say you had a love one that was sick and you knew their was no bouncing back. Well it seems to you that they are getting better and show signs of improvement,  then they become sick again and this time worst,  because you have been here before and they have gotten better you become in Denial about them being too sick to come back. After this  the medical staff tells you that they only have a certain time to live you then start to bargain. Now this can be within yourself, family, or  Daddy. After this you go into the anger state because you see that Daddy is not healing the way you think he should and death is the result of their illness. After realizing the death of your love one you then become depressed from their absence. After time in depression you realize that there are things that you can do to preserve their legacy and life and you do those things, which pushes you into acceptance. But a year after their death you find yourself depressed on their death date, and you now feel the steps of grief beginning.  So here is my encouragement to you when you feel the steps of grief coming through:

1. Speak up... Silence will manifest itself physically if you do not deal with it. You find yourself sick with something the doctor can't cure or figure out what's wrong.
2. Laugh... This is easier said than done, but is necessary to your healing process, The Bible says that laughter does the heart good like medicine. So take you a dose
3. Connect with people that know your heart. Their are people in your circle that know that the holidays are hard for you and they are willing and ready to be their for you.
4. Be open. It goes with one, but this goes a little deeper, this means that you have to want the help that is being offered to you. You are not a burden, or even getting on their nerves they know what you need, they are just waiting on you to ask for it.
5. Have a memorial... This can be done with or without family. You can light a candle, decorate a tree or wreath, do a particular act that the person was known for, share pictures of great moments, or you can go celebrate that persons. But whatever you do, do not isolate yourself.
6. Ask for help... this can be the only time you don't have it together and that is fine, but know there are people willing to help you through this tough time, but they don't want to push the help, they just waiting on your cue to move.

I hope these things help and I hope you understand that holiday grief is ok, if you handle it in a healthy way.