Bargaining that maybe I am thankful on the 4th Thursday of November (Or the 2nd Monday in October).

                I had one of the most interesting conversations in church that had me thinking now that the holidays are coming around again.  We talked about trying to be thankful when you have just not been feeling the holiday due to grief and loss.  

Thanksgiving is supposed to be a holiday where people (primarily families) join together for a meal.  Maybe there is a thankful prayer said or maybe there is not (based on the degree of secularism practiced).  Maybe there is a time where people act as family and relax together and be themselves as blood-relatives.   Or course there could be the noisy rehashing of the unresolved family drama that has gone on for decades.  Maybe you are reminded why you only see your family the few times a year that you do.  Regardless of the joy or dysfunction, it is a holiday that has some kind of tradition . . . some of them are just more enjoyable or miserable than others.

         Based on this blog, it is no mystery that the holidays are jaded by Grief and Loss.  Death, divorce and estrangement transform the meaning and fulfillment of traditions into a trauma memory.  What was once gratifying and warm has become negative and cold.   

            But the holiday does come around again whether it is the second Monday in October in Canada or the fourth Thursday in the United States to remind us that it is a day to be thankful.  The calendar reminds us that the world still turns regardless of the enduring grief that has colored the holidays into bad times.

            Bargaining is typically the third stage in Kubler-Ross’s five-stage model of grief. It is a period where people try to regain control of the situation after a loss.  Maybe there is a chance to reclaim what was lost.  Maybe the relationship can be restored and maybe the dead could be brought back to life because there is some delusional hope that you are just stuck in a long, bad dream.  However, in Kubler-Ross’s framework people usually enter the depression stage when they realize there is no more bargaining and the loss is real and irrevocable.  However, maybe it seems is possible to bargain that there is some reason to move on and find meaning and purpose in a holiday even if the old meaning is gone.

             Part of the bargaining is accepting that the feeling doesn’t have to be spectacular or awe-inspiring.  Thankfulness seems to recognize that there is something that is somehow and in some way good.  

            A stretch of a metaphor or a pun that may be applicable in the case of thanksgiving, is the highly anxious person trying to take a deep breath.   Anxiety and stress makes muscles tense and the first deep breath hurts because the muscles in the torso are often tight to the point of being sore or pulled.  Doing more deep breathing will eventually loosen the muscles and the pain along the sides will go away.   However, to get the process started usually takes the encouragement of a therapist or counselor because an anxious person is of a fixed mindset.

            Consider this your encouragement as negativity is like the aforementioned anxiety and the occupied mind with the negativity of grief and loss seems to have no room for being thankful or joyful.   It takes a bit of bargaining to start practicing thankful thoughts.   Maybe with a little practice, it can become a renewed habit that leads to discovery of new meaning and new fulfillment that makes the fourth Thursday in November or the second Monday in October more pleasant.

           I hope that these thoughts helped you.  Feel free to go through the blog and look at all of the previous posts if you are searching for thoughts on a certain topic or situation.