Holiday Grief Re-examined: The Reasons

I have decided to think about grief over the next few posts.  Grief is the number one detractor of the holiday season. 

There are many reasons why people grieve. This post cannot cover every reason, but it will try to cover the different categories.

To me the best definition of grief is: The natural emotional response to the loss of a cherished person, thing, or idea.

If something or someone is not cherished then we do not grieve it or the person.  For example, when I dropped the french fry on the floor of my car Wednesday night going to my brother's house for Thanksgiving, I simply threw it out and did not give it a second thought.   A second example is actor Larry Hagman's death.  Most of my Friday nights in high school in the 1980's were complete with Dallas coming on at 9pm, but when Larry Hagman died over the weekend,  I did not feel much at all because I did not personally know him.     These are non-examples of grief.

(Mind you I suspect that other people who were die-hard fans of Larry Hagman took it harder. That is their right.)

The cherished people

When it comes to grief, thoughts usually first come to the cherished people in our lives.  Loss of people means people dying, people leaving, relationships ending, friends moving, and even more so now, loved ones developing dementia and slowing becoming zombies.  

For me, my grandmother died back in May.  I would say that she is a cherished member of my family.  Now that she is gone, I still find myself having a little bit of grief, but I have prepared myself for a number of years as she had been headed towards the century mark, and she had not been a central figure in making Christmas for the better part of 16 years.  

However, it is rough for most people who have lost a family member or loved one. The holiday just is not the same without the cherished person.

The more central the cherished person was in the holiday, the harder it is.  The loved one who had "made" Christmas and who had all the family over is irreplaceable and the family is almost lost without him or her at Christmas. 

Pets are people too.

A pet is an emotional presence in a person's life.  A pet accepts you without judgment.  A pet usually greets you and seems happy to see you.  A pet lives with its master for up to decades.  People do grow emotionally close to pets.  I have seen people cry when talking about a deceased pet.   I think that it is perfectly appropriate or healthy to grieve your pet . . . it is not stupid.

The Things or Stuff

Regardless of priorities, I do believe that people will cry over losing cherished things.  Cherished things hold value and meaning.  Things cost money and if something is lost, the effort and time is lost. Cherished things hold memories and symbols of experiences and the love of people. 

Even though it is just stuff, and it seems cheesy, I think that people do grieve the loss.

Ideas  

People chase dreams.   Often the chase is a dead-end.

Typically when people chase dreams we think of the person packing up and go to Hollywood, Nashville, Broadway or some other entertainment "Mecca" to go for it.  Many people enter degree programs to go after a desired profession.  Many people take risks to open their own businesses.    People give up their dreams because they are flat out told they have no chance, or they have to give it up for other reasons.

Some people have simpler dreams of finding that soul mate or having that family.  Mr or Ms. Right does not appear or leaves.  The news of infertility ends hope of having a biological child.  Depending on the intensity of the pursuit, and how much blood, sweat and tears are put in, the resulting pain is equally intense.

It is up to you to decide if it is grief

Grief can be as individual as the person. People miss different things in different intensity levels. Some family members miss a deceased loved more than others.  Things and ideas are of different value to different people. 

If you are having emotion about something, then it could be grief.  You are the decider. 

Why does this matter?

While grief is a natural response to loss, if it is allowed to go on too long, grief gets in the way of other things, events, and relationships that matter.  Some people shut themselves off from priorities and relationships in the here and now that should get the energy spent on grief.  They lose more than just the object being grieved.

I do not leave you with easy answers as to how you should proceed, but I have some general guidelines.  If you are continuing to grieve the loss of a person, place or thing that happened within the last 12 months, then grief is considered to be normal, and this holiday is going to be a time that is a little bit (or more) difficult and you will feel like you are surviving   However, if you are continuing to grieve a person, thing, or idea that was lost more than two years ago, then seeing a counselor/therapist or going to a support group could be of benefit to help restore the holidays to more of a time of joy.

In the next several posts, I will be looking at the different stages of grief and how they show up in the holidays.
 

Merry Christmas versus Merry Consumerism

I missed writing yesterday in my transit back from Thanksgiving through the stark and austere farmlands of rural Indiana.  But my mind was very much on that this is the weekend of the year where it is all about retail shopping.

Last year I gave a critique of the economic exploitation of Christmas. As I think about this year, my thoughts did not change so much. The Christmas tradition continues to be exploited for all the profit that can be had.   It seems to me that consumerism is becoming a tradition unto itself where a day gets called "Black Friday" and its meaning is known to everyone.  

It made headlines here in the United States that some were protesting Walmart's opening on Thanksgiving Day to get the jump on Black Friday. Economic competition and continued recession make for such drastic sales techniques, and I am glad that some people are beginning to take notice.

Mind you there were some good deals that I had been tempted to get in on such as the 40-inch TV for under $200.00 (US). In terms of real economic terms that was a great value in the history of Television, however, my better nature said no . . . I did not need buy it . . . yet.

Yesterday, on the way home, we stopped by a large outlet shopping mall by the interstate highway, and drank in the atmsophere, and we went today to the nearby shopping malls.  All three places were full of people like myself looking for good deals and buying stuff. The Christmas music was blaring from store to store to store and the two youth-oriented clothing stores nearly asphyxiated mall shoppers with the strong wafting of some unknown cologne. It was not exactly inspiring but maybe a little boring as I waited in line for my Starbucks.

 

We don't want to look like jerks

Nevertheless, as I drove home today from the last shopping mall, I asked myself: what truly drives us to go to the wall in consumerism at Christmas? I am still working on this one--and I may come up with other ideas, but my current, working theory is the pursuit of happiness versus the sense of obligation and prevention of not looking like a selfish jerk . . . yes I am thinking that it is about the emotion, and it is not exactly profound.

Life in the 21^st Century United States is intense enough. Then we have this season where we try to be “merry” and “happy,” which complicates matters.

Furthermore, many of us feel responsible for the feelings of others around us (family and what not). Yes, some of them have their emotions on their sleeves, and they are likely to whine and make blaming statements if they are missed. The obligation and desire to avoid guilt pushes us out there to buy things and possibly re-gift the things we find unusable to us. Obligation and the compulsion to avoid guilt are powerful drivers.

What makes emotions all the more complicated is that hard-to-buy for person. The hard-to-buy for person

• either has everything,
•  or we don't know them,
• or they hate everything—there is no pleasing them.

Helpful Re-framing.

 

The statement “__ shopping days until Christmas” has this way of putting pressure on you to get out there and shop, or go online and look. I think that in the end, two of the greatest inventions of the past 20 years have been the gift receipt and gift card, and I highly recommend them as sanity savers.

Otherwise, I have come to find serenity in agreeing that nothing is perfect in this world, and I am not responsible for the feelings of others.    I choose to see the person as hating everything as being someone who is so-self-centered that they don't have the social grace of being thankful that someone gave them something.  I am going to do my best this holiday season and I will not to push myself to make everyone happy—it just won't happen.     

 

Considering Traditions

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. Canada had its Thanksgiving celebration
the first Monday in October.   Thanksgiving is a day where there is a
"traditional" feast of one whole day's calories.   My grandmother had some
wonderful traditional meals until she and my grandfather left wintry Iowa
for sunny Florida in 1976.

In light of my Grandmother's passing back in May, I have given thought
to the concept of Traditions over the past several months. My
grandmother was keeper of holiday traditions in the family as long as
she was able.  In a sense, I am thankful that she did keep traditions
and I miss them.

Some people hate traditions. The traditions bring back memories of
pain and abuse, and the family control freaks sounding like Tevye in
Fiddler on the Roof shouting “Tradition!”

Some people cherish traditions. The traditions remind them who they
are, where they came from, and where they belong. Traditions ground
them.

Some people grieve the loss of traditions. Their absence makes for a hole in the
middle of their hearts.

Christmas and Advent are traditions in the very sense of the word.
They are not in the Bible. However, they are reasonable traditions
that Church Fathers started in the Fourth Century AD as an alternative
to a pagan celebration.

Traditions are at the heart of holidays that also are very much sticky
subjects that bring about a confusing mess of feelings. Part of
surviving and coping through the holidays is deciding what traditions
can mean in your life.


For a starting point, I will start with the good old Webster
Dictionary. (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tradition) .
The definition is
1 a: an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought,
action, or behavior (as a religious practice or a social custom)
b: a belief or story or a body of beliefs or stories relating to the
past that are commonly accepted as historical though not verifiable
2 : the handing down of information, beliefs, and customs by word of
mouth or by example from one generation to another without written
instruction
3 : cultural continuity in social attitudes, customs, and institutions
4: characteristic manner, method, or style <in the best liberal tradition>
In terms of the holidays,

We usually take traditions given down to us and pass them on.  They mean
something to us.

Besides the gathered meaning, traditions bond us together. I have decided that
traditions as part of my family life make our relationships closer and
give us a sense of appropriate closeness or intimacy. We will enjoy
the practices we have engaged in over the past several years.

Where traditions seem to fall short is when they engender the pursuit
of delusional nostalgia of old fashioned holidays. Traditions cannot
take us back to earlier times when we did not have those problems. 
Let's face it, those  earlier times had different problems and were not
problem-free.

However, part of the grief at holidays is that some family traditions
lose value and meaning. Family changes, divorces and deaths either
evaporate the traditions or change the significance from fulfilling to
painful. Memories of the traditions also can be painful because the
traditions embody the family member who was at the heart of the
tradition.   If not for the loss of the family member, there is always
the economic necessity of job transfers and relocations that mean for
families not being able to come to be part of the tradition.

As emotional human beings, we can feel lost without the tradition.  Oh
yes, we can put on our shells of faces, but the pain will still go on
inside for today is going to happen despite the tradition or its
absence.  The pain can lead to engaging in addictive behavior,
over-eating, depression, maybe even thoughts of suicide.
In the end, theologically, the tradition is not Jesus Christ.  The
tradition is not the liberating faith that Jesus Christ came to earth
to bring.   As I seek to live this holiday season, I really seek to
live . . . not be stuck in the black, emotional cloud of expired
traditions.

I do not leave you with any particular advice today, other than
recognize you have a choice. You choose how you will feel today.  You
will choose what you will do, just as I will choose what I will do.

Special or Not, It's Another Year and Another Holiday Season

I decided to give this blog a second go for another holiday season. It
seemed like a contribution I could make to people around the world who
might be “Googling” the particular terms to help them survive and get
through the draining experience that is the holiday season.

I will aim to think globally in how I write this, but I admit that I
am going to focus on my experience and culture in the United States
since that is where I live and observe. In the United States, the
holiday season goes from the fourth Thursday in November through
January 1.
The holiday season in the United States is an intense time period. It
is an expectation of both the society and the national economy that
people as consumers will spend a lot more money than they do the rest
of the year to make it that special time.
It almost seems that the United States economy and culture kills the
golden goose. By the second week of November two radio stations in my
city of Louisville, Kentucky had converted to an all-Christmas music
format, playing Christmas music 24 hours per day. (I have heard Jingle
Bell Rock about 30 times already!) I saw Christmas merchandise
available by the third week of October. Business pushes early to make
the most of Christmas.

In the process of making the most of this time of year, I see so many people
wearing themselves out.    It makes me wonder about what we call special things.


Well isn't that special?
When something is special, it is supposed to be meaningful and it is
supposed to be joyful. It should provide some sense of fulfillment
where we hopefully feel some sense of wholeness and completeness, and
maybe happiness.
The holiday season as we know it in the United States and Canada is
almost like a bright light that shines on many of us exposes who we
are as people and what we have, but especially what we do not have.
The bright light of expectation makes us self-conscious of our family
dysfunction, our own grief and loss, and how much money we do not
have.
Speaking of money, this holiday season also sees what is essentially
an economic recession around the world where many people around the
world (including the United States) are out of work or under-employed
and do not have the money to get presents for their friends and family
members. For many there might something special on Thanksgiving and
Christmas Day, but it will not be much.
For many with the money, there will be pain that will still blight the
holidays. Maybe it is family members who just do not get along? Maybe
the blight on the holidays will be the sickness or loss of a loved one
(family, friend, or pet)? Maybe it will be a divorce? When there is a
high expectation, it does not seem to take much to wreck things.


Doomsday Worries

What also seems to muck things up for people this year is that the
Mayan Calendar was last composed through this year and allegedly ends
on December 21, 2012. Some people are worried about “doomsday.” I will
tell you that this is the only mention I will make of this because
1. I am a Christian and I believe God is in control,
2. I believe that only the God of the Bible knows when it will happen
(Mark 13:32), and
3. I think predicting when the world will end is futile and worthless,
and this blog is about imparting peace.

Well, my plan for each of my posts, I will be discussing a problem and
some options for coping. I am open to requests, if you are reading and
are looking for some ideas on a specific situation--make a comment at the
bottom of any post, and I will see what I can do. Here is hoping
that you have a meaningful and the best possible holiday season as you
survive.

The holiday season is over. If you can plan for next year . . . plan for good things.

I had plans to do two more posts, but only one came to mind, and so here it is. The holiday season is over and we have made it.  Besides the page views from the United States, it has been a thrill to have readers from Russia, Germany, Ukraine, Canada, Aruba, and France.   I hope that you got something you needed from my blog.

My target audience for this blog this holiday season is someone who is a survivor, but who is wanting to make it better.  This is a challenge in every day life but much more at the holidays.

The world of survivors is typically negative.  There is a relishing and nursing of the negative because it keeps a survivor feeling like they are in charge behind that emotional wall that they put up between themselves and the world.  However, the negative does not keep you warm nor does the negative satisfy.  The negative is insatiatible and hard. 

Control and Change

In my talk with many a survivor, they want to be in control.  They do not want to be convinced of anything and in terms of academia, they would likely be called a skeptic.  A skeptic commits to nothing except being skeptical; it is like they are always trying to balance themselves on a teeter-totter or fulcrum, and they always seem to be worn out.  However for the survivor, the skeptical position feels like the safe spot and it gives you a little power when you feel you have "defeated" the person trying to convince you otherwise (it sometimes feels like a little entertaining game in which you are gamey).

I have considered that many of the treatment-savvy people who have came through the different programs I have worked were survivors.  They know the self-help books and can spit out the coping skills, and they were just took invested in being a survivor.   Self-help materials (especially the materials in this blog) and insight-based therapy work are empty unless a person makes the change.

A change for a survivor is to come out from behind the wall and the emotional desert behind that wall and commit to one side or the other of the teeter totter.  However, they are usually going to be gamey with a therapist who suggests to them an avenue of change. Their live stinks, and it is not satisfying, but they are in control on top of the teeter-totter and they will not change unless they want to change.

So it is with any of us . . . if the way you do business tires you or is wearing you out . . . are you willing to change?  So many people hide between their emotional walls from the world.   They feel that if the real them came out people would not like them.  

A key mystery that gets missed behind the emotional wall is that everyone else has problems in this world and is not perfect.  Behind the wall you are so focused on your own pain and past that you create your own, individual world and get disconnected from emotional reality.  If you stay behind your wall  you miss that there are many people outside of your family who are safe people looking for safe people to be friends.  You don't have to be perfect if you don't expect others to be perfect.  It is liberating not to have to be on guard all the time, but only you can choose this course.

Of course, the survivor does not want to be taken for the fool, but as we go through life, everyone will be the fool in relationships. It is part of the learning process in finding good friends and in stopping merely trying to survive the world.

The Next Holiday Season

I have shared insights from my personal and professional journey in this blog and while no one can predict what will happen 11 months and three weeks from now the reality is that life is going as good as we can make it within our circumstances.

I suggest a positive plan for the next holiday season.  A positive plan is not planning for perfection, but is planning good things.  Some of my thoughts on a positive plan include:

• The holiday season will not be perfect--trying to make it perfect is only setting yourself up for disappointment.
• You are not responsible to make your family members behave and keep their mouths shut--only yours.  
• If Christmas has been a lonely time because you have no available family, get out and make some friends so you have a potential pool of people with whom you can share the holidays with.  Some of us have to create family.  A family is two or more people with enough of a past to suggest a future. 
• If you have intensely been looking for meaning and magic at Christmas, back off and simply try to make the holiday season a time of enjoyment; "the wonder" of Christmas may come and it may not come.  It is okay if it doesn't, and it does not mean there is something wrong with you if it doesn't.  
• If there was a loss of a loved one at the holidays, seek to reclaim the holidays for what they are . . .  special days that you observe or keep.  
• Plan to do something different than what you do during your regular schedule.

For further reading . . .

If you are interested in reading more, Amazon.Com has a variety of books for sale.  My favorite continues to be:  Caplan, M.  (1997).   When Holidays Are Hell!: A Guide Surviving Family Gatherings.

Thanks again for reading

Thanks for reading this blog and I hope that you thrive and not merely survive the next holiday season.   If you need to come back to this blog and read it again, it will remain in cyberspace for people to read as long as Blogger will keep it.

 

Oh No. New Years Eve--another romaticized and lonely holiday

I am planning two more entries for this blog before closing shop and while I have been talking about putting the past behind and looking to the future, it does serve to recognize that New Years Eve is another opportunity for pain and loneliness. 

How New Years Eve is Celebrated

New Years Eve seems to be more of an individual time where people are with friends and significant others than with families.  It is supposed to be a fun time where people get together to mark the changing the of the year.  The ideal is to put on tuxedos and ball gowns and throw confetti and drink champagne when the clock strikes midnight new years eve.

Some people are stand in Times Square in New York City to watch the ball drop.  When the ball drops couples will give each other a kiss to ring in the new year.  Some will propose marriage to each other. I do not find standing out in the cold for up to eight hours very interesting, but I am satisfied to watch it on TV in the comfort of my livingroom as I burrow in thinking how safe I am being off the road from all the likely drunk drivers on the road.

Some people may go to church services to ring in the new year.  For them it is a spiritual event to be with God.

Where the pain and loneliness is . . .

For many people, it will be lonely.  Maybe some had hopes that by this time they would have someone to hold and be with and the wait would be over--someone who would make them feel special and with whom they belonged.  Others have lost loved ones during the year and this is another holiday without them.   Some people have gotten separated and/or divorced and are still reeling in the numbness of the loss of the relationship.   The emotions get complicated when you are alone and you do not feel like being with anyone. 

Loneliness is when being alone hurts and we have a need to be with people.  It is complicated when someone is a survivor and has a hard time trusting.  This is something I have discussed in other blog posts.

New years eve seems to be associated with alcohol assumption.  Many people will drink themselves to the point of being drunk.  They will have poor judgment and get behind the steering wheels of their cars and they will get arrested at some police checkpoint. 

At this point, I have to recognize as I have in other posts that some people are going to have pain as they think about the hurts of the past year.   Some will simply drink themselves to sleep to escape the loneliness and pain.

Moving on.

If you are not relating to this, congratulations.  If you are relating to the material I am writing tonight, I would encourage you to try and focus on something else tonight and work to stop focusing on pain. They call this 'thought stopping.'  Maybe think about what you want from the new year (see my previous blog). Consider watching the dropping of the ball on TV and then go to bed.  

It is another holiday that will end and tomorrow will be a new day.  I wish I had something better to say but hold on, consider reading some of the previous posts of this blog if you are looking for coping skills.

See you next year--or better yet tomorrow.  

Pressing forward and putting the past behind us

The google stats function does not exactly tell me how many repeat visitors following me, but I am rehashing the subject of dealing with the past since we are dealing with a point in time where we look back and we look ahead and try to balance the two.  Forgive me if this repeats too much since I have talked about regrets and past trauma, but since this is now the new year weekend I had a new thought.

We all have a history and we often find ourselves facing with it as it sometimes keeps us from moving forward.  We can feel paralyzed by the past whether it is the critical comments of parents and other influential people or our own mistakes.   On the other hand, some people have had so much success that they do not feel that they can keep it up.   The product is a lack of confidence that keeps us from moving forward and feeling fulfilled and satisfied for what we are doing.

Legitimate life long consequences.

There are some situations where there will be life-long consequences.  There will be some scars on reputations and bodies due to poor judgment and bad decisions and otherwise bad circumstances. 

These scars may legitimately prevent some opportunities from happening such as getting certain jobs due to a felony.  Felonies may also keep individuals from getting admitted to schools and getting professional licensure in multiple professions.

Some relationships get changed forever through divorce and extra-marital affairs.  Some people lose statuses as trustees and deacons in churches.  Ministers who studied extra to follow the call of God get fired and have to leave the ministry due to divorce and extra-marital affairs.  I have met one minister who was genuinely repentant and one who rationalized his behavior by calling the church's values "archaic."   Nevertheless, infidelity and divorce do often shake and shatter worlds.

In these cases a person faces new limits and boundaries that cut off desired opportunities.  The limits and boundaries are both an emotional and physical stress that make people want to hide.  From what I can tell, people have grief and loss processes that they must go through to put the past behind and look for ways to move on.

Emotional blocks

Some of the trauma we have experience by abusive parents and abusive bosses may put a block on our beliefs about what we can do and not do.   Many adults still hold onto childhood beliefs without questioning their validity.

One powerful block on confidence is being a victim of a violent crime that include robbery and rape.  Trauma from violence has this way of shaking previously confident adults.   Yes, a once-confident adult is reduced to a person cowering in fear and paranoia over whether it is going to happen again.


Thinking about what could have been can be a dead end

Some people have done some really bad things and they will likely think about what they did every day, but the world keeps turning. While I do not have precise answers, there can be opportunity in the future.  The question is whether or now you will let yourself look in that direction. 

I have seen that the act of comparing what could have been with what is has been a common human activity.  I think that we all do it.  Doing it for a long time takes energy away from moving ahead.  

Along these lines, guessing what your high school and college classmates might be thinking and doing, and comparing their success with yours can also be a waste.  Unless you are actually stuck around a bunch of them and they are talkative sorts, then it is legitimate.  However the majority of people from our past have moved on and are living their own lives--it is highly unlikely they are dwelling on your faults.

Often we paralyze ourselves when we put ourselves in competition with others. The ridiculous part is that we work up a big, imaginary picture in our heads of what they are doing versus that we will never verify and can never, ever know.

The world moves on. People forget what happened and are busy with their own business and worries.  However, we make ourselves feel as if our problems are the leading story on the national network news every night and that everyone is glued to the screen sitting on edge to hear every detail.  

Get up again

When we fall, it is a matter of getting up again.  Some people will be able to get up and run.  However, I think most people when they get up again, they take one slow, step at a time.  Going slower is more more normal. 

Getting up to pursue opportunity may be first a matter of convincing yourself that it is what you are going to do.  Then you may have to slowly knock on doors to determine what your reality is.

We cannot get up the same way to the same opportunities--it just does not happen.  However, I think that the future, including the new year offers that can be positive, fulfilling and rewarding.  It just depends on whether we are looking for them or staring backwards and failing to see what is coming.