How to Gracefully Survive Holiday Season Traumas

Three years ago during the holiday season I observed my mother's dying process. Just after Christmas, she started her process and ended it ten minutes before the new year began.

If you have suffered a life-changing experience during the holiday season and find this time of year difficult to manage, this article is for you.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Open mind
• Open heart
• Knowledge of your own grieving process
• Self-Acceptance
• Patience

1. Know that everyone grieves at their own pace, in their own way. Do not allow anyone to diminish your sense of loss, or tell you what or how long you should feel the way you do.

2. Try to stay active. Garden, walk, dance. Being active will help lift your mood and clear your mind. You will be able to think about your loss with less pain.

3. Remember the good as often as you can. Following a loss, be it of a job or a loved one, it is usually difficult to think positively. In time, with conscious effort, remembering the good about the situation or person will help ease the pain of the loss. Think about what you learned that you can use in another situation. Remember the fun times, the good that was shared.
   
   If you have trouble finding the humor or fun in the lost relationship, focus on affirming your self, your spirit, your goodness, your self-worth, your healing.

4. If, during any time of holiday celebrating, you do not feel moved to participate in the merry-making, do not waste your energies feeling guilty. Do not allow yourself to be persuaded, cajoled, coerced, or required to participate if you genuinely do not feel the spirit. In your own time, you will make the decision to celebrate or not. Trust your process.

Tips & Warnings

• Expect best outcomes.
• Trust your process.
• Seek pleasurable company when you are ready. Spend time with people who will listen to you when you need to talk about your loss, but who will encourage you to find your way forward in your own time.
• Remember, often change is good.
• Stay away from those who are not supportive of your process. People who want to shut you down or tell you to get over it are not people with whom you should spend much time until you feel no anxiety in their presence.