Hey, everybody. I just hope you're all doing well. And can you believe it's December? I'm still in shock that it's already December, the last month of the year. I'm really looking forward to 2024. And I'm surprised at how quickly 2023 has gone by. And personally, there's been a lot of transformation happening on my end this year, during 2023.
And I've been able to learn so much, grow so much, heal which is just kind of an ongoing thing, I think as being a human. And I'm ready to really go out with a bang this year, 2023, my birthday is December 31st. So we're gonna, we're definitely gonna go out with a bang and I'm ready to close the chapter.
You know what I mean? Of course, I'm going to enjoy this month of December and I'm ready to start looking towards the next year and, and towards, just the rebirth process that we go through as humans with each new year.
And so,, I'm looking forward to that. And I feel great about this month. I feel great about how this month is going to go for me and for my family and everything we're experiencing and I want others. To feel the same way, or at least, you know, they have the option to feel the same way.
And so this is why I'm speaking to what I'm speaking to on this episode, because there's so much that we're all holding on to right now. There's a lot of grief that we're feeling like collectively, there's just so much happening with respect to humanity. Different things going on around the world.
So much to feel so much to grieve, and I think it can be really hard to develop more capacity to feel all the fields and to recognize where it doesn't make sense to try to feel all the fields, right? So, yeah. Are you feeling it too? Are you feeling pressure this month? If so, where is it coming from?
Is it coming from some potential grief that needs to be processed or, , different rules that you've set for yourself or decided for how you need to be or how busy you need to be this month? Just pay attention. December is a high risk month as far as burnout's concerned, which blows my mind because I feel like it should be a month of like, Rest, relaxation, and joy.
So how did it get turned into a month where so many women get burnt out? And so just pay attention to, uh, yourself, your needs and where you need to say no. And, if you can try to honor that wherever it makes sense for you. Okay. Now, also with everything going on in the world and just typical Christmas holidays hum drum, how are you holding space to grieve and support those around you, let alone yourselves?
And are you even thinking about yourself and what you're experiencing this year? Are you noticing? Intensity in your body and letting it move through, or are you pushing it down and saying busy? Are you finding yourself being a little bit frozen when it comes to getting stuff done? The holiday season can be a challenging time for many people, and there are varied reasons why individuals may experience grief during this period.
And so on this call today, I'm going to give examples of. Where, , we might have grief to process as humans and why it's really normal for it to come up this time of year. I'm going to talk about the importance of processing grief, and I'm going to read you a beautiful poem about grief that I love. I'm also going to speak to some truths about grief as well.
And at the end of this podcast, I have a little surprise announcement for those who want a little more support this month with respect to moving any of those, uh, grief clouds or, bigger emotions through. Okay. So stay tuned for that.
It's free. It's going to be amazing. And I want to talk about it now, but I'm going to hold it. I'm going to rein it in. We'll wait till the end of the podcast. Okay. So. There are a lot of different reasons that we may have grief to process and what I always tell my clients is that anytime your perception of reality doesn't meet your reality when there's not a match, you have permission to grieve.
I was just telling some clients. This week or last week, even if it's the shade of paint , you know, let's say that you invested in your room getting painted or you invested a lot of time and painting your room and the shade that it dries doesn't quite match what you wanted. It's okay to grieve that.
Anytime your expectations don't meet your reality, you have permission to grieve and let that move through. So I just want to be really clear that it can be as seemingly little as something like that, or things that are seemingly big. And I think, with my little announcement that I'm doing at the end of the call, I'm going to speak more to myths about grief.
One thing that I really want you all to know is that there aren't hierarchies. Or we don't need to for anything. We agree, but doesn't need to be a socially acceptable form, if that makes sense. So it's not just deaths and big loss. It can be little losses or chronic series of little losses and things like that.
And before I get into some examples, I want you to know that it's important to recognize that everyone's experience is unique and individuals may experience a combination of what I'm about to share. Grieving during the holidays, not during the holidays, is a normal response to various life challenges that we go through.
And making sure that we have support from friends, family, professionals is essential and can be really supportive in navigating some of these tougher emotions. Okay.
So, here are some examples of things that we might grieve. Here's a very normal, common one that, you know, it's like a, I would say a society approved thing to grieve might be the loss of a loved one, right? The absence of a family member or friend, especially if they pass away during the holiday season, or it's your first holiday without them there. That can be cause for grief.
Of course.
Relationship changes. I think this is a big one. Divorce or the end of a significant relationship can bring feelings of sadness and loneliness during the holidays, especially if there are shared memories associated with this time of year.
Grieving the loss of what you thought would be, uh, sharing holidays.
You know, maybe you used to share all holidays with your children and now that's been split up. Okay. There can be grief over that. Of course.
Let's say that, You've been doing a lot of healing work and, setting necessary boundaries of family members and just feeling more loss of relationship during the holidays and maybe feeling more alone, totally normal. Okay, so relationship changes can be just about anything where just, you know, maybe it used to be fun to go home and see a certain sibling and it isn't for some reason because you're both, , growing and evolving in different ways,
okay.
Health challenges. Dealing with personal health challenges or issues or the illness of a loved one can be emotionally challenging, and sometimes the holidays may serve as a reminder of difficulties faced. When my partner was non functioning due to his mental illness and anxiety, I, Did struggle during the holidays.
I did struggle because I felt like a lot of the responsibility that you'd normally share with your partner was up to me. , so I, I took all of that on. , and so even though it wasn't me going through that. It did make holidays challenging for a little bit for a little while.
Okay.
Financial difficulties can create stress during the holidays, making it challenging to participate in traditional celebrations or provide gifts you want for loved ones.
So grieving where you thought you might be with respect to your career, or if you're an entrepreneur, like where you thought your business might be versus where it actually is. If that's being highlighted for you this month, permission to grieve. Okay. Another one that I think we don't pay a ton of attention to, but that a lot of us experience is simply unfulfilled expectations.
Okay, so grieving the gap between your expectations. the reality of your circumstances, unrealized hopes and dreams can lead to a sense of loss. And this can happen during the holidays, not during the holidays, of course, but sometimes it gets a little amplified. Okay, so it might be what you imagine motherhood to be versus what it is, what you envisioned your marriage, your life, your partnership to be versus what is, it could be, you know, you looking back at times where you didn't speak up for yourself, but you wish you would have. It could be life lost due to varied setbacks that you may have had in the past, with respect to weight, money, marriage, recovering from.
Limiting mental illness and different things like that. It could be anything, but just wherever you feel that life loss because of that course, you can grieve that. Okay. Isolation and loneliness. Some people may be estranged from their families or have limited support during the holidays, maybe year round, but it just feels a little amplified during the holidays, which can lead to feeling alone and a little bit isolated
at a time of year where social connections are highly emphasized. One that I'm seeing a lot of this year with clients is, changes in traditions and religious beliefs and how that can evoke a sense of grief because you know, any significant change in holiday traditions, such as, you know, maybe it's moving to a new location, can evoke a sense of loss or nostalgia for the way things used to be.
Or if you're changing your religious beliefs. Or, you know, questioning your religion or spirituality in some way, then a lot of traditions that you grew up doing that have always been nostalgic and lovely. And you may have really wonderful memories around, you may feel a little bit of a trigger or a little bit of loss because maybe you're being more intentional about which traditions to hold on to and which ones to shift around and, and, you know, that consciousness can evoke a little bit of loss. Okay. Some of you may be feeling loss because your children have grown up, right? Parents may feel a sense of loss when their kids move out or aren't able to join them for holidays for varied reasons.
Of course. Let yourself grieve, okay? Just a few more.
Personal struggles and acute experiences. Yes. Individuals dealing with personal struggles of any sort, such as mental health or addiction may find the holiday season particularly challenging. Okay. Some people may feel seasonal depression this time of year, or anxiety for varied reasons. And it's okay to feel grief around that as well.
And then the last one I just want to mention, I mean, I feel like I could just go on and on, but the last one I want to mention for today is just where we are worldwide, you know, wars that are going on and things like that. Does that impact humanity? Yes. Does that impact us? Yes. We are so much more connected than.
I think many of us know. These ideas of, you know, biomechanics and, and separation and isolation, come with more of like Western teachings. And so I just don't think that we can compartmentalize. The way that we want to, but of course, that doesn't mean we need to, overexpose ourselves as well, but I think, just accepting that, like, maybe it does feel a little heavier this year because of stuff happening in the world and letting that be and grieving that as needed so that you can also experience gratitude and gratefulness.
What comes with holding space for that as well. Okay. So those are a bunch of different examples for how or why we might have some grief to process. And I'm just going to talk to you briefly about why we process grief. Processing grief is so important for several reasons. Um, it plays a very crucial role in our emotional and psychological wellbeing.
And so I'm going to speak to you about some different reasons why it's really, really important. Important to process grief. Okay. So processing grief can support our emotional health. We want to allow ourselves to experience and express the range of emotions that accompany grief, like sadness, anger, guilt, and even relief.
When we suppress these emotions, it can have negative consequences for our mental health and our physical health, right? I would say resisting grieving can take a toll on your physical health. Chronic stress associated with unresolved grief can contribute to issues such as your sleep, your immune function and increased susceptibility to illness. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay.
Processing your grief can support you in preventing complicated grief. There is something called persistent complex bereavement disorder. And what that is, is it's characterized by an enduring and intense form of mourning that significantly impairs individuals ability to function and move forward after a loss.
Okay, so it can impair your functioning, it can lead to isolation and withdrawal. You may feel persistent emotional pain, and you can develop maladaptive coping mechanisms, , due to that, like, becoming a little bit of a workaholic to avoid it, substance abuse or something like that. And so There's a difference between prolonged grief, which I think a lot of us feel and experience that when you allow yourself to feel grief \ it may still come and it may still feel big and we learn how to ride those waves as they come.
This is a little bit different than. That type of grief. Okay. It's important to process grief so that we can, you know, I think it helps support us with respect to developing the intimate relationships that we want. Okay. It allows us to find ways to maintain healthy connection with others. And I think a lot of that is because we're maintaining connection with ourselves, right? So when we're allowing grief clouds to move through us, then we are more connected to ourselves. And In that it supports us in developing relationships with people who were meant to be developing relationships with.
Okay. And you know, I would never ask. Asked to have new things to grieve. That's not my personality. But what I will say is when I do allow myself to grieve, it supports me in gaining insights into myself and my values and my priorities, and my own self reflection, and it helps me kind of reevaluate.
My life, my life goals can also help me see clearly if there are any boundaries to set, which can be helpful as well.
So as I learned to process grief for me, it really supports me and creating and developing more resilience because grief is such a natural part of life. I do think it's preventative, right? I think it's preventative in developing, any mental health issues such as depression or anxiety and, processing grief can help mitigate the risk of those types of complications.
A big reason why I'm speaking to grief this month is because I think it is a month where people tend to become more aware of it. And what I want to support you in is living into your grief in such a way that it doesn't affect your functionality this month. So it doesn't affect how you want to experience the holidays or, how you can or how you're able to experience the holidays because sometimes when we resist the grief that needs to be processed, it can affect it.
And impair how we function, how we behave throughout the day. Right? I might be paralyzed in my grief because I'm not allowing it to move through, right? Or I may be completely kind of just cut off from myself. ' that resistance to the grief is large enough that I have to dissociate from myself to, to not feel anything.
And then if I'm not feeling my grief, that's also simultaneously not opening me up to feel and sense the gratitude that I want to experience. So. That's a huge reason why I'm speaking to grief this month, so that wherever you are in your life, you know, unfortunately we can't just choose when the grief comes like I'll process my grief quarterly, which is not how it is.
So is it possible to hold space for grief and gratitude during the holiday seasons or, you know, throughout the year? Yes, absolutely. Grief and gratitude to some of you, they may sound like very contrasting emotions. Which they are, but they can also be very interconnected and understanding and navigating the emotions that you're experiencing can support you with living into a more nuanced life, which is more what I think our reality actually is.
I think we are all nuanced and living in a very nuanced life on our own little intersectional point on the spectrum of, you know, wherever we are. And so I think sometimes the work is more about accepting the reality of our nuance, then even opening up to like, ah, can we really be in this either?
Or can we really be in this? I would almost say this "and" space where I can feel grief and gratitude, right? I can't feel grief or gratitude. If I'm feeling grief, I can't be feeling grateful at the same time. So really deepening and expanding these ideas that we can hold two things in our hands at the same time or hold two things in our hand to experience.
Okay. To grieve is to love. I think grief is present where love is or has been grief to me is healing in motion. And so if you're allowing yourself to grieve in a, in a healthy way, healing is absolutely happening and it's such a good release to support you in receiving what it is that you're looking for.
Grief can help you clear the clouds. I sometimes I say. With my clients, I talk about clearing clouds. And so when we clear grief clouds, it supports us in having more clarity around maybe our pain points, what's going, what's actually going well in our lives, what we know, what is true to us.
And different things like that. So it can really support us in being very alive in our lived experience and even having what I call the best worst days in the same day, because that's what I've noticed when I allow myself to just really be alive and present and allow myself to feel and process deep stuff.
I can also, you know, feel the other side of the coin, the joy of something else, and it can all happen in the same day. It can all happen within moments of each other. When you go around your grief, there's space to see what else there is in your life. So it's not about necessarily absolving or getting rid of grief.
Maybe it's about us growing around our grief so that we're not so consumed by it, that we can't see anything else. Okay, this can support us in Seeing what other good things are happening in our lives. We can feel into this amazing nuance.
We can feel alive during the holidays and ride those grief waves when they come. Okay. So that when the grief waves come, you have more of a sense of what they are and you can ride them versus resist them for days, weeks, months, or years. Okay.
So I'm going to read you a grief poem, a poem on grief that I love so much. And then I'm going to talk to you about some of the free offers I have this month to support you.
The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them. How much sorrow can I hold? That's how much gratitude I can give. If I carry only grief, I'll bend towards cynicism and despair. If I have only gratitude, I'll become saccharin and won't develop much compassion for other people's suffering.
Grief keeps the heart fluid and soft, which helps make compassion possible. Oof. Oof. I love that poem so much and I hope it is resonant with you, if it's meant to be resonant with you. And with that, I really, really, really want to warmly and lovingly invite you to my grief and gratitude during the holidays pop up Facebook group.
the big thing , is we're going to talk about grief and why we process it, how it can help us, how it can help you specifically. We'll speak to myths about grief, , and different ways to safely process your own grief.
Okay. So if you have something that you've been noticing, and it just keeps sticking around, we're going to do some live calls where you can. Practice shifting things around a little bit, , which will be pretty amazing, pretty impressive. And I'm going to do everything I can to create a supportive environment where we're all reminding ourselves of safety, empowerment, and choice in the work that we're doing.
And so if there's something you would love to release during this holiday season so that you can feel into the gratitude or the joy or the wonder or the awe. of the holidays or being with your family, come be a part of this Facebook group. You're going to have free live calls.
You're also going to learn examples of what you can say to yourself to validate your grief, what you can say to others to validate them in their grief. Also, you're going to learn some invalidating phrases. You'll get a workbook that has some of these examples of invalidating phrases for people with respect to their grief.
So we will do live calls so that you can actively participate and work through some of your grief live, but then we'll also have calls where we spend a little time integrating as well. , so that we can look forward to the remainder of our holiday season with more openness and gratitude and appreciation for
what is. For this thing called life. And if you are a life coach, there are going to be a few bonus calls for you around, why it matters to assess and validate grief from a coaching perspective, and also, you know, different things like distinguishing grief from a trauma response, and other stuff like that.
So please come join. I just would love to get to know more of you live. I love this podcast and I feel so connected to everybody listening and I would love to get to know some more of you live. So come and join this group, it's going to be amazing.
And we're here to all support each other during this holiday season. Looking forward to seeing you and you can join the Facebook group by 📍 checking out the show notes below or on my Instagram channel. Thank you so much.
