It’s been a day, a week, a month, or a year, and the grief you feel is uneven and prickly, and arrives without permission, coming at you in undefined ways. The rollercoaster ride, unsettling to body and mind, causes an unrelenting and haunting experience. Though the experience is palpable for its host, it’s one that often has no words. No place to be. And, unlike most pain points, it can’t be seen. The grief effect is nonlinear. Ann Hood, author of Comfort: A Journey Through Grief states it best:
“Grief is not linear. People kept telling me that once this happened or that passed, everything would be better. Some people gave me one year to grieve. They saw grief as a straight line, with a beginning, middle, and end. But it is not linear. It is disjointed.”
Grief doesn’t rest, or take breaks, or give you breaks. Instead, it’s like a tease that bullies and masterfully hurts you, in ways you might never have imagined. It hurts even more situationally, especially at holiday gatherings, where your loved one may have accompanied you, been by your side, and somehow defined some of the roles you held as part of your persona.
You walk with the hunger to have the one you mourn by your side, at the table, at the gathering, laughing and eating and singing, and dreaming of the New Year. Yet, you carry within you the silent seat in your heart where your beloved lived. It hurts. It’s lonely. It feels never-ending. This is where your relationship to who you lost, the grief you currently feel, and the journey of how it will live within you begins.
In a world that often promises closure as part of the grief relief paradigm—those neat, tidy endings where everything is explained and resolved—it can be jarring to face the reality that some goodbyes don’t come with the expected closure. Whether it’s the death of a loved one, a broken relationship, or an unresolved loss, the absence of closure can leave a sense of being emotionally unmoored and adrift. The idea of closure, while comforting in its simplicity, is a myth:
Recently, a young, but seasoned CNN reporter, talking with others about a tragic loss, said that closure was just a made-up media word. His criticism of this over-used term was most refreshing.
When closure is taken out of the expected end game in the grief experience, you gain access to holding onto yourself, in the tender and harsh moments of grief, especially during the holidays.
The 5 Tools
1. Sacred Space in the Storm: The holidays thrust us into a dance with absence. Create a deliberate space where you and your grief meet on your terms—pull up a chair that holds the emptiness, light a candle, and concentrate on the flicker of the flame to be an invitation for a good memory. These are sacred moments when the masks can fall away, and you have created a container for the grief you feel. This isn’t just ritual; it’s survival choreography, allowing the pain to pulse and transform as you choose to be with it rather than trying to run from it.
2. The Power of No: Let boundaries become your sanctuary. The “no” you speak is a “yes” to your journey, a recognition that grief requires its own time and space to breathe. The basics of boundaries start with an internal question: Do I want to do, or go, or respond? Your grief demands your ownership of your sovereignty. This is your time to claim your right to step back.
3. Stillness as Medicine: In the cacophony of forced cheer, silence for some of you can become one of your best teachers. Stillness is not the same for everyone. Be curious about your own stillness, when the world stops spinning. It could be found in a sunrise or sunset, in the space between breaths, or just taking in a long breath to a count of 8 and letting it go slowly and deliberately.
4. The Web of Connection: Grief can be a great isolator, because what you feel no one else experiences in exactly the same way. It is an alone time as you get to know the dance with loss. But, it is a partnership. And there is a circle of witnesses—those who’ve walked similar paths, who understand the language of absence. Be aware of your own personality type as you find others who can hold space for your story, your rage, your regrets. Are you an extrovert, an ambivert, or an introvert?
5. Dancing With Joy: The paradox of grief: joy and sorrow are dance partners, not enemies. When laughter breaks through your tears, when a cherished tradition warms your heart—these aren’t betrayals of your loss. The memories and your response to them are proof of what existed. Grief initially consumes the psyche and with time it transforms the choices you make, how you partner with what you’ve lost, and the potential to use it to grow.
The five tools aren’t sequential. Think of them as a way to gather your own unique responses to the choreography of your grief. There will be days when you’ll need the power of “no” more than stillness; other days, creating a sacred space for your grief will come naturally to you. There might be moments of unexpected joy. The work of grief is as individual as your fingerprint. No one feels it the way you do. It demands resilience to stay present with it rather than pushing it down while allowing the voice within to summon your internal wisdom to distinguish between what you need and what others want from you. That’s about limit setting.
Allow all of your emotions to have a home within you—the tears, the laughter, the rage, and the remembering.
Never be so polite, you forget your power
Never wield such power, you forget to be polite–”Marjorie” by Taylor Swift
Trust the dance. Trust yourself. And, most importantly, trust that there is no “right” way to move with grief—only your way.