'The more we repress, the louder it gets': How to cope and acknowledge grief during the holidays

Psychologist Lisa Rowbottom joined CTV Morning Live’s Kent Morrison for a few healthy ideas to help people cope with grief during the holiday season.

 

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

 

Kent Morrison: The holidays are a complicated time, and grief can make them more difficult. Does it seem at this time of the year that these feelings of grief can come up even if someone isn't lost recently?

Lisa Rowbottom: Any time of year when there's sort of traditional gatherings of people, or even birthdays, that we really start to notice that the person is absent. The bigger part they played in whatever event is happening, the more we're going to notice they're not there.

Kent: As these feelings come up and they will, what can we do?

Lisa: I think the first thing to do is not be shocked that you're experiencing them. It's very normal. As much as people don't like feeling it, grief is a very good thing. It actually honours how close of a relationship you had with that person.

It's not something that you want to try and pretend and just make everybody happy for Christmas. Then I think that you can create a window for yourself during which you can explore this type of grief.

It doesn't have to overrun the entirety of your holiday, especially if you're the only one who's experienced the loss. You can narrow down a window of time, perhaps that you set aside to just spend some time allowing that grief to be there.

If it shows up at any other time during the event, you can remind yourself, “OK, I set aside five to six o'clock when lunch is over to sit down and let myself experience that I'm missing this person.”

Kent: If you feel overwhelmed in a moment, do you have any tools for that when it does come out of nowhere?

Lisa: I think the number one tool always sounds like the most straightforward one. If you're trying to calm an emotional state, take control of your breath. Just nice, slow breathing, and you may have to step out for a little bit.

I'm sure if you're at a family gathering or an event with others, somebody would cover stirring the gravy so you could just step outside and have a few moments.

The more we try to repress emotion, the louder it gets for us. Being able to step out and honour them like, “You know what? I am sad right now, and I am missing this person,” and that's OK.

Kent: Now, it can get complicated when you're not the only one who has this loss. Maybe the entire family is feeling it, and you're looking for support. How do you navigate that, knowing that others are grieving as well?

Lisa: The first thing is going into the event, knowing it's going to feel different.

Obviously you're not going to sit around and cry for all of Christmas, even though you may feel like you want to. But just knowing that this isn't going to feel the same, and we don't have to make it feel the same.

Doing something a little bit different by choice for that Christmas, changing it up intentionally, so it doesn't feel like things have been taken out of your control and made different, whether you wanted them to be or not.

Introducing even a small new tradition, something along those lines, allowing space for difference, and, if possible, not ignoring the fact that you're all grieving.

Some type of small remembrance of the person is fine like a picture. For some people, candles are very meaningful. Or for others, they'll do a holiday drink in remembrance of the person.

You're acknowledging and letting it be OK that nobody's feeling like they did last Christmas.

Kent: For more on Lisa and for more help, you can go to Sojourn Psychology at sojo.ca.