"Griefmas" & Griefy Holidays: Your Survival Guide for When Life Doesn't Feel Merry or Bright

In this episode of the Grief and Light podcast, host Nina Rodriguez discusses the complexities of experiencing grief during the holiday season. She emphasizes the normalization of grief, especially during times that are typically associated with joy and celebration. Nina shares various coping strategies, the importance of acknowledging one's feelings, and the healing power of creating new traditions, reclaiming a sense of agency, communicating our needs, and setting boundaries.

She encourages listeners to lean into their grief and joy, and to give themselves permission to pivot, as needed. The episode serves as a resource for those navigating the difficult emotions that arise during the holidays.

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Click here to watch on YouTube
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Takeaways

• Grief can feel heavier during the holidays.
• It's normal to feel a contrast between grief and holiday joy.
• Acknowledge and honor your grief; don't push it down.
• You have the power to create new traditions.
• Setting boundaries is crucial for emotional well-being.
• It's okay to not feel merry and bright during the holidays.
• Lean into moments of joy when they arise.
• Grief needs to be witnessed, not fixed.
• Give yourself permission to pivot and change plans.
• Self-care practices are essential during this time.

Referenced in Episode:
Holiday Scripts for Grievers: What to say when the season doesn't feel merry or bright


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Chapters

• 0:00 Preview & Intro song
• 0:37 Introduction & Grounding Practice
• 2:15 Normalizing grief
• 3:59 Holiday Grief Triggers
• 6:11 Your Survival Guide to Navigate the Holidays
• 14:30 Leaning into Sadness
• 16:47 Leaning into Joy
• 17:35 The 5 Ps of Self Care for Grievers
• 20:42 Permission to Pivot
• 23:44 "Padding" Technique
• 28:50 Hope for the Holidays
• 31:48 Resources for Grievers

Transcript

griefandlight (00:00.148)
lean into that. Those moments of joy, don't fight them either. Don't fight your grief and don't fight your joy. Whenever you feel joyful, lean into that fully because that joy will carry you through the hard times. And whenever you feel griefy, lean into that because that is an honest answer and an honest embodiment of the lived experience of loss. You just lost your loved one. Now what?

Welcome to the grief and life podcast where we explore this new reality through grief colored lenses. Openly, authentically, I'm your host, Nina Rodriguez. Let's get started. Hello everybody and welcome back to the grief and light podcast. If we haven't met, my name is Nina Rodriguez and I am your host. And today we're going to be talking grief and the holidays, grief mess, if you will, and all the things that come with that, all the layers that we have to navigate the

mental, emotional gymnastics that grievers have to endure on top of all the other things that grief brings along with it. So how do you do it? What are some tips and tricks? And I have a lot to share today, so join along for the ride. If you clicked on this episode, my guess is you're feeling some type of way about the holidays or you're worried or you're just looking for resources to help you move forward. And that's exactly what we're going to do. But first things first, I always say grief.

is many things, but one of the things it is, it's an invitation to slow down. So that we shall do. We're gonna take a deep breath. Join me in doing so. Take a moment to scan your body from head to toe.

See where you're holding some tension and unclench your jaw, relax your shoulders, sit up straight and take a moment to slow down and anchor into this moment. The world is going by so quickly sometimes. It feels like it's just zooming by us and it is really, really good practice to just take whatever time is accessible to you to slow down intentionally, even if it's a small moment.

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Do that, take another deep breath.

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All right, I'll start by normalizing that grief can feel more difficult during the holidays. So it's not in your head. There's nothing wrong with you. Grief really does feel heavier during the holidays or some type of anniversary when there's a meaningful date around the corner. If you just lost your person in years one, two, or three, it feels like our world stopped and the world kept going. Everybody else kept going and

that alone is something very difficult to reconcile. So I do want to normalize that. Also, you're at the season where it's supposed to be the expectation is that it's supposed to be merry and bright and joyful and happy. The contrast between what we feel as grievers and the lived experience of loss is so directly opposite to the expectation of what the holidays quote unquote should be, right? So that amplifies that

gap between how we feel and how we're quote unquote supposed to feel, right? And so being expected to feel cheery about the worst moment in our lives is really not fair, but that's why I created this podcast and that's why I offer resources to help you navigate this time. It all begins by normalizing that what you're feeling is absolutely normal in the context of loss. It doesn't feel cheery, it doesn't have to be because we just lost our person, our pet, our loved one.

or are experiencing a life altering circumstance that by nature makes us feel separate and different from society, from everybody else around us. On top of that, we are expected to be cheery and merry about it. And it just doesn't work that way. that being said, what are some common grief triggers during the holidays? Sometimes we feel uneasy and bothered and we don't even know why exactly, we can't pinpoint it. For example, your person had some traditions that

they were the ones to carry them out. And you've always went to your sister's house for the holidays or your mom's house or your grandma's house or auntie's house, whoever it was. And that person is no longer there. So you're asking yourself, do we follow through with the traditions this year? It doesn't even feel right. I don't even have the energy. It's a very confusing time to know or not what to do or not do. And so one, honoring that.

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Second thing is social gatherings. Like we're already so overstimulated. Grief can be extremely draining and to be expected to put on our bright outfits and smile in front of everybody and be partaking in so many events and dinners and conversations and all the things when sometimes we don't even know how we feel and we're exhausted can be extremely taxing on our energy. So there's pressure to be merry, to be joyful when the reality is we feel completely opposite of that.

The other thing is the freaking holiday songs could be such triggers, you know, it's even the beat, the music, the decorations when we go outside, the lights, all the things again, super stimulating and at odds with the experience of grief. I'm going to give you tools to help you go ahead and try them out and see how they work for you. At the end of the day, it's about honoring our truth, honoring the lived experience of loss, our person and our energy.

And sometimes we feel so pressured not to be quote unquote Debbie Downers or negative Nancy's or the person that sticks out because they are so sad at a time where we're quote unquote supposed to be happy. And I use quotes because in life, nothing is supposed to be anything. Life just is. It's impartial to our feelings. It just exists. Things happen. Life, life's. And here we are. We give meaning.

to what we think is important in the context of our lived experience. That being said, some ways to help you navigate the holidays. So number one, acknowledge and honor your grief, name it, say it out loud. I feel sad, I am grieving, I really miss my person or pets, or I am really sad that I got divorced this year and my identity has taken a hit. Who I thought I was, I am no longer, we're closing out the year.

as a totally different person than the one that started this year, let's say. So just acknowledge that, that is heavy. That is tough to navigate. That is difficult. Our sense of identity takes hit after hit in grief. And that includes losing a person because who we are and who we were in relation to that person completely changes. So for example, in my experience, I lost my only sibling. Am I still a sister? Years after I could say yes, but it just looks very different and that still hurts that.

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void, their absence is a presence that fills the space but nobody can see that. Especially if your loss or your grief happened either earlier this year or some years ago, people forget that these feelings are intensified just because it's not something visible, it's not a physical scar that you can see and people can be reminded of, yeah, this person went through something very challenging.

And even then, sometimes people with physical scars, their pain goes unnoticed as well. But emotional ones are even trickier because they're invisible to everybody else. They're so visible and present to us, but they're so invisible to everybody else. So there's this expectation of we miss the old you and we want you back and we want to have a good time and have good memories and they would have wanted you to be happy, of course, blah, blah, blah.

right, all the things that we hear. And yet they probably, they meaning our person or pet, they probably would have wanted to be here too. And we miss them. So all these things can be true at once. And at the same time, we've changed and that's okay. That's completely okay. So number one is to acknowledge it, to name it, to honor how you feel. Don't deny it, don't push it down, don't make it go quiet. That's why it...

stirs in the background, that's why it lingers, that's why it's always just there feeling icky because we feel like we have to push it down. So name it, say it out loud, whatever it is that you're feeling. And if you don't know what you're feeling, just say that, I have no idea what I'm feeling, I'm all kinds of things, but say that out loud and be honest with yourself about it. You could also create new traditions. I mentioned earlier, the loss of tradition can feel extra heavy during the holidays. So just remind yourself that you have agency in being able to create new traditions.

If you want to incorporate their tradition, that's perfectly fine. If you don't feel like you're capable of doing that this year or it doesn't feel right this year, then that's totally fine. Don't assign a sense of permanency to that because sometimes we feel like, this what all of the holidays are going to look like for the rest of my life? And so I suggest shortening the timeline horizon. I've spoken about this in previous episodes. There are so many unknowns and unpredictable moments between now and the future that

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is yet to be. For many of us, we didn't have losing our person in our bingo cards, yet it happened. So in that same spirit of life sometimes throws us a wild card. And the wild card can be painful one like the loss of a loved one, but it has the opposite side as well. could be beautiful and surprise us in amazing ways. So leave room for that wild card. In doing so, you leave room for what needs to unfold on its own timing.

So what do I mean by that? Shortening the timeline horizon. Instead of saying, this what every holiday is going to look like? What is next year going to look like? I can't believe my life is going to look like this forever. Instead of using that F word, the forever word, try saying, what does it look like for me right now? What can I notice in this moment?

How can I bring myself back to this moment? And I know it's painful, but it's the moment that we have accessible to us right now. Tomorrow will worry about itself. We will cross those bridges when we get there. Shortening that timeline horizon kind of helps us regain our energy and it helps us focus on getting through the next immediate step, then the next immediate step. And with time, those steps get longer. You go in strides, you may be able to move.

and have a little bit more visibility. But for now, for today, if it feels overwhelming, come back to the very present moment. Don't even worry about tomorrow. Just get through today. So with loss, we also ironically get this sense of agency because things are no longer what they used to be. So in a weird way, we have a sense of agency to rewrite our story on our own terms moving forward.

What holidays traditions would you like to implement if any? What would you like to leave behind? You actually have some leeway into how you navigate the holidays. Another tool is to set boundaries. This is so important because your boundaries have shifted. In loss, boundaries shift. What we used to be able to tolerate, we're often no longer able to tolerate. What we want usually changes after loss. For example, somebody who loved

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parties and gatherings may feel very quiet. Grief makes us really quiet and they may want a quiet Christmas or they may want a smaller gathering with their family. Whatever that looks like to you, honor that. You don't have to participate in everything and in order to communicate that, because communicating is really important in grief, it's really hard to do because sometimes we don't even know what we need. But when we do, or if you at least know what you don't need,

It's really important for you to communicate that and how other people respond to that is none of your business. I know that sounds harsh, but it really isn't. Your job is to speak up for yourself, be honest about your needs and how other people receive that is on them. This can look like setting boundaries and sometimes we don't know how to do that, especially with friends and family. So I've created a holiday scripts for Griebers. It's a post that I shared on social media and I will link it in the show notes. It's brief.

grips, if you will, to help you navigate these conversations in the context of it's my first holiday without them. I don't know how I'm going to respond. I'm actually concerned about how I'm going to feel for Christmas. So I ask for grace as I figure out how to navigate this holiday without my person. It's also being able to say no, it's perfectly okay to say no. I remember the first holiday after we lost my brothers, you passed in September.

We had the holidays immediately after that. So when December rolled around, November rolled around, we were in no mood to celebrate. I felt pressure to make it joyful for my parents. My parents felt pressure to make it joyful for me. Our extended family felt pressure to make it joyful. We said, you know what, what if we just skip out this year? What if we just order Chinese food? I think we did because it was the only thing that was available. I think it was like Piafcheng's or something. And we ordered takeout. We ate. I think we watched

a movie or TV, like a holiday something, and everybody fell asleep by like 9.30 or 10. And that sounds really sad, but that was honest. It was an honest response to the fact that we were fricking sad. My brother was missing. Nobody had energy to be joyful about anything. I don't even think we put up a Christmas tree. Honestly, it's a bit of a blur still, but I just remember relief in

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being honest about how we were feeling. And sometimes it just takes that. We feel this pressure to make it precious and special and that's okay. But it's not a normal year, especially if it's your first holiday without your person. It's not a normal year. Pretending like it is or forcing something that doesn't feel natural is in a way adding to the suffering. So think about that. It adds to the suffering. I've been hosting

one-on-ones and grief groups and something that comes up is, yeah, but I don't want my mom to be sad or I don't want my husband to be sad or I don't want my children to be sad. As if sadness was like a disease. Sadness is the appropriate response to loss and life altering change, especially if it's your first year, especially during the acute phases of grief. So why fight it? It's almost like...

you are trying to stop a rain shower, a downpour. For what? Let it downpour. The sun will come out again, it really will. But for now, just seek shelter, stay cozy, do whatever you need to do to stay out of the rain and make it as comfortable as possible. Be honest with yourself and each other. Allow people to have their sadness and their anger and their frustration as a response to loss, because it's honest and it's a normal response to loss.

Think about it, it's not fair and it's okay to be honest about that. It's okay to allow ourselves and each other to feel the sadness. It's not going to look that way every single year. I promise you that it will shift. You might feel sadness for years to come, that's okay, but it won't look the same every year. I invite you to trust that process. And again, don't worry about how it's going to look in the future. Just focus in the now this year.

in this moment how to get through that. And if in this year and in this moment, the most honest thing you could do for yourself is to opt out, to stay home, to order Chinese takeout, whatever that looks like to you, then by all means do it, consider this your permission to do so. And if you need help navigating those conversations, check out the link in the show notes for the scripts that I offer. Many people have given me feedback that it's been helpful to them, so hopefully it's helpful to you as well.

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it's okay not to be okay, especially if you're missing somebody you love deeply or a pet you love deeply or you're grieving a life circumstance, a terminal diagnosis, a difficult diagnosis, job loss or any kind of loss that has altered your life and your sense of identity. It's okay to not feel merry and bright about it. Now,

If you do feel joyful, this is the other side of it, right? If for whatever reason this holiday, you actually feel joyful, even after loss, and you do want to partake in traditions, and you do want to go out and celebrate, and you do want to feel merry again and joyful again, by all means, lean into that. Lean into that. Those moments of joy, don't fight them either.

Don't fight your grief and don't fight your joy. Whenever you feel joyful, lean into that fully because that joy will carry you through the hard times. And whenever you feel griefy, lean into that because that is an honest answer and an honest embodiment of the lived experience of loss. Whatever you're experiencing in that moment, don't fight it, lean into it. That's the invitation. Some other things you could do is your usual self-care practices. And this can be mindfulness, meditation,

gratitude practice, journaling, spending time in nature. That's a big one. That's a big one for me. Engaging in activities that bring joy, whatever that may be for you, and seeking support from friends and loved ones. So these are the usual more everyday go-tos, but sometimes it's good to remember them because we forget if you need that extra support, find the people, places, pets, plants, and personal items that are a source of comfort. People.

Places, pets, plans, personal items that bring you comfort. Some people like visiting the cemetery. Some people like being with their pet. And if you don't have a pet, but pets bring you comfort, maybe go find a neighbor or a friend and pet sit for them. Personal items could be something that belonged to your person or loved one that brings you comfort. Wear their sweatshirt, wear their hats, whatever brings you comfort. And plans could be tending something. There's something so...

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life-affirming about tending to plants. I remember the pandemic, maybe it's the millennial in me, but I started tending to a bunch of plants, which now look like a jungle in my house because they've grown so much since. But just seeing life sprouting around me every time I propagated a plant and I saw a new little sprout, it just gave me so much hope and it gave me a sense of comfort that I wasn't expecting from a plant, right?

But for some people, that's very helpful. Or just buying yourself flowers and seeing something beautiful in your home that could be very comforting as well. Tap into your triangle of trust. That could be two to three people that know about your loss or your life altering circumstance that you could text very quickly without too much explanation when things are getting heavy or feel overwhelming. So if you're at a holiday party and you have an emoji, let's say like, I don't know.

Christmas tree emoji and you text that to your friend, your friend already knows that that means that things are heavy, that you're feeling a little stressed, you're feeling overwhelmed and maybe they could come check in on you whether it's through a text or a phone call or whatever you agreed upon before you got to this holiday party. Having something to fall back on mentally, emotionally, physically is powerful to getting you through the difficult moments just knowing that it's there as an option, knowing that you don't have to explain yourself.

knowing that somebody else knows what that means. So if you text a Christmas tree emoji, for example, that your best friend's going to know that that means that in that moment, you're overwhelmed. That's powerful because grief needs witnessing and it doesn't need fixing. Nobody's going to bring your person back or your pet back, but it's good to know that somebody else sees us or that in the moment when you're feeling very overwhelmed, you could express that and somebody will acknowledge it even if it's just a

them texting an emoji back. Think about the things in your life that bring you comfort and the ways in which you can communicate that to the people around you so that they can bring you support in the way that you need when you need it. Now, onto my favorite piece of advice, permission to pivot. I am a pivot queen in every sense of the word. I believe in the power of a good pivot. I believe in giving yourself room

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to change your mind, to be flexible. As my mother says, what doesn't bend breaks. That's why, for example, bamboo trees are so powerful and strong because they have that ability to bend with the elements whenever there's a storm, they don't fall over or palm trees, same thing, right? So with that energy in mind, what doesn't bend breaks, allowing yourself that flexibility, consider this your permission to pivot. And what does that mean in the context of grief and the holiday?

That looks like saying no to invitations, declining at the last minute, giving yourself the grace to leave early. We often feel guilty of like, I showed up and now I'm completely overwhelmed and I don't wanna stay, but I don't know how to tell them. Just give yourself permission to do so anyway. And if you're listening to this before the holidays, communicate this to the host or to your family members or to a friend or somebody that could help you make that exit a little bit more seamless.

At the end of the day, it's not disrespectful to honor your feelings and honor your truth. So let's say you tell the host, intend on showing up today, but honestly, I ask for your grace if I have to leave early because I don't know how I'm going to feel. So if I leave, please don't take it personal. It's just me needing to be alone in that moment and I'll be fine. Something as simple as that, setting yourself up for success. And that's a phrase I use a lot with my dog on all things. So I adopted this adorable puppy named Louie.

If you've seen my Instagram page, you've probably seen him, but he's a very reactive dog. I don't know what happened to him before we adopted him, but he reacts to everything to the point that he could be a harm to himself. So we've been working with him. He's gotten so much better, but he still has, you know, traits of reactivity. And so my husband and I set him up for success. If we know that there's going to be a really big trigger that is borderline impossible for him to ignore, such as

walking on the same sidewalk as a big dog, for example, he goes crazy and these big dogs can cause him a lot of harm just with one bite. Setting him up for success then looks like crossing the street and walking past this dog on the other side of the street so he doesn't feel like he needs to react. It's some simple action that can prevent a heightened state of emotion or a heightened state of reactivity. If you could just foresee it, make something a little bit easier to navigate.

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little bit more comfortable for you. Sometimes just knowing that we set ourselves up with the option to leave early, for example, is all that we need. And then we can actually enjoy ourselves and get through because we know we have that option. You may not even need to tap into it, but knowing that you have that, that you've given yourself permission, that you've spoken and told somebody about it beforehand can be very, very powerful. So another form of kind of setting yourself up for success is what I call padding. Padding your events.

This means setting up sources of comfort before, during, and or after an event. So let's say you have a holiday party to go to and you're really stressed out or even Christmas day and you're super stressed out, you're feeling the sense of dread and looming in the horizon. And I know it's ironic to say a Christmas party brings dread, but yes, when you're grieving, it absolutely can. Set yourself up for success by doing something that brings you comfort before, during, and or after.

If you are going to a family gathering where the absence of your person is going to be exacerbated. So for example, Thanksgiving to me is very triggering because my cousins are there and they have their siblings and I'm the only one without my sibling. The absence of my brother is so heightened and I see what could have been every time I see my cousins interacting as siblings and I see what I'm missing out on. That's very painful for me. So sometimes what I do is I will journal

in my Joseph journal, Joseph is my brother's name and he's right behind me actually if you're watching on YouTube, you can see the photo and right behind that photo is a journal that I have for him where I write to him everything that I wish I could have told him, where I could tell him since his passing, all these things that happened in life that I wish I could have shared with him. Sometimes before an event, I will write to him just because it's all the feelings that I would want expressed.

before I get to the event like, I'm going to miss you so much. Holidays are super awkward without you. I miss you most during Thanksgiving or whatever it is, right? For somebody else, it might look like going for a walk before an event, just to let some of that physical energy out. It might also look like taking a nap before an event, just to recharge your energy. Whatever it is that you need to do to set yourself up for a state of calmness.

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a state of honesty about what you're feeling, that is a beautiful way to enter this activity having acknowledged your grief first. So acknowledge your grief first. The second one would be during the event. And that's some of what we just talked about. having that triangle of trust that you can text, having those conversations beforehand, knowing that you have an exit accessible to you if you needed to leave early, for example.

Another thing is if you want people to talk about your person, people find it really hard. That's why they don't. But if you want them to engage in conversation, maybe wear something that calls the attention, right? So maybe wear their old sweater or maybe bring something of theirs, like bring a photo, cook something that they used to make and say, hey, this is so-and-so's recipe, remember?

and you open the space for conversation about this person. You invite the conversation. And that's very powerful because a lot of times the silence stems from people not knowing what to say and they don't want to make you cry thinking crying is a bad thing. So make it okay for people to talk about your person or pet and make it okay for them to see you cry. It's very human to not want to hurt people mostly. Some people don't care, but for the most part, if you're a good person, you don't want to make people cry.

And in grief, crying is a beautiful thing. There is so much purpose to tears. I've talked about this in previous episodes, but people still don't like to make you feel upset or what they think is upset. At the end of the day, we're upset because our person is not here. There's not a moment that goes by that we're not aware of that. And sometimes crying is the most appropriate and beautiful response. And sometimes it's not even sadness. It's just that.

sense of I'm so grateful for their life. I miss them so much and I love them so much and that comes out in the form of tears. So give yourself permission to pivot, give yourself that space to make last minute decisions, make last minute changes, and also bring them into the conversation if that's something that will serve you. The padding at the end can be, let's say you want to come home to an organized home after the party. So make sure that before you leave,

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your house or your space is the way that you want it so that by the time you come home, it's a nice place for you to relax into. Create moments where you can just relax into the space of comfort or the five P's, the people, plants, places, and personal items, whatever brings you comfort out of those. Set them up so that when you're done, you can enjoy that, whether that's playing with your puppy.

when you come home or whether that's, again, tending to your plants or buying yourself flowers after an event or something that's going to make you feel like you can unfold and relax into the experience. And those are three ways to, quote unquote, pad your experiences around an event so that you're setting yourself up for success when it comes to the holidays. And as somebody who has gone through six holidays without my brother, I could tell you it changes over time.

So I want to offer you a sense of hope and I want to offer you a sense of comfort as somebody that perhaps is some years ahead of you and maybe not, maybe you're a few years ahead of me. So in that case, I would invite you to take note of how it has shifted over the years and ask yourself, what can you do in their honor this year or how could it look different this year? What new traditions can you bring to the table or what ways could you honor your grief this holiday season if that's what it's.

you're being called to do. You absolutely have permission to slow down. You absolutely have permission to say no and to set yourself up for success, not just in the holidays, but at all times. So if Christmas is the one that's looming in the horizon or whatever is coming up for you, if the end of the year is the one that's looming in the horizon for you, just remember to come back to center, come back to this moment. You will get through it.

I'm assuming if you're listening to this now, you got through Thanksgiving, which maybe a few months ago may have felt absolutely impossible Thanksgiving in the States, if you're listening in the States. You are more capable than you realize, even when it feels impossible. If you don't feel the strength to get through it, borrow strength from those that have walked the path before you. And that includes from these podcasts, from books, from friends, families, grief groups, and...

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any other source of strength that you have accessible to you. Sometimes we say, well, I don't have money for this or I don't have time for that. In which case, tap into whatever's most accessible to you in that moment. if that means you're laying on a couch and you have a blanket on top of you, then really tune into the comfort that that blanket is bringing you. Or if you're sipping coffee or tea, then really focus on how wonderful it is to have this warm drink in your hand, assuming it's warm.

or take a long shower and they just feel the warm water running from your head to your toes. Whatever is most accessible to you in that moment in the same way that we shorten the timeline horizon when the future feels very overwhelming. Whenever we feel overwhelmed in the sense of I don't have anything to be grateful for, everything looks bleak. Whenever we have those thoughts coming in, try to find comfort in the things that are immediately accessible to you where you are in that moment. It's about the time

tiny, tiny moments that we can hang on to as anchors, as we navigate forward. Those tiny blessings become amplified and they become more frequent the moment we start noticing them more. It's finding these pockets of sunshine if you listen to the episode with Dr. Monica Krishnan, I think it's like two episodes ago, but it's finding these pockets of strength, comfort, gratitude, all the things, and most importantly,

honoring where you are on your journey. If you need extra support, I invite you to lean into the resources that I offer, including this podcast, of course, but also I have the online community, which you can access via the link in the show notes. It is free to join until January. I encourage you to join if you haven't already. It is an online home for your grief, where you can connect with grievers from all over the world.

and share honestly and openly and also be resourced. I share a lot of resources in that space for all types of grief. So I highly, highly encourage you to join us. I also offer monthly grief tending circles and you can book a one-on-one with me. All of that information is in the show notes and you can also visit griefandlight.com. All the information is there as well. So I encourage you to reach out. I encourage you to be honest with yourself.

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and each other, I encourage you to honor your boundaries, communicate what you need to communicate, pad your events, your upcoming events, and lean into the truth of your grief and your joy, however that shows up. May the holidays be exactly what they need to be for you this year. I send you so much love, so much grace, and I will see you in the next episode.

I'd also love to connect with you and hear your thoughts and your stories. Feel free to share them with me via my Instagram page at griefandlight or you can also visit griefandlight.com for more information and updates. Thank you so much for being here, for being you, and always remember you are not alone.