Latest / Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce / 28. Grieving Divorce and Setting Boundaries During the Holidays

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28. Grieving Divorce and Setting Boundaries During the Holidays · Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce

• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Hi, love, this is Dawn and you're listening to Dear Divorce Diary with my coach, dawn, where we explore the post-divorce life and you, the woman who lives it.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: We cover everything from trauma during and after divorce to feeling like a stranger in your own life and the new frontier of life as a single woman.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Cozy in for the conversations we've been longing to have about this new life.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Hi love, today I'm here to bring some light to the darkness, and I know you're here for it.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about grieving during the holidays.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: So good, right, there's so many reasons grief is worse at Christmas, but in the holidays in general, right, grief is worse during the holidays and maybe it's helpful to understand a little bit about why that is.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: But it's especially helpful to know what to do about it, right, how to be able to be in your grief process and navigate the holidays so that you have a bit more ease and a bit more love in your heart, even while you're going through these steps of letting go or not letting go, right, maybe?
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: because sometimes what the holidays kick up is this I don't want to let go, i'm not ready to let go.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: It's not fair that I have to let go.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: I want my family.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: I want this vibe, i want this thing, i want the way it was, you know.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: So, wherever you are in that process, i am here for it, i am hugging you, i am loving on you, pouring some love on it and let's dig in to the who, what, when, where and why about grieving during the holidays.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, so why are the holidays such a difficult time to grieve the loss of either a loved one or a time, a time in life, right?
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: So a couple of things.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: First things first.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Let's just acknowledge that in the winter months we don't spend as much time outside, we don't spend as much time in the sun and the light.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: The sunlight charges our inner light.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: So first thing you can know and then also do about that is get really intentional about spending some number of minutes in the sun daily, even if it's overcast.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Know that on overcast days it's even more important that just this little tweak alone can shift some of how you experience grief during the holidays, because grief is a heavy, dark inner world experience and without the light charging our inner light, it's heavier, it's thicker, it's stickier, right?
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: So part of why this season is harder is because the nature of the season is hibernation, and so when you've got grief on top of hibernation, like whoa, right.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: So get your face in the sun, not through a window.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Your, your, your glasses are fine, but windows break light actually.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: And and even if you have a screen, even if you open your window but you have a screen, it's still also And breaks the light to a certain extent.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: So if you want the pure benefits of the sunlight, charging your inner light, then I often stand in my doorway in the morning so that I have the warmth of the warm house behind me at least, and then the warmth of the sun on my face And, of course, my super warm socks.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: But so that's one of the reasons, right.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: The other reason that it's so hard is because grief is an inner world process.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: It's like you, with you and your higher power.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Right, it's, it's in you.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: And the holidays are a with time.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Right, the holidays are with season, with your children, with your family, with your community, with your church, with your whomever, with your volunteer spaces, with people in need, with people who are giving, with, with, with, with, with.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: And grief doesn't go very well with with, it just doesn't.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: And when you think about grieving and how so often there's anger and tears and low energy.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: And then you add the holidays and feeling maybe like guilty about not being with enough for your children or with enough for your family, and then maybe, in addition to guilty, maybe you feel like a burden.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: And right then you've got all this extra stuff going on in addition to grief during hibernation series season and you're like I can't do anymore.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: I can't do anymore and that's okay.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: And so maybe part of when we understand why it's so hard, then you can give yourself a little bit of a break.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Because grieving during hibernation series season and then guilting yourself and feeling like a burden, like at least let those last couple of things shed and maybe allow you to be one of the people that that people are giving to this season, right, like allow yourself to be a magnet for giving, for people to give to you this season, and that's that's wonderful, that's what it's all about, right, in other seasons where you've been in a better energetic space, wouldn't you have been willing to give, moving forward, wouldn't you like just kind of get it, and wouldn't you be so willing to give to someone else walking that path?
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: so so just maybe part of what you're and we're gonna talk about this later on, but maybe part of this is about opening yourself up to receiving right.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: So so when you're grieving during the holidays, one of the other extra things that you're tempted to take on is this loss of time idea that part of what you're grieving is lost time.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: You know when it was Halloween and you're like, but I only have so many trick-or-treats left, and and now it's.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: You're edging into these other winter holidays and you're like, but I only have so many these holidays with my kids or with certain you know, and and so there's like this time thing, like I'm missing this season, i'm missing something.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: I'm missing something I'm missing.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: And when we're focused on what we're missing, everything feels so much heavier.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Ps, that whole I'm missing something completely X's out.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Whatever the divine intention behind all of this is right.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: It X's out that there is more coming to you as a result of this loss.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: You know that really annoying, saying that every ending is a beginning, which is so beautiful, but, like when you're hurting, you're like F, you're beginning.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: I was happy with my pre-ending and I and I I know that.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: I know that right, but I want you to also do your best to get intentional about shedding the perception that you're out of time.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: You're not out of time, love.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: You were never out of time.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: You're not out of time.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: It's not impossible, it's not possible, but you can convince yourself of that.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: You can convince.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: We're good at convincing ourselves of anything, right?
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: You know that pair of Hunter boots that I just bought this morning?
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: I was really good at convincing myself, i needed them.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: So just notice that you are really good at convincing yourself that you're out of time.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: But it's not actually true.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: And so this is so many of the reasons why it's harder to grieve right now, and you often are wanting desperately to know how long grieving lasts.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: And what I want you to know is that that is largely in your power and control.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Now, not so much of it, right, because it's an emotional process that has layers, and we all know how grief can sucker punch us.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: But the length of grief really has to do with this three-legged stool of self-care, meaning being deeply kind to yourself, deeply supportive of healing, deeply supportive of your healing process, and that means not guilt and shaming yourself around it.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: It should be faster, it should be this, i should be better, i should do more, i should cuck-a-cuck-a-cuck-a-cuck-a-cuck-a right.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: So deeply meaningful.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: Self-care is one leg of the stool.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: A support system is a second leg of the stool And I mean like a delicious, gooey support system, like people who just get where you are and they're not trying to rush you out of it and they're unconditionally supportive And sure, maybe they nudge you sometimes and they're like let us love you, right, That kind of nudge you right.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Or like come have fun with us.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: They may nudge you in those kinds of ways, but they're not making you feel some type of way about your grief process, right, they're like a gooey support system.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: And then a spiritual practice.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: And by a spiritual practice I'm making that third leg of the stool intentionally separate from self-care, because self-care is something we do all day long.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: It has to do with being in tune with yourself and really giving yourself what you need at any given moment during the day peeing when you need to pee, eating when you need to eat, resting when you need to rest right, like that kind of self-care.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: But a spiritual practice is praying and then meditating on your higher power's response.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: It's tuning in to that intuition cave inside of you and listening.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: It's practicing faith in a very concrete way, not in a theoretical way, not in a like well, i am a woman of faith, like not in language, in practice, right, i am going to get very intentional about turning these things over to God, my higher power source, energy, to trusting that this is all happening on purpose, right.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: And so when we wanna get drunk on the drama, when we wanna get drunk on our emotions, when we wanna get drunk on self-pity, is when we're not in an intentional spiritual practice.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: It's when we're like, no, i'm going to feel very badly for myself and I'm going to make sure everybody knows about that.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: And, oh man, right, that's part of it, that is part of grief and I'm here for it.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: So, like, when it comes, okay, let it come.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: And then also let it go right And get back into that vibration of, okay, universal spirits, higher power, god, whomever you commune with, right To be able to receive the truth of what you're going through.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: And so self-care, support and a spiritual practice are the things that dictate how long your grieving lasts, because grieving doesn't last forever and you are not meant to stay in this low, vibrational, heavy space, and there is a very clear path out of it for you if you're tapped in, tuned in, turned on to your needs and to your spiritual practice and to the supportive loved ones around you who want you to feel loved and cared for.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you want to know what year of grief is the hardest, and the reality of that is typically the first year, right?
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Typically the first year is when it's the heaviest, it's the hardest, it's so fresh, it's so raw.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Now some people might go into a sort of survival mode in the first year where it's like you just kind of power through and don't let yourself feel grief.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: And so sometimes that happens too.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: If you just kind of noticed yourself powering on to like a bootstrappy kind of vibe in the immediate aftermath of loss, if you were just like I know some shit went down here but I'm like not going there yet, that sometimes is a very meaningful coping process to like create some structural stability before you go to that emotional collapse place.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: So sometimes you have a season of powering through before the season of grief really unfolds, right.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: But then if beyond years too, if grief is getting heavier beyond that, it's usually that because you're missing one of the legs of that stool, self-care, support or spiritual practice, right.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: So if someone's in year 3, 4, 5 and they're not moving through the grief process, if it's not shedding in layers, then one of those legs, or multiple legs of the stool are missing.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: And that's all we do is we call in either whatever's missing, right, meaningful self-care, a GUI support system, a spiritual practice, and then you start moving along the grief process.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: There's this interesting conversation about does grief ever fully go away?
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: and it's an interesting conversation, right, there's, i like to think.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: This is what I like to think.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: I can't prove it, nor do I want to, right, but that grief does go away, The grief does pass, but what it leaves in its wake is longing, a longing that maybe feels largely unanswered until we return to the great beyond, right So?
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: but the stages of grief, right, the stages of working through loss, i like to think that longing is what's left and that there is an answer to longing that we maybe don't always tap into, and that answer to longing is that, hey, we are spiritual beings having a human experience, and so the longing is louder when we're especially focused on the human aspect of our experience.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: But when we're really kind of tapped in to the spiritual aspect of our existence, then, hey, my soul can be closely connected to your soul, even if in human form we aren't necessarily in proximity.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: And all of this is validated in the quantum mechanics world.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Right, If we look at physics, we could see that entangled particles say that, that there is this connection that goes deeper, goes beyond our human perception.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: But when we go into that intuition cave and deep in our deep in our mind's eye, in our heart space, in that intuition cave, my soul and your soul can dance, can talk, can share, can cry, can connect, can you know, and sometimes you may even feel a physical sensation.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: You know so.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: So grief in my perspective, that the grieving process goes, but what's left is longing.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: And then what we do with longing.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: We get to decide if we lean more into the human experience of it or the spiritual experience of it, and that can sometimes be a SAV right, like a medicine for that longing.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit more about how to deal with grief over the holidays.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: So first things first.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Last week's episode was a lot about how you can set yourself up for success this holiday season.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to just flag that here like hey, check out last week's episode if you haven't, because there's a lot of great kind of holiday hacks there to make it a little more easy for you this season.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: But the other thing that I wanna highlight about dealing with grief in the holidays is that it is kind of a magical time, even if you're not super in tune with that magic right now, because you're in that heavy grief process during hibernation season.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, noted right, but during Thanksgiving there tends to be more intentional gratitude floating around the ether.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: And during the Christmas season or other winter holidays, whichever one you may celebrate, whether it's any of them let me not embarrass myself by getting them wrong right there But whatever holidays you, the spiritual times is more about giving, more about family, more about connection, more about acknowledging the gifts that our religious forefathers have given to us.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: And then, during New Year's, it's more about renewal And there's this kind of very intentional attitude about giving rebirth gratitude magic.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: And so there is magic to do with grieving during holidays, and what I want you to do, in addition to the things that I mentioned in the last episode, is to get really curious about what message all of that holiday magic has for you during this season, because your spiritual guidance is constantly pumping little clues towards you, messages and clues guiding you down the path of what comes next for you, right?
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: And during the holiday season, there is just this extra sparkle, this extra magic, this extra intention all around you to do with these spiritual practices.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: So it is a magical time to get curious about.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: I wonder what my spiritual guidance is trying to tell me today.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: And if you could just in your grief, in your heavy inside of yourself time this holiday season, if you could just ask yourself each day, write it on your mirror.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: This is a beautiful mirror message for you to use right now.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: What does my spiritual guidance want me to know about my grief today?
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: And then go about your day as best you can, looking right, setting the intention of looking for that guidance and being ready to receive it when it comes.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: And then, when it comes, don't talk yourself out of it, right, like.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: You know those moments where it's like, oh, i was thinking this as I was folding clothes.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: You know those days where you fold the fitted sheet and it folds perfectly and you're like, oh, i should play lotto today because nothing could go wrong.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: The fitted sheet came together beautifully, right?
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: So, even if it's that right, when you have a moment where things just are lining up or you get a message, or you get a sign, or you sense a loved one or you, i don't know.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Trust it, go with it.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: It's true, it's true.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: So, while you're grieving during the holidays, get curious about what your spiritual guidance is wanting to say to you during this magical time.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Now, for people who might be asking what do I say to someone grieving during the holidays?
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: right, maybe you know someone or someone has been asking you like what can I say?
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Nothing.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: Don't try to say too many things to people who are grieving during the holidays.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Right, our job, our job is to abide.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Our job is to hold space.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Our job is to sit with, to love on, to hug, to hold, to just be with the grief, because you can't force it.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: You cannot force it, right, and so just holding space and being that safe place is the best thing to do.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: Now, if you are someone who needs help while you're grieving during the holidays, or you know someone who needs help grieving during the holidays, the best thing you can do is offer the simple assistance, right Drop off a meal, pick up the groceries of the kids, fold a load of laundry, wash the dishes kind of the basic things that are hard to do when everything feels heavy and you've got extra tasks to do with the holidays, like you know gift giving and activities and programs and all that right.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: So if you really want to help someone who's grieving during the holidays, just know that those simple tasks like folding a load of laundry for them goes so far.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: And other than that, just sitting with them, right, like, hey, i'm just going to come over for a cup of tea and just sit with you while you cry.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: I don't have anything magical to say, but I'm just going to sit with you, i'm just going to play with your hair, rub your back, sit next to you and you know, love on you And that's it.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: So there are beautiful aspects of grieving during the holidays and it's because there's some extra magic, there's some extra spirit, energy going on, there's this extra intention that people have to do good things during the holidays to give right.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: So I want you to set your intention at receiving that goodwill, receiving the Christmas spirit, the holiday spirit, letting that in and getting really curious about what those messages are for you And then check out maybe last week's episode on some of those hacks and, above and beyond, love, trust.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: All of this is unfolding for a reason And you deserve the time and space to grieve even now, even now on today, when you keep telling yourself you think you're supposed to be doing a hundred other things.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: You deserve the time and space to grieve now.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: I love you so much.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Have a beautiful season and if you need anything, let me know I'm here.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Peace, dear Divorce Diary is a podcast by MyCoachDawn.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: You can find more at MyCoachDawncom.