Christmas Grief

We are bombarded with adverts displaying happy families celebrating luxurious Christmas gatherings, exchanging expensive gifts, which are exquisitely wrapped. Similar postings are now on social media, some folks are keen to show off their Christmas celebrations, and yes I would love to be ski-ing right now, and oh…to be at Sandy Bay, nodding over to Simon Cowell….oh pleeeeeease!

It may seem like these people are being thoughtless, uncaring, and selfish even. Their luxury and joy is directly contrary to the suffering one can go through when experiencing grief.

Grief can take a person into another dimension and the trivia of Christmas celebration and one up man ship pale into the background. Yet these seemingly contentious things are designed to help us awaken to the imbalance we have in our perceptions surrounding our loss.

Let me explain a little further. It feels raw when we are reminded of our loss, when the very thing smacks us in the face like a fresh punch. Those people laughing, enjoying themselves…and I am here in pain, suffering. Yes and no-one seems to care…even family and friends can hold back on making themselves available to help you.

Oh and by the way…I am an expert on these emotions because I buried them when both my sisters died and I didn’t talk to anyone about my feelings. Okay I am not an expert on everyone’s emotions and for some they don’t suffer grief and for others it is less profound. My job here, my goal, my mission is to help others who find themselves in a similar situation to myself and to help younger children who experience loss of a close family member. I think if I describe some of my passed emotions and thoughts around grief, then that sharing of something very personal might strike a chord and provide support to you.  Please let me know if you find my blog useful. I will really appreciate it.

Let me get back to explaining some more lessons around grief. Think about this, at Christmas time when all the family members turn up, think of the one you dislike sharing company with and imagine if they died, would you actually suffer grief? I mean grief that they are no longer here?

Well I would imagine that you are going to say no……no-one suffers grief over someone they dislike, it’s usually a blessing, we only suffer grief when we really like or ‘love’ someone.

Now think about this, in a lot of families, say three siblings lose their Father, ask yourself will each three suffer the grief the same? The chances are that the answer is no.

For now I am going to leave you with that thought, as to why that might be the case, or maybe you have views on this yourself?  Please feel free to post your comments

Sending you love and warm regards for Christmas whatever your loss situation might be

Lynn