Episode 34 – Grieving is learning
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You are listening to the Life Reconstructed podcast with me, Teresa Amaral Beshwate, grief expert, best-selling author and widow. I’m so glad you’re here because in this and every episode, I shine a light on the widowed way forward.
Hello and welcome to episode 34. In this episode, I offer a simple method to debrief your Thanksgiving holiday experience so that you can get all the lessons out of it and revise your strategy for the next holiday or special occasion.
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You did it. Thanksgiving is in the rear-view mirror, and you can breathe a sigh of relief. But before your memory fades, I want to encourage you to debrief your experience. Why? Because other holidays are just around the corner. By taking a little time now to debrief, you’ll become a person who knows what she needs to do for herself when any holiday rolls around. I want you to have that certainty.
And it starts with this mindset: grieving is learning. It’s learning to live without your person’s physical presence, which genuinely confuses your brain. Your brain understands the world with your person physically present. It takes new experiences to help it understand this new, unwanted reality.
And Thanksgiving is yet another new experience, no matter if it’s your first, or 3rd or 10th without your person. Each one is different, partly because we’re different.
In thinking about the recent holiday, there are a few specific areas I want you to notice. Please notice them with curiosity and not judgement. I picked these areas because I know they will be the most helpful for you. Grab your journal and write your responses to the following 7 items.
1. Notice if you were stuck in weeks of anticipation and dread. It’s easy to be dreading, anxious and flinching for weeks in anticipation of a holiday or other special occasion. Consider that that’s weeks of dread, compared to the 24 hours of the day itself. Don’t judge yourself for spending weeks feeling dread. But remind yourself how the dread felt as compared to the day itself. Make a note in your journal so you can remind yourself next holiday.
2. Notice if you allowed yourself to feel any feeling, without judgement. You get to feel anything. No matter if you’re just months into this journey, or years, or decades. You lost your person, after all. This is not what you signed up for. Life in general is a mix of comfortable and uncomfortable emotions – it’s the human experience. Life after loss is ALSO a mix of comfortable and uncomfortable emotions. Allowing for all of it is a much better option than resisting or judging the uncomfortable emotions. Resisting or judging adds salt to the wound. I often say to myself, “This is the part when I feel sad/anxious/dread/insert any uncomfortable feeling.” The moment I say that to myself, I slip into acceptance and there is instant relief. I still feel the feeling, mind you, but I don’t have the resistance TO IT, which feels extra terrible.
3. Notice if you allowed the feelings to surface when they needed to. It’s not always ideal or convenient to allow difficult feelings to surface. I recommend making time in advance of a holiday gathering to feel the feelings. That will help you navigate the gathering feeling a little more in control of your emotions. But also consider that difficult feelings are part of the human experience. In our society, we try to avoid or resist them, but it’s best to be sad when you’re sad, without resisting it or making it a problem.
4. Notice if at any point, you judged yourself, or the day. This can sound like:
I should have been better.By now, I should be…. (as in, in a different place than I am).I didn’t do it “right.”
There is no one right way to grieve, or to navigate a holiday. There is just your experience of it this year. There’s no right or wrong. There is no owner’s manual for life after loss. Just think back and remember whether you caught yourself in judgement. If so, that’s natural. But also notice how it feels extra terrible, and adds suffering to the pain. If you found yourself in self-judgement, simply notice it. Commit to monitoring that inner dialogue in the weeks to come. Commit to loving yourself instead of judging yourself going forward.
5. What worked well for you this holiday? Your brain might not readily see the things that went well, so it’s important to spend time thinking about this. Try to list 10 things that went well. When you can identify what went well, you can try to add more of these things into future holidays.
6. What didn’t go well? Notice what parts were extra hard, that perhaps you’d like to avoid next time. Remember, when we’re judging, we’re not learning. So without judgement, note the parts that were not ideal. This will help you with item #7, which is……
7. What would you do differently next holiday? Again, without judging yourself, what do you want to remember and do differently next time?
I’ll say it again, grieving is learning. These 7 questions will help you learn yourself when it comes to holidays or other special occasions. I want you to be curious. But here’s the catch – judgement hinders curiosity and learning. It’s like a teeter totter – when we’re judging, we’re not learning. When we’re learning, we’re not judging.
So please adopt that experimental mindset. Debrief your holiday with an abundance of love and compassion for yourself. Life after loss is hard, after all. Be gentle with yourself.
Gently and lovingly, get all the lessons you can from this holiday, and you’ll approach the next one with more clarity and certainty. You’ll avoid the weeks of dread and anxiety. You’ll know what’s best for you, and that feels really good.
And in the meantime, I want to encourage you to get more help. My best-selling book Life Reconstructed is now available with its accompanying journal, plus I filmed a 3-part video series that will help you understand your grieving brain, free yourself from guilt and regret, and face the holiday season feeling better. It’s a package deal and it’s available at: https://www.thesuddenwidowcoach.com/lrbonusbundle
The link is in the show notes. It’s a $197 value, but I’m offering it at just $37.
When it comes to grieving your spouse, there’s no need to go it alone. The book alone has helped thousands of widowed people and it can help you, too. Get yours today and remember that I’m here for you, and I believe in you. Take care.
If this episode was helpful, please share it with a widowed friend. And remember that I believe in you, and I’m here for you. Take care.
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If you’ve found this podcast helpful, I invite you to join Life Reconstructed, my coaching program exclusively for widowed people. It will help you step forward toward a life you will love again. Simply go to thesuddenwidowcoach.com and click work with me.
