Your Resolution Absolution

Holidays and Special Days / Holidays and Special Days : Eleanor Haley



For further articles on these topics:


What will the next year bring? Most of you read What's Your Grief because someone you love very deeply has died, so the answer to this question depends on where you are in coping with your grief.

For anyone struggling with acute and intense grief, the idea of making resolutions may sound absurd. How silly and trite it seems to hear people talk of eating better and doing more yoga when you feel like you need a resolution just to get out of bed in the morning.

Grieving is an uphill climb, and it takes resiliency, determination, introspection, and self-compassion. So, it seems to me that instead of talking about a shallow declaration made at the stroke of midnight, perhaps we should discuss the things a person truly needs to help guide them to a place of wellbeing in the new year. 

This may sound like an odd thing for the authors of 64 New Year's Resolutions for Grievers to say; we're aware of our hypocrisy. But, truly, no half-hearted obligatory resolution is going to cover all the ground that lies in front of someone trying to climb out of the dark places of grief.

If in the new year you're facing changes and challenges far bigger than those which can be addressed by a New Year's resolution, it's may be better to shift your focus to things that will help you tackle significant change in the new year.

unterberg-345560_1280

1. Improve self-awareness.  

Start with this reality; sometimes even when you think you're self-aware, you're not. Have you ever taken out the recycling and felt shocked by how many empty wine bottles you accumulated that week?  Have you ever thought you were getting by at work or school only to receive feedback to the contrary?  Stop going through life saying "I'm fine" when you're not and strive to tell yourself the truth about how things are going.  And, guess what, you're grieving so it's okay if things aren't quite as 'fine' as you'd like them to be.


2.  Believe you are worthy of that which you consider "good".  

Believe it or not, people don't always feel they are worthy of things like love, compassion, support, positive relationships, and contentment.  Things like grief, depression, and isolation are especially good liars and can make you believe that the lowest of the low is what you deserve - it isn't.


3.  Believe circumstances are in your power to change (unless they aren't). 

Everyone struggles with self-doubt, but losing a loved one may shake your confidence in yourself, others, and the world. After a loss you may find you're scared, worried, and anxious more often; you may withdraw from others and spend more time alone, and you may struggle to find a worldview you're comfortable with.  It may take a little while for you to get reacquainted with yourself and so you may be a bit slow getting back on your feet, but have faith in yourself and believe you are capable of finding ways to cope with the stressors and changes you are going through.


4.  Have realistic expectations and be patient with yourself.  

The death of someone significant brings many secondary losses and adjustments.  It may take you a long time to feel normal again and by 'normal' I mean 'different but okay'.  Grief often means having three good days and one bad, so try not to get frustrated with yourself.


5. Maintain an environment supportive of your wellbeing.  

Surround yourself with the people who want you to be well.  Take a break from people in your life who drag you down, encourage you to choose negative coping, or make you feel bad about your grief.  Someday when you're stronger you can reconnect with them if you choose.

We invite you to share your experiences, questions, and resource suggestions with the WYG community in the discussion section below.

We invite you to share your experiences, questions, and resource suggestions with the WYG community in the discussion section below.

We wrote a book!

After writing online articles for What’s Your Grief
for over a decade, we finally wrote a tangible,
real-life book!

After writing online articles for What’s Your Grief for over a decade, we finally wrote a tangible, real-life book!

What’s Your Grief? Lists to Help you Through Any Loss is for people experiencing any type of loss. This book discusses some of the most common grief experiences and breaks down psychological concepts to help you understand your thoughts and emotions. It also shares useful coping tools, and helps the reader reflect on their unique relationship with grief and loss.

You can find What’s Your Grief? Lists to Help you Through Any Loss wherever you buy books:

Let’s be grief friends.

We post a new article to What’s Your Grief about once a week. Subscribe to stay up to date on all our posts.

Related Blog Posts

Related Blog Posts

See More

18 Comments on "Your Resolution Absolution"

Click here to leave a Comment
  1. Saul Herszkowicz  January 1, 2024 at 8:16 pm Reply

    3 years have now passed since I lost my best fiend my wife and my soulmate on the same date
    I thought I was going to commit suicide many times as I am not young , not interested in new relationships after losing the most important person in my life after 57 years together.
    Your book helps me every time I beat myself up and your ongoing articles are just fantastic
    I have learned to avoid people who don’t let me grieve my own way as well as learned that many people are there for me
    Life will never be the same again but I have kids grandkids and many good friends who help me keep my wife in my thoughts everyday
    This year I am trying hard to once again plan a vacation even though I am afraid of doing something I have not done without my partner beside me
    I am stronger every day still celebrate my anniversary birthdays holidays and most of all try to do things that would bring a glowing smile to her
    Face thanks for allowing me to grieve my way as long as I want and allowing me to meet new people and get rid of some
    Saul

  2. Daxie  December 31, 2023 at 9:43 pm Reply

    Yes, a New Year passes and life goes on and on. Having lost my partner to suicide back in November of 2021, I sometimes dread the passing of a year. That first year, I am still close to my loss (2021, about 6 weeks gone), the second year sounds like 24 months, the third year (2023) now sounds like 3 years or 36 months when in actual fact it is only just over 24 months. But I have people saying, “Didn’t ….die 3 years ago…and yet you’re still grieving?” It is almost like they think – another year gone, and a better New Year to come – failing to realize that to my mind, it is just a further moving away from the life I (and others here) once had.

    Part of my own problem is that I find it really hard to think about the future in a positive light in relation to others. Sometimes when I see people happy, I have the intrusive thought of, “Look at you…one day you will be dead so why bother being doing anything!” But, to be fair, I think these thoughts are slowly evaporating (which is a good thing) I do have a few positives coming up – I am changing my career to become a Counselor, I shall be volunteering with a Support Group, and I have just developed a 12 Session Suicide Loss Support Group Program (We ran the first group mid June to November of 2023 and received positive feedback).

    This little article of yours is very helpful and I enjoyed learning things from the tips that you offer. Even though we may feel estranged from the people around us and sometimes it is even better NOT to have people around us, I am thankful for the couple of folks who became my friends after losing my partner (they were more his friends), and I realize that not everyone was my friend simply because I knew them through him. And then others couldn’t handle his death by suicide whilst others didn’t have the emotional maturity to be there for me in my own grief. Such is the nature of a death, and a death particularly to suicide. Like I say to people, When a person dies by suicide, they not only take their life, they take ours as well. And then we have to find a new life. This can be hard as we want to remain connected to our old life but that connection can keep us locked up within ourselves and thus we are unable to move forward. Such a conundrum for each one of us.

    Number 4 is extremely important. WE DO BECOME HARD ON OURSELVES as we strive to adjust but often have mishaps along the way. A person once said to me about 27 years ago that they liked how I “walked the talk.” But since the night I found my partner, I have often stumbled in “walking the talk.” This has generated a lot of shame in me as I feel that I have now let her and others down. Your words are very insightful and encouraging and make me appreciate that such is not the reality in terms of choice, but is simply a reaction to a devastating event.

  3. Kimberly Hochrein  December 31, 2017 at 12:09 pm Reply

    I often read grief posts, suggestions from point of view of my mom, whom I lost 2 years to cancer. She had been in the long throws of grief after her husband passed. Living with me and my family, upon losibgv her home as well, was extremely challenging with a teenage son who was diagnosed with depressive disorder. Suggestions for a Grieving person to surround themselves with supportive people, make me realize, sadly, that was NOT that supportive person she needed. Irony brings me to a place of KNOWING what she was feeling. I SO wish this was a place we had known for support, before she passed. I DO believe it is a sight made forALL, as we are either in the throws of grief or needing to support someone who is. Perspective is everything! Thank you for your perspective and all those that share theirs!

  4. Kimberly Hochrein  December 31, 2017 at 12:09 pm Reply

    I often read grief posts, suggestions from point of view of my mom, whom I lost 2 years to cancer. She had been in the long throws of grief after her husband passed. Living with me and my family, upon losibgv her home as well, was extremely challenging with a teenage son who was diagnosed with depressive disorder. Suggestions for a Grieving person to surround themselves with supportive people, make me realize, sadly, that was NOT that supportive person she needed. Irony brings me to a place of KNOWING what she was feeling. I SO wish this was a place we had known for support, before she passed. I DO believe it is a sight made forALL, as we are either in the throws of grief or needing to support someone who is. Perspective is everything! Thank you for your perspective and all those that share theirs!

  5. Vicki  December 31, 2015 at 9:32 am Reply

    That’s what I had: a secondary loss of faith after the death occurred and not because of myself as much as that the person who DIED had more faith than I did but that’s all I can say about the faith of the person who died.
    I’ve never been able to get as much help from anybody other than those who understand PTSD better than I do IMO. Richard, who became my daughter’s godfather after her dad died, seems to understand it better although he doesn’t appear to HAVE it as bad as I do. I don’t know why because I think watching someone die in front of my face like he did would be worse than knowing they were dying but not actually seeing it in real time the way I knew Eric was dying in the World Trade Center but didn’t see him actually die; I’ve heard his distress on a tape but even that isn’t the same. I’ve seen people die on the ambulance, even from violent death, but that doesn’t seem identical to watching people die in combat. With two exceptions my own life wasn’t in danger working as a paramedic.
    Anyway he’s the only person I know who doesn’t think you have to be happy with a Supreme Being while you’re standing there watching people be blown apart by weapons of war or weapons forged against you from everyday things like an airplane turned into a bomb.
    He’s the only one who’s said “you don’t have to feel ANYthing pleasant in that situation, you feel what you feel.”
    When my brother was in Iraq churches used to send them stuff all the time. One time he got this bookmark with a sleeping orange kitty on it that said ‘Have Faith. Trust. Rest assured.’
    He gave it to me when he got home because he didn’t like the message on it, received in the middle of the chaos of war. I didn’t know that’s why he didn’t like it. Richard said it’s probably why. He didn’t receive anything from the American homefront when he was in Vietnam, that’s another way he knew the world was no longer supporting them but he said he probably wouldn’t have liked a bookmark with that message on it even though “it’s a nice sentiment I suppose, just not realistic.”
    That’s when he told me war is chaos and you don’t send someone that message while he’s in the middle of chaos, although any effort to send a message of support would be better than none.

  6. Cindy  January 6, 2015 at 1:52 am Reply

    i agree with Andrea. This is very well thought out, succinct, and optimistic. I am 4 1/2 years in and this past year felt that my worldview wasn’t in a positive or hopeful place…too jaded and weary. I will reread this along the way as one of the tools in helping me leave that window open for hope!

    • Eleanor  January 6, 2015 at 12:09 pm Reply

      Cindy,

      Too jaded and weary, I’ve felt that way a lot lately. I hope you find strength and hope and when you do you grab onto it and you don’t let it go. That’s what I’m beginning to think is necessary sometimes, blindly refusing to let go of hope despite all evidence to the contrary. Let’s keep working no this together, shall we?

      Eleanor

  7. meg bell  December 31, 2014 at 1:27 am Reply

    Thanks for these words. Just two years and it seems both long and short. Rejigging my life takes a lot of conscious effort. It is hard.

  8. Cris  December 30, 2014 at 7:59 pm Reply

    thank you so much for identifying the secondary griefs- my love has been gone from earth for three years, and I sometimes despair at ever finding a whole heart in myself.

    • Eleanor  December 30, 2014 at 10:23 pm Reply

      Those secondary losses, they sure can complicate things. I’m sorry your missing your love.

  9. Karen  December 30, 2014 at 7:27 pm Reply

    These thoughts are really helpful. And, during holidays, I encourage grieving folk to do something that was a tradition with the person they are missing, and then do some new holiday activity on that day, creating a new tradition for themselves. –Karen J. Clayton, from my new book THESE PRECIOUS MOMENTS: Gentle stores about making the end of life the best it can be.

  10. Terry Graham  December 30, 2014 at 5:21 pm Reply

    Almost 8 mo. ago I lost my eternal solemate to breast cancer just 42 years into our marriage. Today, I watched our two grandsons in our home for the first time. I have regularly watched them for 1 to 3 hours at a time in their home. The older (2-1/2) grandson saw Grandma’s picture on her piano and quietly remarked “Look there’s Grandma, Momma sad.” I was okay until they left with their mom (our daughter) then I absolutely and completely broke down. Intellectually, I know life is bound to be better. But my heart & soul wonder how that will come to be? We expected to celebrate many more years together.

    • Eleanor  December 30, 2014 at 10:22 pm Reply

      Oh Terry I’m so sorry. I have a 5 year old who says some of the most profound and heartbreaking things, so I can just picture what you described. Life is bound to be better, yes; but I know it won’t ever be the same and that’s tough to take when you liked your life and the person you were spending it beside. I’m so sorry for your family’s pain.

  11. Linda Rubano  December 30, 2014 at 2:18 pm Reply

    I have no expectations. My only relief is knowing that one day we will be reunited in Heaven. I can’t bring him back and each day apart is no better than the one before. I have resigned myself that I will grieve until the end of my life.

    • Eleanor  December 30, 2014 at 10:19 pm Reply

      I’m so sorry Linda 🙁 My heart goes out to you.

    • Ursula  December 31, 2022 at 7:55 pm Reply

      I understand how you feel. My story is like yours and I will grieve until I meet him in Heaven. I don’t want to move on without him.

  12. Andrea  December 30, 2014 at 2:04 pm Reply

    Thank You VERY much for this great post!! Well thought out and well written, terrific ideas that empower me. Much appreciated!

    • Eleanor  December 30, 2014 at 10:19 pm Reply

      You’re so welcome!

Leave a Comment

YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.