Your grief in the dark, dreary days of winter

Listen, I am naturally an optimist. I really do see the silver lining the majority of the time. However. Here in Southeastern Pennsylvania, it has been dark and dreary and rainy for what feels like years (I also can be a little dramatic). When the weather is like this, it’s nearly impossible to remember that the days are actually getting longer; that soon we’ll spring forward; that winter actually does not last forever. Don’t get me wrong, all of those counter thoughts can be helpful. After all, nothing hard lasts forever!

That being said, this is a really difficult time for a lot of my clients.It’s especially difficult for those who are sick or old or grieving (or all three), isolated by those circumstances and the addition of bad weather. The usual self-care suggestions fall flat this time of year. Go outside! It’s disgusting out, no thank you. See friends! People can’t always drive in inclement weather. Or they don’t feel particularly social when they’ve been hanging on to a chest cold for a month. Exercise! Ugh. Don’t even get me started.

I don’t mean to say you should avoid all those things and hibernate for the winter. If you can find the energy and motivation to do that stuff, then you’re in better shape than me! Go forth on the journey. For the rest of us, let me just validate that it’s harder to do the usual self care stuff when the weather is bad, as it has been here. When it’s harder to make ourselves feel better, we can get caught in a shame cycle: “I should be doing X but I don’t feel like it, I’m useless/lazy/awful/whatever.” I’m here to tell you, you are not useless or lazy or whatever other horrid adjective you want to use to describe yourself. You are a normal person having a normal reaction to a very long and dreary time of year.

And if you are grieving, whether it’s the first year or the fifth or the fifteenth, you may find that your grief is heavier than usual. No matter how long it’s been, that is normal. Grief can be exacerbated by any number of things, including but not limited to post-holiday blues, gross winter weather, and increased isolation.

So if you are having a harder than usual time right now and all the usual coping skills are falling flat, I have good news: the days are getting longer. Soon we’re going to spring forward. Winter doesn’t last forever. And neither will this hard time. While it lasts, consider reaching out to someone—a friend, a therapist, some nice strangers on the internet—and let them share the burden. You don’t have to do this alone.

Find the light

It has been literally quite dark the past few days here in the Philly suburbs. Between the rain and the time of year, the sun feels like a distant memory at the moment. However! It is also the holiday season, which means there is (other) light everywhere. There are intricate light displays on homes and businesses. There are sparkles and sequins in shop windows. There can be candlelight. There is brightness to combat the dark.

You don’t have to celebrate a religious holiday this time of year to bask in the glow. Light can be found and celebrated without having to subscribe to Christmas or Hanukkah. It can be found in being with others; in volunteering your time or money (if you have it to give); in window shopping; in fancy light displays or wandering through your neighborhood. In the cold, wet winter—when it is mostly dark and often difficult because of grief or family or winter blues or any number of other things—I want to remind you that you deserve some light. If you can’t find it, create it. If that’s beyond you right now, ask someone else to help. And remember, darkness passes.

Have a joyful holiday season—and if that’s beyond you as well, just get through it. Wishing you all light and lightness as we enter the new year.

"I shouldn't complain; it could always be worse"

There are many phrases I would like to strike from the English language but these two, which are often coupled together, are currently at the top of my list: “I shouldn’t complain; it could always be worse.”

Now listen: I’m not here to deprive you of a helpful coping mechanism. If taking perspective works for you in times of crisis, have at it! But let me challenge you a little by asking you if it really does help.

Sometimes clients say this (or some version of it) because they are tired of having difficult feelings. Their problems begin to feel endless and frustrating; they are stuck. They aren’t looking for perspective so much as minimizing their own experience out of guilt and frustration. Specifically, in a time like this, when the world is full of worst case scenario stories, people are more likely to feel bad about “complaining.” When the news is full of the horrors of war, there is a tendency to minimize our own tough stuff. After all, if you’re safe in your home, with your relative comforts, it’s easy to feel guilty for feeling bad about anything. Of course things could be worse.

But they could also be better. Others’ suffering does not alleviate our own. There is no comparison chart that shows us when we are allowed to complain. Certainly you can count your blessings; in fact, there’s a significant body of research that posits that beginning the day with a gratitude exercise improves your mood. That’s great news! But still, even if you practice gratitude, you are allowed your own moments of sadness; of disappointment; of regret and complaints. You are allowed to experience your feelings without qualifying them with “it could be worse.” You can acknowledge the suffering of the wider world while also making space for your own little corner of grief. I’ll sit there with you until it gets better.