I hope you watched, “A Charlie Brown Christmas” during this Christmas season. It was very meaningful in that it addressed the paradox of Christmas. Christmas makes a lot of people very happy, but an unknown percentage find a considerable amount of sadness during the holiday season. They have to learn how to “Deal with the Holiday Blues.” The show opened with a Christmas scene and then Charlie Brown is walking in the direction of a stand that said, “Psychiatric 5 cents.” Then Lucy appears and Charlie lets her know that he needs help. Although it is the holiday season, he is sad. Lucy will not begin until the 5 cents is deposited in her jar. Charlie complied and then Lucy began. She said that fear is the problem and asked Charlie about his fears. Lucy named a long list of made up phobias and finally she drew a conclusion. Lucy said Charlie needed to be more involved so he should become the director of the Christmas play. Then, they proceeded to the play. It was a cute skit and it clearly identified a difficult problem for a number of people, namely, sadness during the holiday. However, Lucy’s therapeutic style and curative remedy could use some help.
Life is not static; it is infused with constant and continuous change. Some change results in holiday sadness. We long for the good old days. Many of us miss our spouse regardless of the length of the marriage. My aunt had a series of bad relationships and finally she met the man of her dreams. They married in August and he was diagnosed with cancer about 2 weeks later and died a little more than 2 months later. She grieved as much as someone who had been married 50 years, maybe more because of what could have been. A lost of a soulmate is not measured by time, but by the meaningful relationship. Therefore, begin with acknowledging the presence of sadness and then the source of the sadness. Say it out loud; “I am sad, because I miss my husband/wife.” It is Christmas and Christmas will not be the same without my husband/wife. Number 1: Acknowledge the sadness and the reason for the sadness.
Number 2: Give yourself permission to remember. You could do that by writing a letter to the deceased. Share those things that you would like to say if s/he were with you. Then end the letter by telling him/her what you will do with the rest of the holiday. That could give you permission to enjoy your holiday. If you are not a letter writing person use a tape, a video or talk to a friend. You know your situation; if you need someone like Lucy you could contact your pastor, a local counselor or a psychologist. The worse thing you could do is to ignore your pain. Your pain is real and it needs the same care as a broken arm, a heart attack or the flu. You have a broken heart or damaged emotions and that needs treatment too.
Lucy’s curative remedy is to get involved. We know that getting involved is a positive way to use your time, but it is also a way to postpone dealing with your issues. So my Number 3 is different from Lucy’s. The curative remedy offered here is to begin to reorganize life without the deceased and reframe your situation. When a close relative died, a minister friend called and said, “Don’t think about what you don’t have, but think about what you do have.” I would change his comment to “Think about what you don’t have and then think about what you do have.” I don’t have my husband of 40 years, but I do have my children, grandchildren, extended family and friends. This idea reminds me of the old song, “If you’re worried and you can’t sleep just count your blessings instead of sheep and you’ll fall asleep counting your blessings.”
So let’s do what psychologists call, “Positive Reframing.” It is usually done when you have negative feelings about yourself, but we are going to reframe our situation that led to feelings of sadness. Instead of feeling sad about not having your soulmate, think about all the time you had each other and how blessed you were to have had that relationship. Another way to reframe is to think about your sadness like looking at a painting close up where you can only see a small portion of the painting, in effect, it is all sadness. Now, stand back and you can see the whole painting, which may include your children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren, not to mention other extend family and friends. When you see the whole picture, you may feel less overwhelmed by your loss. You could also identify some ways that the deceased contributed to your happiness during Christmas 2018. For example, my deceased husband influences my gift buying because I often buy people things that I know he would like, conversely I use his frugal lifestyle to help me catch myself when I am about to sail into the consumer abyss. He is in my ear saying, “Dolores, enough.” Sometimes, I listen (smile).
In summary: 1. Identify the feeling of sadness and the source of the feeling; 2. Process the feeling by writing, taping, videoing, talking to a friend/relative or talking to a professional; and 3. Use Positive Reframing with your situation. Hopefully, this little blog will help you learn some ways of “Dealing with the Holiday Blues.”
Questions:
1. What will you gain by dealing with your feelings?
2. How will you benefit by processing feelings in one of the ways named above?
3. In what ways will your life be enhanced through positive reframing?
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