Christmas without a loved one? You can make a big difference
by Tom Taffel
Christmas should be a time of celebration and hope, a time of joy, and togetherness. But for the bereaved, holiday festivities can amplify loneliness, grief, fear, and regrets. The holidays can unintentionally reinforce the feeling of loss, abandonment, emptiness, separation, helplessness, sadness, and uncertainty.
How can we support and respect our friends and loved ones struggling to celebrate the joy of the season, when all they can feel is the sadness and pain of their loss? What can be said to the inconsolable mourner dealing with the gaping void; those lingering feelings of hopelessness, isolation, anger, anxiety, and deep despair? What meaningful difference can you make?
You can bring comfort, reassurance, and hope through your heartfelt words of kindness. Offering compassion, caring support, love, the willingness and time to be a kind and a gracious listener - can make a big difference in someone's life.
Be a good listener
There's an art to listening - listening quietly, gently and with eloquent silence where words do not get in the way. Shared silence isn't just a momentary pause between words. It is quietude and tranquility, expressing itself as speechless prayer; it is a temporary stillness revealing reverence and respect. Cultivating and practicing the art of listening offers untold, yet sure rewards.
What not to say
" People mean well when unintentionally offering trite cliches and hackneyed platitudes. We've all heard those smooth, worn-out sayings: "They're in a better place now"; "It's all part of God's plan"; "Time heals all wounds"; "It was (their) time to go"; "You'll feel better in time . . . and find someone else"; "I know exactly what you're going through"; "You're not alone. Everyone goes through this"; "It's all for the best"; "You need to get rid of all (their) stuff"; "I wish there was something I could say to make this better"; "This must be hard on you, but you need to try to pull yourself together and keep going."
A broken heart isn't the same as a broken toy. Telling someone that they will eventually "get over it," suggests there's some kind of finish line to be crossed, and being a backseat griever doesn't hasten anyone's progress or recovery.
Suggesting how to feel, how to process their feelings of grief and loss, doesn't help rebuild relationships or promote true healing. However well-intentioned, dismissive, idioms invalidate, and trite cliches often add salt to the wound. They hurt rather than heal; they reignite hopelessness, heartbreak, even resentment.
A different approach to healing grief
Grief is often seen as a process of healing, but grief and grieving go hand-in-hand with death and mourning; neither is uplifting or healing. They exacerbate the downward spiral of pain, separation, and isolation - they only protract the darkness. Along with grievances, they amplify the very hurt, tears, and sadness in search of relief and release from pain. Consider, if you will, the similarities between the words: "grief," "grieve," and "grievance."
I find it somewhat ironic and irritating to hear the old oxymoron: "Good Grief!" There's nothing good about grief. It's a negative, painful emotion expressed as dismay and self-pity that thrive in darkness, morbidity, doubt, and fear. Grief intensifies sadness because it strangles our progress, constricts our recovery, and suppresses our wellbeing.
So, what can you say and do to support and honor a broken heart filled with sadness and loneliness, especially at Christmas when joy abounds for so many, but seems illusive and unattainable for so many others?
Empathy
You can begin by offering an empathetic and compassionate heart, by being willing to listen quietly and kindly. As you bolster a person's self-worth, you reinforce their certainty of purpose, completeness, importance, and sense of well-being; you are truly reassuring and comforting their longing heart. Empathy: the ability to imagine what someone else might be feeling, is the key to a heart-to-heart connection, and communicates your understanding of the enormous challenges they are facing.
Consider the power of a thoughtful, tender touch, of a warm hug. Both can be immeasurable. Gestures of kindness are always appreciated. "May I take you to dinner next week?" or, "I'd be happy to give you a hand with the gardening," are immediate, tangible, comforting expressions of concern and love, and are so much kinder than putting the onus on them by saying: "Be sure to give me a call if there's anything I can do for you."
We often hear: "I know what you're going through." That's very doubtful and rather unrealistic. It's nearly impossible to feel the same depth of despair another is feeling unless one has been through a similar circumstance. Here's where your objectivity can be helpful.
Your objectivity
When someone is having a nightmare, we don't try to enter their dream and attempt to change or fix it for them. Your objectivity gives you the opportunity to help shift their focus and perspective, to liberate them by seeing the promise of hope, usefulness, social involvement, thereby re-establishing their relationships and sure protection - in essence, open a new day for them. This enables you to lift your friend out of their anxiety and fear.
Filling the void
When faced with the untimely death of my fiance, my desolation was unconsolable. I sincerely missed the companionship, affection, caring, courage, integrity, humor, grace, and conviction we offered one another. So, I began to fill the painful void, that empty black hole of loneliness and grief by expressing more consciously the very qualities I missed most. More importantly, I became kinder to myself, more compassionate, thoughtful, considerate, and loving. I came to the realization that I couldn't love someone else until I loved myself. My scalding tears turned into salutary, cleansing tears, and eventually, tears of profound gratitude.
These inspired lines from a poem by eighteenth-century Scottish-born hymnist James Montgomery enlightened my dark outlook to one of confidence and hope: "His might thy heart shall strengthen, His love thy joy increase."
I realized that I could continue loving my fiance and still love another as well. Because love is limitless, and infinite, a brighter outlook on life gently emerged, lifting my gloomy sense of existence and making room for the person standing in front of me to enter my life for the past fifty-three rewarding years.
Forgiveness is healing ~ Healing is forgiveness
No experience ever leaves us where it finds us. Life is growth, and yes, growth can be messy at times - but it does make us stronger. It continually teaches us our all-important purpose in life: to learn and to teach - to give and receive - forgiveness, and especially, to forgive ourselves!
Learning to forgive is the ongoing practice we can improve upon, daily. Not only is true forgiveness liberating, it's the very key to happiness. It naturally reveals the truth and falsity of any situation. Forgiveness is healing and healing is forgiveness . . . they are two different sides of the same coin.
People will say: "Forgive and forget," but simply forgetting and sweeping a grievance under the rug isn't forgiveness and doesn't heal a broken heart - it just helps us cope, temporarily.
Grievances exacerbate and prolong pain
Grievances usually have their foundation in what we think others are thinking. By letting go of our perceptions, criticisms, resentments, and agitations, we embrace an unconditional love which promotes our growth, joy, and pure peace. I've found that it isn't the problem that needs to be pondered, but rather it's the very truth which the problem is trying to hide - which is truly curative. In the truth lies the foundation of our invulnerability, harmony, impervious armor, and protection. It's the truth which eliminates villains and restores victims, reconciles resentment, and is the very love in which we can forgive. Although evil may seem to be more real and powerful than good and often tries to disguise itself as good . . . true goodness never comes to us in the disguise of evil.
Look to the light
When it feels as if we're walking through the "valley of the shadow of death," be assured we can walk through the valley's dark shadows without needing to stop and pitch a tent. Beyond the valley of self-pity, resentment, and the heaviness of grief - is warm, liberating sunlight - ready and able to encircle us and brighten the world through which we walk. Eventually we will come to the inspired realization that, we are the world, through which we walk.
The gentle awakening from death's dark dream is truly liberating. It increases our gratitude for the beauty already surrounding us, provides a deeper appreciation of our self-worth, restores growth, grace, and accomplishment back into our lives. Be assured, it's not our obligation to destroy darkness. Light naturally eliminates darkness without a direct effort, delay or hesitation, regardless of how long, or how dark it has been in the past.
The gift of Christmas
Christmas should be a tender time, a time of reflection, hope, appreciation, certainty, gratitude, charity, and deep abiding comfort. Gratitude, like forgiveness has a wide range of meanings. Gratitude for material things is always limited, restricted and of little effectiveness, whereas gratitude for the ideas things represent is uplifting, effective, and healing. For example, rather than expressing gratitude for a job, why not be grateful for employment, instead of a car, why not express gratitude be for transportation, instead of a house, a home, for a meal, perhaps sustenance and nourishment, and instead of a spouse, right companionship. The more gratitude we express for Life, Truth, and Love, the more we will see them expressed in our lives.
Nothing can separate us from the infinitude of ever-present love. So why not become a more active part of all-inclusive Love, the love which is reflected in love.
Your shining light
Maya Angelou thoughtfully suggested: "Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud." Why not be someone's rainbow, today? What a beautiful gift you can give, here and now . . . your uplifting presence, the best present of all.
By putting the Christ back into Christmas, you can make a big difference. You can give the unspeakable gift of hope and joy by offering the morning's bright sunlight to a receptive heart.