Navigating loss and looking ahead to the New Year

It might feel as though you are leaving behind the person who has died, and that some well-meaning friends, family and acquaintances expect you to.

But there’s no set formula for grief.  

So how do you plan ahead when the unexpected happens and grief is now part of your everyday life?

Here are a few things to keep in mind to help you through this time of year.

1. Prioritise  

Grief touches every aspect of our lives and can make the basic everyday tasks more difficult. Even though these were part of our normal routine before, they can leave you feeling overwhelmed, discouraged and frustrated if you now find them challenging.

It may be time to simplify. Make a list of all of your responsibility and then break them down under three headings: Non-negotiable, Negotiable and Removable. 

• Non-negotiable tasks are needed and required. For example, we need to sort out the legal paperwork, pay our bills and buy food. However, we can simplify how we do those tasks. Is there someone or a charity like CAP, that can help with a budget? What about ordering groceries online to help budget, avoid impulse buys and a delivery time that suits you? Where you can, try to simplify and take the pressure off.
• Negotiable tasks are ones that are still important but could maybe be delegated to someone else. If finances allow or someone offers to help for free, can you have someone clean your house, handle the ever-growing ironing pile or mow the lawn? If people offer to help, take advantage of the offer. They want to feel helpful. So, let them do it. 
• Removable tasks are the ones you might not need to take on at all. Trying to manage extra tasks when already stretched and drained from the emotional strain of grief can lead to extra stress, which can affect our health. There are probably some things that you can say no to, and that’s OK.

It was a big thing for me to accept that I could not do everything I had done before losing my husband, as well as everything he had done. It was completely unrealistic to expect that of myself.

2. Remember Them 

There is a fear and quite often, an expectation, that we need to leave our loved one behind and ‘move on’ as we enter a new year. But that’s absolutely not the case!

We prefer ‘moving forward’, which indicates that as we go on, we carry them with us in our hearts and memories and continue to honour them in our own way. We continue to talk about them and mark those significant dates.

Each grief story is unique to the person living it, and we need the space to do this at our own pace and in our own way. Light a candle, raise a toast or do whatever you feel is right as you remember them at key moments this year. 

3. Find gratitude 

Being grateful for what we do have can help us find glimpses of hope in the midst of sorrow and pain.  You might want to write down three things every day that you are thankful for or maybe three positive things that happened that day. This was immensely helpful to me, even though there were times that I struggled to find anything.

Write down the successes or keep them in a Hope Jar. They may be insignificant to others, but to those in grief, every success is significant. We are trying to survive in an unrecognisable landscape which keeps shifting, and we are forced to step out of our comfort zones and do things that we are not confident to do. Every win is a significant win. Celebrate it and find those people and things in your life that you are thankful for.

Entering the new year can be a daunting experience, but resolving to prioritise and simplify, remembering our loved ones and finding gratitude for what we still have can help us as we choose to plan and move forward into another year.