Where are you finding hope in the midst of this winter of grief? It’s a cold January day here in North Carolina. How is everyone doing out there? I am acutely aware that we are all grieving so much loss and feeling anxious over so much division.
It’s normal to not feel normal in the midst of so much loss and upheaval. A lot of folks are experiencing anxiety, foggy thinking, sleep disturbance, feeling stuck or frozen, using substances to cope, or feeling hopeless. Perhaps the greatest difficulty for many people has been in the struggle to make meaning from all of the loss and chaos and to reckon with the fact that our core beliefs about the world being somewhat predictable have been disrupted.
Finding Hope After Loss
How are you finding hope in this winter of loss and disruption?
Studies show that when we engage in social mitigation practices and do our part to decrease the risk of exposure to and spread of COVID, we are more likely to feel some sense of control, which can reduce COVID anxiety.
Practicing mindfulness and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) to help us to calm our bodies and regulate our emotions so that we’re not in a state of sustained fear and stress can be extraordinarily helpful during these difficult times.
During this season of loss and upheaval, our bodies, hearts, and minds are most in need of rest and repair. What healthy choices help you to enter a state of rest? How can you turn more deeply toward the stillness of winter to find healing and transformation?
Wintering is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs.
-Katherine Mays
Practicing Acceptance
Learning how to embrace the winter of grief by relating to it with acceptance, kindness and compassion, while simultaneously cultivating glimmers of peace and joy can help us to find a greater sense of inner stability and balance. Mindfulness can support us in learning how to have our feelings without them having us and holding our grief without it holding us.
What have you lost during the past year? I lost a significant relationship with someone I held very dear, a plan to move to another city, and people I care for who have died from COVID.
What have you learned or gained? I’ve gained greater clarity about what matters most and have become more convicted in staying true to what I value. I’ve returned to a quality of simplicity and directness that seems to have gotten lost in the past few years. And I have more fully embraced rest and repair in this winter season.
How can you create space to honor what you have lost and what you have learned or gained during this difficult year?
If you encounter moments when the suffering feels too great and hope feels out of reach, try asking yourself what it would be like to stay and just breathe for 30 more seconds for reaching for something to numb out or harm yourself. And when you reach the end of those 30 seconds, ask yourself what it would be like to stay for 30 seconds more. Sometimes we get through a moment this way, and sometimes we get through a day or a week this way.
Keep breathing. Keep reaching toward finding hope. Reach out for help if you need help. Getting therapy is easier than ever right now with so many of us working by video. If your mind tells you that you can’t afford therapy, search online for free or low-cost therapy. You might find some resources for low cost therapy at Open Path Psychotherapy Collective. What may feel like unbearable anxiety, depression, or grief can get better with skilled help from a licensed therapist. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline open 24/7 800-273-8255
I’m sharing links to a few podcast episodes that I have enjoyed this month that you may enjoy as well.
On Being with Krista Tippet interview with Kristen May – How Wintering Replenishes
Brené Brown’s Unlocking Us podcast episode with Tim Ferris and Dax Shepard on Podcasting, Daily Practices, and the Long and Winding Path to Healing
A few of the books I’ve enjoyed this month include Pam Houston’s Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country and Katherine Mays’ Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times.
Wishing you all glimmers of peace, joy, and hope in this winter season.
Love,
Jen