New Year in Grief

The New Year, whether you're excited for a fresh slate, or disappointed to be going to into a new one, can be a good opportunity to reframe your grief.

Focusing your New Year's resolution around healing can be a great way to shape your year. Perhaps you don't subscribe to the idea of a New Year's resolution. Either way, taking new techniques or goals into the New Year can be a great way to freshen up your healing tool box.

Tips for Healing in the New Year in Grief

• Gratitude Journal

  • starting a gratitude journal in the new year can be a great way to focus on some positive things, to balance out the sad, lonely, and longing feelings often found in grief/loss.

• Joy Jar

  • Similar to a gratitude journal, this can be a weekly activity to center your weeks around something positive. Find a jar or take a moment to use your creativity to make a container to keep your "joys" in. Each week, write a quick blurb about something that brought you joy in during the week. At the end of the year (or on a particularly sad/challenging day), you will have dozens of happy memories to look back on.

• Professional Help

  • Finding professional help, whether you're joining a support group or starting individual therapy, can be a great tool for weekly or monthly check ins to manage your feelings and emotions. Read here for a look into asking for and finding professional help.

• Connection

  • If you're finding yourself lonely or in a rut after your loss and fight through grief, finding a group or sense of connection can greatly reshape your journey. Joining a club, taking a new class for a hobby or educationally, or attending support sessions can offer a sense of belonging and community in connection.

• Honoring Loved ones

  • Setting aside a day with family or friends to have a memorial for your loved one can be a great way to have something to look forward to in the new year while still connecting with the loved one you've lost. This could be on their birthday, an anniversary, or a date where you think you might benefit from extra connection.

• Tracking Your Days

  • Grab an extra wall calendar and set of markers or color coded stickers this year. Assign a feeling or event to each color, and do a 60 second check in at the end of each day. Examples would be coloring a box blue for sadness/crying, with a short phrase of what the trigger was. Another could be putting a smiley face sticker in the box for a good day. Make this your own by adding your own colors or stickers to track how you're doing.

• Open a Set of Forget Me Not Notes

  • Having something to look forward to and a way to express your grief can be a great way to reshape your weeks when feeling down in grief. Each week or month, you could receive a card with a space to journal or reflect, with a quote about the feelings of grief and loss to relate to. This is a great reminder that your feelings are normal and valid, and felt by others. Learn more here.

Whatever your New Year's resolution is or which tool you'll add to your toolbox, know you're not alone as you journey into a new year with hope and grief on this path. Your grief is not forgotten here.