Navigating Grief During the Holiday Season

Contact: Shelby Cefaratti-Bertin, Baylor University Media & Public Relations, 254-327-8012
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The holiday season is a time of joy, togetherness and celebration, but for many – especially those who are grieving the death of a loved one or a deep loss – it can bring a complex mix of emotions, ranging from sadness and sorrow to gratitude and joy.

 Baylor University professors Candi Cann, Ph.D., a death scholar and associate professor of religion in the Honors College, and Jo-Ann Tsang, Ph.D., a leading gratitude researcher and associate professor of psychology, offer four strategies for people experiencing difficult emotions and grief during the holidays. 

Embrace the spectrum of emotions

Both Tsang and Cann say the key to maintaining balance and authenticity – even while deep in grief – is understanding and accepting where you are emotionally. 

“It’s possible and normal to feel different emotions at one time,” Tsang said. “You can feel happiness during the holidays, but also sad that you miss someone who you wish were present. Being grateful does not rule out feeling other emotions; we can cultivate gratitude, but that does not necessitate running away from other emotions.”

Cann pointed out that grief can be complicated if the death or loss is from a difficult relationship.

“It is okay to feel relief in addition to grief and it is important to validate all of your feelings – it’s a complicated grief because it was a complicated relationship,” Cann said.

The importance of self-care

Self-care is vital during this time, Cann said. She encourages grieving people to stay active, eat healthy, go outside to be in nature and get enough sleep.

“It’s totally normal to need more sleep when you're depressed and grieving. You just have to be gracious with yourself about that,” Cann said. 

Allowing ourselves to feel emotions like stress, sadness or grief gives us insight into what we value and “can motivate us to take some time for self-care,” Tsang said. Acknowledging that we are stressed might lead us to reach out to others for help with tasks that overwhelm us or to let go of things to reduce stress. 

In addition to taking care of your physical health, staying engaged in your community or church and being in community with others is beneficial for mental health, Cann said. But at the same time, be honest with yourself about what you want to do and only accept invitations or participate in activities that you feel you can handle, she added.

The place of gratitude

Tsang suggests approaching challenging emotions with gratitude as it “might also provide context and perspective for our loss and potentially transform our negative emotions.” 

“As an example, I might feel frustrated that I am sad but then feel grateful that I have good family and neighbors to check on me and coworkers to help me finish the tasks that I can’t do while I’m down,” Tsang said. “This gratitude might help reduce my frustration by helping me see the support that is present in my life, on which I had not previously reflected.” 

At the same time, she reiterated that, in addition to cultivating gratitude, it’s important for people to permit themselves to experience negative emotions such as grief and sadness in response to life circumstances.

“It’s okay if it’s hard to experience gratitude. God meets us where we are,” Tsang said. 

Evaluate traditions and embrace memories

Cann suggests evaluating family traditions, choosing those that are most important to continue and starting new traditions that include their loved one.

“A lot of people feel like when that person is gone, the love is gone too, but the love is still there,” Cann said. “You wouldn't feel the grief or the big hole that you now have if you didn't have all of this love in the first place.” 

She suggests embracing their loved one’s presence by including a place at the table for Christmas dinner, making their favorite recipe or finding other ways to continue the bonds. By doing these things, “you're including them in your conversation, and you're making space for that person, both literally and symbolically,” Cann said.

Supporting someone who is grieving

Being supportive of someone grieving requires patience and vulnerability.

“Engage with the person and ask how you can best support them, andlet them know that you are thinking about them during this time,” Cann said.

Sometimes, friends or family members don’t want to bring up death during the holidays because they don't want to make people sad at a joyful time.

“But the point is, they already are sad, so bringing it up allows them to express it” and feel accepted in their pain, Cann said.

It also is important to remember that not all grief is related to death. There are many types of loss that people experience such as divorce or disease. The Baylor researchers note that we can’t decide or predict what defines another person's grief, but we can offer love and support.

Approaching the holidays when experiencing grief over a death or a deep loss may be painful at first, but using these strategies can help us face the future by celebrating with gratitude what we had in the past.

Ultimately, the holidays are a time for reflection, connection and self-compassion. Allow yourself to feel your emotions fully – whether joyful, challenging or a mix of both – and use them as guides for meaningful action.

ABOUT CANDI CANN, PH.D.

Candi K. Cann, Ph.D., is a noted death scholar and associate professor of religion who teaches in both the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core (BIC) in the Honors College and the Department of Religion at Baylor University. Her research focuses on death, dying, and grief, and she is especially interested in the intersections of marginality, diversity, and death technologies. Cann’s books include "Virtual Afterlives: Grieving the Dead in the 21st Century," "Dying to Eat: Cross Cultural Perspectives on Food, Death and the Afterlife" and "The Routledge Handbook of Death and Afterlife." She is called on often by media outlets for her expertise, including NPR Science Friday, various BBC radio programs, CSPAN's Book TV and Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Radio

ABOUT JO-ANN TSANG, PH.D.

Jo-Ann Tsang, Ph.D., is an associate professor of psychology in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Baylor University. She is a published expert in the areas of social psychology, psychology of religion, gratitude, forgiveness and more. A widely published and widely funded researcher, her work yields an understanding of gratitude as well as practical applications for individuals and includes studies on gratitude toward God, the social effects of perceptions of divine forgiveness and religion and prejudice.

ABOUT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY 

Baylor University is a private Christian University and a nationally ranked Research 1 institution. The University provides a vibrant campus community for more than 20,000 students by blending interdisciplinary research with an international reputation for educational excellence and a faculty commitment to teaching and scholarship. Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas through the efforts of Baptist pioneers, Baylor is the oldest continually operating University in Texas. Located in Waco, Baylor welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries to study a broad range of degrees among its 12 nationally recognized academic divisions.  

ABOUT THE COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES AT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY 

The College of Arts & Sciences is Baylor University’s largest academic division, consisting of 25 academic departments in the sciences, humanities, fine arts and social sciences, as well as 11 academic centers and institutes. The more than 5,000 courses taught in the College span topics from art and theatre to religion, philosophy, sociology and the natural sciences. The College’s undergraduate Unified Core Curriculum, which routinely receives top grades in national assessments, emphasizes a liberal education characterized by critical thinking, communication, civic engagement and Christian commitment. Arts & Sciences faculty conduct research around the world, and research on the undergraduate and graduate level is prevalent throughout all disciplines. Visit the College of Arts & Sciences website. 

ABOUT THE HONORS COLLEGE AT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY 

The Honors College at Baylor University unites four innovative interdisciplinary programs – the Honors Program, University Scholars, Baylor Interdisciplinary Core and Great Texts – with a shared commitment to providing undergraduate students the opportunity to pursue questions that often fall between the cracks of the specialized disciplines by investigating the writings of scientists along with the writings of poets, historians and philosophers. For more information, visit the Honors College website.