As the clock ticks down to midnight on New Year’s Eve, people across the world are filled with a sense of anticipation and excitement. For them, the beginning of a new year marks a fresh start, a chance to celebrate with loved ones and look forward to the future with renewed optimism. However, for widows, the new year can be a really difficult time. It brings into sharp focus all that we’ve lost, reminds us of the future we’ve been robbed of and can accentuate the pain, despair and loneliness we’ve spent the year battling through.
In this blog, I’ll provide widows with a few practical tips on how they can navigate those tricky last few days of December and step into the new year with more confidence, purpose and a greater sense of peace.
When we lose a life partner, the new year can set us apart from others. As they look forward to the coming year and all the hope, opportunity and excitement that it brings, we are weighed down by the heaviness of our grief. Scared, lonely, and apprehensive, to us, the new year can feel as if we’re moving further away from our loved one and that we’re leaving them behind. It can sometimes feel easier to sit with our discomfort, rather than confront a future without them.
If this is how the new year feels for you, that’s ok. Be gentle with yourself. Acknowledge that you may be feeling your grief more acutely this time of year. Embrace what’s showing up for you - lean into the fear, frustration, sadness and pain. The worst thing we can do is mask our pain. By suppressing our sorrow and succumbing to pressure to act as if we’re ok, we’re simply setting back our healing. Our grief is unique to us and our feelings, however they show up, are valid and real and deserve to be honoured.
If the New Year and the prospect of facing an entire twelve months without your loved one feels unbearable - consider reframing the way you view it. Instead of thinking of it as a brand new year, heavy with expectation and pressure, look at it as just another day - as the world simply turning on its axis for another 24 hour period.
Try to stay in the present and consider ways in which you can get through New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day by adjusting existing traditions or creating new ones. You may choose to escape on a solo trip somewhere, watch films all night, or just lock the world away and go to bed early. Alternatively, you may wish to embrace new traditions that honour your late husband and the love you shared such as creating a memory book, visiting his grave, having dinner with the people he loved, writing him a note or lighting a sparkler in his memory.
Whatever you choose to do, try to set clear boundaries with friends and family and communicate openly and honestly with them about your needs and how you’ll be seeing in the new year. This will help to prevent emotional overwhelm and help the new year feel more manageable.
When those around us are setting new year’s resolutions and going public with their plans and goals for the forthcoming year, it can be difficult for us not to do the same. However, by setting ourselves lofty, ambitious goals whilst we’re in the midst of our grief, we’re setting ourselves up to fail. The grieving process is gruelling and working through it is a full-time job. Establishing resolutions on top of dealing with grief can lead to disappointment and damage our self-esteem when we fail to achieve them.
As such, instead of focusing on setting resolutions and self-improvement, our time would be better spent reflecting on our needs and how we might best support them. We might think about what we want to take with us into the new year - things that have been supportive and helpful, as well as any unhealthy vices that have perhaps sabotaged our healing and that we wish to leave behind. And we may want to consider what we need more of. Whether it’s prioritising sleep, moving more, eating better, being kinder to ourselves or reaching out and asking for help, identifying what will help us to heal, could be transformational.
Once we’ve identified our needs, breaking them down into small, manageable steps is vital. If we’ve recognised that we need to move more - we could start with a short 10 minute walk a few times a week. If we’ve decided we need more support, we might pick one person who we know will ‘get’ our grief and really be there for us. And, if we struggle to consistently prioritise self care, we could explore ways of scheduling it in. Whether we’re attending a support group, meditating, journaling or exercising, using a calendar or digital reminder will help to ensure that we stay on top of our needs throughout the year.
Working through grief is exhausting. It takes every ounce of energy that we have. And so, as we approach the new year, it’s important that we make time to reflect on our grief journey and celebrate our progress. The multiple triggers we’ve navigated from birthdays to anniversaries, holiday seasons to personal milestones, the support mechanisms we’ve built to help us cope and the glimmers of hope and joy we’ve embraced are all worthy of recognition. We’ve spent the year being resourceful and proactive and we should take pride in that. So, whether we’re raising a glass to ourselves or noting down our accomplishments over the past year in a journal - spending the closing days of the year acknowledging our strength and determination is something I would actively encourage.
As the new year approaches, you may feel the need to balance solitude with connection. Being a widow at new year can reinforce our isolation and loneliness, especially as we watch those around us - couples in particular - gather together, celebrate their love and make plans for the future. As the year draws to a close, finding people with whom we can connect and be ourselves with will help to ease our grief. Whether that’s a family member with whom you can share memories of your loved one, or your best friend you can simply sit in silence with, being in the company of others can make the transition into the new year more bearable.
If the loss of a spouse has left you more estranged from family and friends but you’re still seeking support and connection, think about seeing a grief counselor or joining a bereavement group, where you’ll find other widows who’ve been where you are, have experienced a similar loss and are facing the same apprehension about the new year. It is often within these groups that our guard can truly come down and we can open up about our pain, fear and sadness in a safe, non-judgmental environment. Seeing in the new year with people who ‘get’ your grief and with whom you can be yourself can feel incredibly cathartic.
As a widow coach, I run a membership group full of amazing surviving partners with whom you can connect, share your journey and explore your grief. By joining my group you’ll be joining a supportive community of people who ‘get it’, who’ll bear witness to your grief and provide you with the validation you’ve been seeking. If you’re keen to find out more, click here.
As the new year looms, holding on to our pain can offer us some comfort and connection to our loved one. And whilst it’s important to lean into what we’re feeling, (especially at new year, when our grief can feel more raw,) it’s worth reminding ourselves that moving forward with our life and eventually releasing our pain, doesn’t mean we’re moving on from our person. Grief is a life-long companion. It’s not something we ever get over or recover from; it’s something we need to learn to build our lives around. Our connection to our loved one doesn’t solely reside in the pain we feel. It shines within us, through the beliefs and values they have instilled in us, our mindset that they’ve helped to shape and their hobbies and ways of living that we’ve adopted. And as we carry all of this forward into the new year, they too come with us.
So, as we approach the new year and reflect on the love we hold for our person - we might try to think about what they’d want for us and how they’d want us to live our lives - how they’d want us to grow, to love, to be happy and to stay well. Whilst they are sadly no longer here, we are. We have been gifted life and so our job is to live it, to try to find joy and meaning once again and to do so in a way that honours our person.
Whether you’re taking up a hobby they enjoyed, exploring new experiences, volunteering for an organisation that they supported, or tending to a tree or garden in their memory, there are plenty of ways in which you can honour your loved one and nurture the connection you have with them whilst also tending to your emotional needs. Be open to embracing these moments of happiness and connection. Although learning to live again can take time and feel uncomfortable at first, it’s what our loved ones would want for us. And in doing so, not only are you honouring your person but you’re honouring your strength and capacity to rebuild and recover.
Although for a widow, a new year can exacerbate grief and bring into focus all we have lost, it also presents us with invaluable opportunities to heal. If we can learn to reframe what the new year means to us and view it as a chance to prioritise self-care and personal growth and explore new ways of honouring our loved one, we may find ourselves ready to build a new life - one filled with joy, peace and a greater sense of purpose.
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