New Year Grief Wishes: Grief’s Version of New Year’s Resolutions
Brittany Squillace, MA, LMFT
Grief Therapist
Happy New Year! But is it? As we close out 2022 and look ahead to the new year of 2023, you may be met with hopefulness on what the new year can bring and ambition to make it the best year yet. Or you may be met with sadness and despair for the fact that this is another calendar year (or maybe the first full calendar year) without your deceased loved one physically present. This can bring many questions around “how am I going to do another year of anniversaries, birthdays, milestones, and day-to-day life without them here?” As a result, you may be left feeling lost and uncertain on how to best go into and navigate the new year.
GRIEF WISHES: OUT WITH THE OLD IN WITH THE NEW?
Ahh the classic saying! A new year represents a fresh start…for most. A new year represents leaving behind the battles of the previous…for most. For someone like yourself, who is walking and honoring your grief journey, a fresh start and leaving behind battles of the year prior could possibly mean leaving your deceased loved one behind; fueling that fear of forgetting your loved one. To reduce this valid fear and provide you with some clarity on how to best navigate the upcoming new year, I invite you to explore your grief wishes allowing you to join the old with the new. Let me explain what I mean and break it down for you.
GRIEF WISHES: JOINING THE OLD & THE NEW
“My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to”. While I was humming this beautiful song by the country band Rascal Flatts not too long ago, it got me thinking about the pieces highlighted above; the idea that the typical new year experience doesn’t always fit for someone like yourself who is walking and honoring a grief journey. This includes new year’s resolutions. As you enter the new year, I don’t hope for completion of new year’s resolutions for you but rather fulfillment of grief wishes. My wish for you in this upcoming year is to find a way to carry your deceased loved one from the previous year over to the new year. My wish for you in this upcoming year is to continue remembering your deceased loved one(s) and honoring your grief journey. To help you in the journey of joining the old with the new, I want to guide you through a 3 phase exploration exercise that will allow you to identify not new year’s resolutions but new year grief wishes for:
Yourself,
Your deceased loved one and
Your grief journey
GRIEF WISHES: PHASE 1-YOURSELF
When walking through and honoring a grief journey, you may not value setting new year’s resolutions like you once did (assuming that was an important part of your life at some point) rather, you may find your desire lies in a different form of growth; one that involves growing around the grief and learning to carry your deceased loved one(s) with you. To identify and execute your new year’s grief wishes for yourself, I invite you to explore the following questions:
How do you want to show up both inside and outside of your grief (yes, there is more to you than just your grief)?
How will you allow for and utilize grief breaks in the new year?
What’s an area outside of your grief you’d like to explore? (This doesn’t have to mean therapeutically either; it could be exploring a new hobby or new skill.)
GRIEF WISHES: PHASE 2 - YOUR DECEASED LOVED ONE
“There were things I didn’t get a chance to say to them and now I’ll never get to.”
It’s not uncommon to feel as though there were things left unsaid with your deceased loved one. You may find there to be unresolved issues with your person who has passed. You may also find yourself having the common experience of wondering where your loved one is and how they’re doing now that they’ve passed (listen to the Exposing Grief podcast episode with a medium who speaks to how to connect with your deceased loved ones on the other side). In efforts to address these, what I like to call “remote grief areas”, I invite you to explore the following grief wish questions:
What do you hope/wish for your deceased loved one now that they’ve passed?
You have the opportunity to share with your deceased loved one something that was left unsaid, what are you sharing?
What do you want your deceased loved one to know as you transition into a new year?
GRIEF WISHES: PHASE 3 - YOUR GRIEF JOURNEY
We know grief has no end, it only transforms over time. In knowing this grief truth, embarking on the voyage of honoring and walking a grief journey may be met with hesitancy. The hesitancy may increase and feel more intense around this time of year. To encourage continued growth within your grief journey, I invite you to explore the following questions:
What growth have you seen in your grief journey this year?
Where would you like to continue to grow within you grief journey in the year to come?
Are there new areas of growth within your grief journey you’d like to explore in the upcoming year?
GRIEF WISHES: TAKING ON A NEW YEAR
Now that you have this exercise, my wish for you this year is to walk into the new year keeping in mind the wishes you identified; using them as your guide on how to continue growing around your grief, carrying your deceased loved one with, and expanding on your life story. A new year doesn’t have to be the end if you don’t want it to be…it can be an extension to what you’ve already created.
