The Dark Days of Winter
Cendra Lynn
This Grief Brief is by Cendra Lynn, one of the true pioneers in grief support resources on the World Wide Web. Dr. Lynn, the founder of GriefNet, is also a psychologist in private practice in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. She co-founded the MI Chapter of the Association for Death Education and Counseling [ADEC] in 1983 and was its president from then until 1990. She is active in various national activities of ADEC, and writes about grief and loss. In this Tip Of The Month, she writes about the challenge of dealing with the "dark days of winter".
The Dark Days of Winter
With apologies to those of you in the Southern Hemisphere, I want to share some thoughts about this time of year which is so hard for us all. It is the time when time itself seems to slow to a crawl and the heat of the sun is an elusive memory.
These are the dark days for those of us in the Northern latitudes, a season when our bodies want to hibernate and hope is a rare commodity. All around us are visual and auditory admonitions to rejoice, often making us feel guilty because we cannot. The weather has become difficult, health is harder to hold on to, and often the first thought we have in the morning is "How many hours until I can go to bed again?"
Winter Solstice celebrations were created by our ancestors to deal specifically with these physical and emotional reactions to the season. And I doubt whether they, back then, peppered each other with urgings to be merry when one was at lowest ebb. I like to think of them all huddled around giant bonfires, urging the sun to return and taking comfort in the presence of light and of each other. I imagine that sadness and depression were not spurned, but were, in fact, universally experienced.
What is so hard about present-day celebrations of the season is the denial of these painful emotions. It is like The Emperor's New Clothes: almost everyone is sad to some extent but we are expected to all go along with expressions of enjoyment. Those who cannot are often treated as Scrooge.
Well, here at GriefNet we do not go along with these expectations. Here sadness is received with open arms. We build our bonfires of interpersonal warmth, bringing light to each other's hearts, easing the pain of great loss. Sorrow is the coin of our realm. We know that only when one is truly able to grieve, can one find inner peace.
So as the days grow even shorter, as the frenetic holiday pace increases, as our sadness over our losses bites into our hearts, let us turn to each other here in the safe haven we have together created. And let us know that because we are all here, none of us are alone.
Grief Net
PO Box 3272
Ann Arbor, MI, 48106-3272
griefnet@rivendell.org or rivendel@ic.net
Grace happens
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