Planning for Peace
As the holidays approach, many grieving hearts feel anxiety long before the celebrations begin. The lights, the music, the expectations. Everything can stir memories of who is missing and how life has changed.
In this heartfelt episode of the Mindfulness & Grief Podcast, Heather Stang, thanatologist, yoga therapist, and author of Mindfulness & Grief, shares gentle, evidence-based ways to reduce holiday anxiety, honor your loved one, and care for yourself with compassion.
Whether this is your first holiday without your person or your twentieth, these practices will help you approach the season with less pressure and more peace.
Download your free Grief-Sensitive Winter Holiday Planner: https://heatherstang.com/holiday-help
Episode Chapters
00:00 – When the World Celebrates but Your Heart Is Grieving
The holidays can bring joy to others, but for those grieving, they often amplify absence and longing.
01:05 – Why Holiday Grief Brings Anxiety Before the Season Even Begins
Understanding the anticipatory stress that comes with approaching celebrations.
02:45 – Heather’s Childhood Story of Loss and Unspoken Grief
A personal reflection on the first Thanksgiving after her uncle’s death and what silence taught her about love and pain.
05:00 – What Silence Teaches Us About Healing
How unacknowledged grief lingers and why naming your pain is a vital part of healing.
06:10 – How Self-Compassion Helps When the Holidays Hurt
Introducing Dr. Kristin Neff’s three pillars of self-compassion and how they can soothe grief.
08:15 – A Mindful Writing Practice to Calm Anxiety
A simple reflection exercise to listen to what your body, mind, and heart need most.
09:20 – Gentle Planning Tips for Grief-Sensitive Holidays
Creating flexibility and safety with mindful planning that reduces pressure and anxiety.
10:40 – Honoring Your Loved One with Ritual and Remembrance
Ideas for rituals that transform absence into presence through love and creativity.
11:40 – Letting Grief and Love Share the Same Space
Closing reflections on finding meaning, balance, and moments of peace.
Transcript
The world says it is time to celebrate the holidays, but your heart is broken. Join me as we explore ways that you can honor your love and loss this holiday season, and how small acts of self-compassion, including planning ahead, can help you have a meaningful season without denying the pain of loss.
This is the Mindfulness and Grief Podcast, and I'm Heather Stang, author, yoga therapist, and thanatologist. You didn't choose grief, but here you are choosing how to show up for yourself, and I'll guide you along the way. In each episode, you'll experience practical tools and sound advice to help you tend to your loss, honor your love, and rebuild a life where grief, hope, and meaning can coexist.
When the Holidays Hurt
If you are grieving, the holidays can be one of the hardest times of the year. Everywhere you turn, the world is celebrating: the lights, the songs, the commercials. They all seem to shout that it's time for joy. But inside, it can feel like the world has forgotten that your heart is still broken when someone you love has died, or when life has changed in a way you didn't choose.
The holidays can stir up a mix of difficult emotions. There might be love and gratitude, but also loneliness, anger, or guilt. You might feel like you should be happy even when you know you're not. That push and pull between what the world expects and what your heart feels is exhausting, and that's part of why this season hurts so much.
Grief doesn't fade because the rest of the world is ready to celebrate again. Whether this is your first holiday without your person or your twentieth, you can still miss them deeply. Love doesn't expire. It just changes form.
A Childhood Lesson in Unspoken Grief
I learned that lesson early. When I was seven years old, my uncle died by suicide just a month before Thanksgiving. He was working on the Alaskan pipeline. My grandmother was the secretary at the First Baptist Church in Cary, North Carolina. She was an incredible cook, and our holidays always centered around her southern feast: quail that my grandfather had hunted that morning, corn pudding, squash casserole, mashed potatoes, all made from scratch.
That first Thanksgiving after Doug died, she still made every dish. She put on a happy face. She was the amazing hostess she always was. The table was beautiful, but the air was heavy. No one said my uncle's name. Everyone tried to act normal, like we could pretend our way through it. I remember sitting there as a seven-year-old child, feeling how wrong everything was.
The food tasted the same, but everything else was missing. It was our authenticity. It was our honesty. It was the fearlessness and connection that weren't present. Looking back now, I can see that my grandmother was doing what she needed to do to survive. Staying busy helped her feel safe, and it helped her feel in control.
But that silence and that unspoken grief became the atmosphere we all breathed for a long time, and it taught me early that unacknowledged pain doesn't disappear. It burrows deeper, only to emerge stronger. This is why I do this work now, because of that holiday, because of my understanding that we can't erase grief. This is why I'm so passionate about helping other people cope with holiday loss, because it formed me.
Making Space for Both Love and Pain
Part of navigating the holidays is making space for both the love and the pain. I'm going to offer you some things you can do, both in this podcast and in those that follow, to help you care for yourself during this difficult time.
Start with Self-Compassion
According to researcher Dr. Kristin Neff, whose work I love, self-compassion has three components. The first is being able to be with yourself when you're having a difficult time, and that's called mindfulness. You're present no matter what's happening.
The second piece is common humanity, and that's recognizing that while this is very hard, there's nothing wrong with you for feeling this way. It's part of grief, and it's something that all humans experience. We all experience pain and heartache and difficulty.
The final piece of self-compassion is self-kindness. This is how you show up for yourself, how you treat yourself, how you talk to yourself. And I'll say that just by listening to a podcast on holiday grief, this is you showing up for yourself. This is you saying, I care about my pain, this hurts, and I want to do something about it.
So know that when you're being self-compassionate, it's okay to dread the holidays. It's okay to cry, to cancel plans, to be angry, to laugh. Every feeling is welcome and allowed. You don't have to perform gratitude or joy. You just need to be honest with yourself about where you are.
A Simple Writing Practice
One way to do this is to try writing for a few minutes. If you're not into journaling, that's okay. I'll probably turn you over time, but for now, all you have to do is set a timer for about three minutes and ask yourself, what do I need most today? Today, right now. There's no right answer. Sometimes the answer is rest. Sometimes it's connection. All sorts of other things can come up. The important part is that you listen to you.
Planning Ahead with Flexibility
The next step is to make a plan but keep it flexible. The weeks leading up to the holidays can be filled with anxiety. Not just weeks, the months really. Having a plan can help you feel grounded and decide what feels right this year. You might want to keep certain traditions, change them, or skip them entirely.
In my Awaken Grief Support Community, one of the tools we use is the Grief-Sensitive Holiday Planner, which you can get for free at heatherstang.com/holiday-help. It's also in my guided journal From Grief to Peace.
This planner helps you think through questions like:
How do I expect to feel on the holidays?
What can I do if I get overwhelmed?
Who feels safe to be around me?
What events do I want to attend?
What traditions do I want to modify or change?
It even has a place for you to brainstorm new traditions and new rituals. I'll be talking about this planner and its different sections over the next several episodes of this podcast, because, like I said, navigating the holidays is so hard. But it is doable, and you don't have to know exactly how you're going to get through it. You will. When you make these gentle reflections about what you need, it will help you approach the holidays with compassion and meaning instead of dread.
Honoring Your Loved One
Another way to care for yourself during the holidays is to honor your loved one in your own way. You could light a candle, cook their favorite meal, wear their favorite color, or have everyone say a few words about them before dinner. Maybe share a memory or a story.
If you have children, and as a child who was grieving, I wish I had this, let them talk to you about how they're feeling. If words aren't working or don’t express all the feelings, turn to art. Draw a picture, write a letter, or create a portrait of them and their favorite memory. Even just using crayons can be therapeutic. It can also create a sense of gratitude and joy that this person was in your life and still is, in a changed way.
If you're alone, you can still create a ritual. Some people prefer to do their holiday rituals privately. You could write your loved one a letter or write yourself a letter that is from them. Sit quietly and think about the imprint they’ve had on your life, how they’ve impacted your worldview, your hobbies, your mannerisms, and your beliefs. Say their name out loud. These small moments can transform absence into presence.
Letting Grief Have Its Place
Finally, remember to let grief have its place. The goal isn’t to fix it or get over it or pretend that you’re having a great holiday season. The point is to create space where grief and love can coexist.
It’s okay to shut yourself in a room, put on some evocative music, and let yourself cry. Let it out. You can miss them deeply. You can release emotion. Then you can take a breath and honor the love that remains.
If you can give yourself permission to show up authentically and allow yourself to feel what you really feel, the holidays might start to feel a little less like something to survive and a little more like something to navigate gently and intentionally.
This holiday season will be different, but that doesn’t mean it can’t hold meaning. You can still find moments of comfort and even peace in the smallest things: a memory shared, a breath taken to calm your nervous system, a night with friends who understand how you’re feeling, or a hug from someone who knows how much you care.
If you would like to explore more about how to plan your holidays and your grieving, you can download the Grief-Sensitive Winter Holiday Planner at heatherstang.com/holiday-help, which is linked in the show notes. It’s full of mindful prompts, reflection exercises, and simple ways to move through the holidays with more ease.
Closing Thoughts
This brings us to the end of today’s episode of the Mindfulness and Grief Podcast. If you found it helpful, please follow the show and consider leaving a review. It helps others find their way here when they need support the most.
Then head over to heatherstang.com, where you can join my Awaken Grief Support Community free for 14 days. You’ll meet with me and other kindhearted members several times a week and get access to the Mindfulness and Grief course, plus guided meditations, journaling prompts, and more to help you navigate grief.
If you are a grief professional or volunteer, you can also learn about my Mindfulness and Grief Coach Certification. I’ll teach you how to share the Mindfulness and Grief system with others and, just as importantly, how to walk the talk and care for yourself along the way.
I’m so glad you chose to show up for yourself today. May these teachings benefit you and those you love. Be gentle with your heart, and come back soon.
