Holidays Are Hard

I found wonderful advice a few weeks ago and tucked it away to read when I had a moment. It was advice from a resilience expert who used her own research after her child was killed in a car accident.

She explains, “In the blink of an eye, I found myself flung to the other side of the equation, waking up with a whole new identity. Instead of being the resilience expert, I became the grieving mother, trying to wrap my head around unthinkable news with my world smashed to smithereens.”

I appreciated her words because she acknowledges that she didn’t instantly switch to using her advice. She was in an emotionally impossible place, and some days she got through better than others. But this was the advice that she used to get through the five years following the accident; all of it applicable for getting through any difficult situation.

Which is why I’m passing it along today. Just in case you’re dreading the holidays this week.

I think her third question — is this helping or hurting (and answering it honestly) — is maybe the most applicable, but I found all of the advice a good perspective shift. Maybe it’s the equivalent to giving someone a Band-Aid when you’re bleeding, but at the right time, these types of words can be guidance if you’re looking for a way forward into the next minute.