Tag: resilience

The holidays are both joyful and sad

by Amy Gamble, posted in Uncategorized

When I think of the holidays, I’m reminded of all the large family gatherings with lots of traditional fixings, laughter and cheer. Leading up to the big day, I remember the smell of cookies baking in the oven, while I sang along with my sister at the piano playing our favorite Christmas tunes.

A little over a week before Christmas my family would get together and celebrate my birthday. Yes, December was always an action packed month, mostly happy times, as it is for many people.

But this year the holiday season is arriving right at a time when two of my family members have passed away within the past few months. Losing a loved one is hard no matter when it happens. Picking up and trying to move forward with life is difficult without tossing in a holiday with so many traditions right in the middle of the early part of a grief process.

I have mixed emotions about the holiday season this year. It’s one of my favorite times of the year, and yet I’ll be without my beautiful mother for the first time in my life. I’m sad she’s not here and I miss her dearly.

And (not but) I still put up some Christmas decorations. At first, it felt strange to put them out and then I realized they made me feel good. The bright colors brought a smile to my face and the holiday music I played in the background reminded me of me good times.

Finding something that makes us feel good or brings some kind of joy during an otherwise sad time, is a reflection of resilience building. It’s taking something that could be overwhelmingly painful and without guilt or judgement, allowing ourselves to feel the happy memories along with the sadness that comes when we know our holiday season will never be the same again.

The ability to hold two opposing views in our minds at the same time is called cognitive dissonance. It’s possible to have joyful memories and deep sorrow all at the same time.

I’ve smiled when I’ve heard a favorite song and cried moments later when I acknowledged the hollow feeling of sorrow. I’ve made myself busy and I’ve sat with my grief. I’ve discovered over the years that feeling a wide range of emotions is one of the best types of self-care I can practice.

On social media I’ve noticed some posts that reminded others this was not a happy time for some. I acknowledge that is true. It made me feel sad for the person who posted it. And then, it made me feel sad for me too.

Sometimes it’s much easier to get locked in the “negative emotions.” Sadness, sorrow, pity, pain, hurt, etc. But there’s also another side to grief. Grief holds joyful memories too. And those joyful memories lift us up and help us get through times when all we want is to have our loved ones back for just one more day.

I can’t say this is an overall happy time for me. I don’t feel happy. But I do feel joyful in the many pleasant memories I have. I also feel sadness for the missing happy birthday voice who will not be singing this year. I feel sorrow for the faces that will be gone from our annual holiday celebration.

The holidays have a way of putting our losses under a microscope. It’s like zooming in on something with a giant sized magnifying glass. I’ve challenged myself to allow a wide range of emotions and to focus on not only the hole in my heart, but the many blessings I’m fortunate to have…the friends, acquaintances, family members who are all still here.

I want to wish all my readers a happy holiday season and a big Merry Christmas too! I hope your holidays are joyful, but if you experience sadness, grief or in general are stressed out, know that you’re not alone. Remember you have a foundation of resilience that can help you make it through no matter what emotions pop up.

Amy Gamble
Author and Olympian

Amy gamble

Amy Gamble is a National Award winning Mental Health Advocate. She recently finished her second book, Unsilenced: A Memoir of Healing from Trauma.

Amy’s Author Page

Walking in the grief wilderness without a map!

by Amy Gamble, posted in Uncategorized

My grief map is a topographical map of the wilderness, except I left home without it. I don’t think I can re-draw a grief map. I actually feel as if I’m wondering in the wilderness a little lost without a map. Being lost is not foreign to me, because I’ve actually been lost in the wilderness before for a few days. Having had that experience I’m not really frightened of not having a set way to find my way through grief.

I’m comfortable with the idea of wandering. Of not knowing when to turn left or right, east or west, north or south. I’m just walking and going with the flow, as if I was following a stream downward in hopes of finding civilization. 

I’m lonely at times. The grief I feel can overwhelm me, but I manage to compartmentalize. I’m taking one small step at a time, because any faster and I won’t be able to keep the pace and any slower and I’ll feel as if the grief wildnerness is going to swallow me up. I’ve decided the best option is to take one day at a time.

Even though I’m sort of wandering and a little lost, I’m still noticing the beauty in the scenery. As I remember the massively tall beautiful evergreen trees with snow bunched up on the bushy limbs their beauty is like the people I’m meeting along the way in my grief expedition. Their beautiful souls give me hope, just as nature’s beauty gave me hope when I was lost.

Sometimes I doubt myself that I’ll be able to make it to wherever this path is leading me. I feel like I’d be better served with a guide. But I lost my guide to the otherside in September. If she were here I’d feel a whole lot better about walking without a map. But I do draw upon her strength spiritually. I know she’s with me, just as I knew how much she loved me when I was actually literally lost in the wildnerness.

Like many of my experiences I have a tendency to share with other what I learn. Right now, I’d share that I’m not sure grief really does follow any kind of map. I think everyone really has to figure out how to get from here to there…wherever here and there is. 

What I’ve come to learn is that the more I explore grief, the more I find it. Sometimes lurking in the shadows of the past. I ask myself, “Shouldn’t that 30 plus year old loss not bother me today? Why do I still feel pain and sorrow?” And then, I laugh as I answer my own question. “The pain is tolerable. The memory of loss will always be sad. There’s no way to make it happy…to turn it into something it wasn’t.” 

Walking step by step, one day at a time and noticing all the things that make me feel one way or another is helping me heal. Though healing isn’t always linear. It doesn’t matter if I go East, South, North or West, as long as I’m walking I’m surviving. And as in the case when I was acutally lost in the wildnerness, I eventually found other people in the wildnerness who helped me, I’m finding other people now who are helping me navigate the grief process.

As long as I keep moving. I’ll find my way. It may not be easy and the terrain can be treacherous at times, but I’ll draw on my inner strength and the fact that I was loved unconditionally by a woman I called mom. The love will help me survive long enough, until I meet other travelers along my journey.

I can rest peacefully knowing I will be okay. 

Author and Olympian

amy gamble

I’m an author and former Olympian who writes about mental health. Having recently lost my mom, I’m writing my way through grief.

Amy’s Author Page