266: When the Holidays are Making You Anxious

Hi, I'm Megan Hilluka, a grieving mother turned grief coach. I now support, guide, and offer tools to navigate the unthinkable of child loss to other moms who also know this pain. I help you go from empty, lost, and broken to learning to carry your grief and live alongside it. If there's one thing I want you to see, it's hope.

I hope that there's life after loss. I hope that there's so much more for you and that you're normal. All of this is possible, along with never forgetting or moving on from your baby or child. I'm holding on to hope for you until you are ready to hold it yourself. Welcome to Grieving Mom's podcast.

Well, hello there. It is 11 p.m. my time, and this episode is coming out tomorrow. And I'm finally recording this. Sometimes I get far ahead on the podcast, and it feels amazing to have it all done, no matter what's coming up. And sometimes I'm recording just in time for it to come out because other things have happened or I have things outlined, but I've never been able to get a chance to record yet.

So instead of going to bed, I'm recording. So hopefully this episode is a good one for you and helps you out because it's a lot of my heart and my thoughts, and something I hope can assist you and help you. So we're going to talk about the holiday season, um, and anxiety about the holiday season; it's coming right up, right?

It's just right around the corner. And with it, maybe that anticipation or dread of the holidays, something I see so often in grief, which I believe makes grief so much harder, is that of a struggling, grieving mother. thinks that she has to just put her head down and push through the holiday season.

Maybe she believes that there's nothing that she can do to make the holiday season better. And she just kind of has to get through it. And as a result, she's experiencing a ton of anxiety, thinking about the holidays. And as the holidays come around, she's very disconnected, trying to put on a happy face for her living children.

But inside, she's very empty and doing it only for her kids. She's exhausted, drained, and miserable. So this makes sense if we think about it, especially if this grieving mom has been living in survival mode. So many of us believe that there's nothing you can do. You just have to, you know, push through it.

Just get up and keep going. It's like this big holiday season is looming and there's not anything she can do about it, but, um, not only is it like the actual holiday season, but most grieving moms experience anxiety many months in advance. So it's not just say October, November, December, or November, December, or December, whatever.

I don't. Whatever holidays you celebrate or think about, it's like starting in August or July and thinking, Oh my gosh, how am I going to do these holidays? How am I going to navigate these? and starting to dread them already, even before they're way, way before they're here. So the suffering is already starting way in advance, and there's nothing anyone can do.

For this mom, her child is not there for the holidays. So this is part of the grief, the sadness, and the longing that makes us wish they were here. And all of the emotions that might come up are a part of grief, but there are parts of the holiday experience that can be so much lighter.

If this mom just clears up the anxiety or trauma or when guilt is cleared up and processed, when so much of the dirty grief emotions are processed and then there's just clean grief left, the holidays are so much easier than if she's still struggling under all the dirty grief that's causing all the suffering inside of grief.

So let me quickly talk about what's dirty grief. How do I think about it? Like, what is it, what is it versus, what is clean grief? Because we kind of encompass all of this stuff as like, Oh, okay. So grief is this one thing, and you never get over it. You just learn to live with it. Um, and you just learn to be, so that's kind of the general belief.

I think amongst grieving moms and people in grief, it's this big, huge blanket of over-grief. Like you just learned to live with it. But I like to separate it into dirty grief and clean grief because dirty grief is where all the suffering is, like guilt, anger, anxiety, trauma, reliving, nightmares, not sleeping, and overeating.

All of that stuff that causes so much suffering inside of grief, all of that's dirty grief, all of that causes suffering, and the dirty grief side of it can all be kind of like cleared, processed, and worked through, and the clean grief. It's the part of grief that is love for our child. It's the memories; it's the sadness that they're not here.

It's like this, the clean pain where it's just like, man, I just miss them and I love them so much and all of that stuff. The dirty grief is all the suffering. So I hope that makes sense of kind of separating it, separating it that the dirty grief is not stuff you need to continue to live with.

Clean grief is something that you do need to learn to carry; it is something that you do need to learn to process, work through, and live with for the rest of your life. I mean, when your child dies, it is a lifelong thing.

So let's think of this grieving mom who doesn't yet know that anxiety can be cleared. And she's just in survival mode. She's pushing through; she's pushing forward. She's like dreading the holidays, but she's just like, okay, putting her head down, she's like, I just got to get through this. But her energy is drained.

Her focus is taken away from the things that she knows are important to her because of the anxiety. And it’s so intense. It feels like, you know, her brain is foggy. She can't quite think straight. She can't focus; she's just trying to manage the anxiety daily through whatever it may be. Maybe exercise.

It may be keeping busy or cleaning. Um, it may be doing nonprofits in her child's memory. It may be medication, scrolling, or eating. Um, it's kind of like that game. I'm not sure what it's called, but like where, where it's like something pops up, um, and then you whack that down and then another one pops up and you whack that down, and just like this continuous thing or the other thing that comes to mind is like squeezing a tube of toothpaste and it just pops out.

You push it back, and it just keeps popping out because it's there all the time. And I kind of think of anxiety. Another way that I thought of it recently is that it's like, Oh, this is like managing anxiety. So if you're managing stress all the time, it's like if you had a weed growing in your garden and you kept picking the leaves, but you had to keep picking them over and over again because the leaves kept growing back.

What if instead you dug to the root of the weed and got the roots out? And then it's so much easier to take care of your yard because the weed is gone and you're not constantly picking the leaves off the top of the weed. Trying to manage anxiety is like picking the leaf off the weed; it takes so much energy; it's, you know, something you constantly have to do over and over, which leads to exhaustion and dread.

So let's think of this mom again. And for this mom, who is on the anxiety treadmill, her body will start to show signs. One thing that I believe is so amazing about human bodies is that sometimes they force us to slow down. Even if someone wants to keep pushing to keep going, the body will say, Sorry, this is just too much.

It's draining too much energy. I just can't keep going this way, and health issues come up. Something very common with anxiety is stomach issues or a numb face, which I experienced myself, which is scary. It's really scary when things start to happen and you're not sure why. Um, if they're unexplained, a lot of times it's anxiety.

So let's walk through this holiday season with a mother who still believes she needs to just push through the holidays, ignore the anxiety, not think about it, and just try to keep busy with other things. She could either be dreading the holidays or trying not to think about them. Either way, the anxiety is there.

So it doesn't matter if she's trying to not think about it. That means she is thinking about it. She's just trying not to, or she is actively thinking about it. Um, it's either right there in the open or underneath the surface. It doesn't matter which way it is. Because both ways it's draining the energy and mind are focusing on protecting this mom from non-existent threats, um, this whole holiday season.

And it's not that this mom is doing it wrong or that she's just like, Whatever it is, it's that she doesn't know. She doesn't know that something could be done yet. She doesn't know that it could be any different. Um, and so she's doing what is the best thing and the next right thing for her because she doesn't know that it could be different.

But as I think about this, I can just feel the tension in my shoulders as I talk about it. I can feel how terrified she is of what the holidays will bring, and she doesn't know how she's going to react. She doesn't know what emotions are going to come up and is scared to spend the holidays without her child. She doesn't want to try to feel joy when she feels so empty.

And then. She also feels guilt if she has any sort of joy, and she's pulled in different directions because she doesn't want to be okay. She feels bad for her kids because they don't have the mom that they used to have, and she doesn't want to go on and she has to go on, and oh, it's just so confusing and awful.

And the anxiety just fogs her brain and makes it hard to think, make decisions, and decide anything. The anxiety is draining. And this mom hates feeling this way, and I know she already knows that the anxiety is not helping her and that it's stealing from her life. She knows this already, but she just doesn't know that it's possible to clear it all at the root level instead of just continuing to try and manage it.

So let's. Think and talk about another mom who has cleared anxiety—this mom who's already done that work to clear anxiety. She can see more clearly because anxiety isn't clouding her vision or her thoughts. It's not draining her energy. For her, there is no anxiety leading up to the holidays. It just doesn't even happen or occur to her mind or body that she should experience anxiety.

And I think when I share that, that might be like, What is that even possible? Because maybe that hasn't been your experience thus far. But for a mom who has cleared anxiety, even though she has experienced it before, it's possible. So let's think of this mom. She's not worried about what the holidays will bring because she knows she has the tools to assist her and support her in handling whatever comes her way.

She's more present with her living children because she can stay in the moment rather than live in fear of the future. She's more connected with their husband. Because anxiety isn't ruining all the beautiful moments for them. As a mother who had experienced anxiety and now doesn't, she now knows what it feels like to feel calm and peace in her body, what an empty and calm mind feels like, and how good it feels to be free of the anxiety that had her wrapped up so tightly before the stress and the fear.

With this mom, she can now see more clearly, and without anxiety clouding her mind, she can see and identify what is a real threat and what is a perceived threat. She can move on from the perceived threats and then take action on the real threats. And because she cleared anxiety before the holiday season started, she's not having to just push through the holidays.

And come January, she won't be so exhausted from the holiday marathon that most grieving mothers are pushing through.

Okay. My friend, the holidays can be super challenging, but with some understanding of anxiety and using rapid-resolution therapy to clear up different parts of grief that are causing a ton of suffering, the holidays can be so much lighter. You truly, truly don't need to just push through. Um, it's not something that is a requirement or has to happen for everybody.

And even if it's been something you've experienced in the past, it can change, especially if you do the work upfront and in advance of the holidays. Um, maybe you don't appreciate my examples, but I do not need to push through the holidays. I am not exhausted in January because I've, you know, been so anxious and fearful and worried and all wound up about the holidays.

I'm not terrified of them. It is not a bad season. Yes, there has been a time in my life when I was concerned that I would never be joyful again during those holiday seasons. They're certainly amazing now, but it can happen so much faster if those suffering parts like anxiety and trauma and fear and worry are all cleared up because they aren't doing anything for you truly.

I just worked with a mom who was dreading a date coming up, and she was experiencing both guilt and anxiety. And as we worked through this together, by the end of our time together, which was maybe 15 minutes, maybe 20 minutes, I'm not exactly sure of the time amount. She had no more anxiety or guilt, and she was so happy to be free of those.

I could just hear it in her voice, and she even said how amazing it was to just have both of those kinds of releases and be gone. So, there's so much that you can do to prepare yourself and, um, really assist yourself and support yourself in this time before the holidays so that the holiday season doesn't have to just be a push through time and anxiety doesn't need to ruin the whole season for you or even cause so much turmoil before, like in this time, if you're curious to learn more about how anxiety can be cleared up for you and how you can be free of anxiety as well.

I'm hosting a free call on anxiety and how to be free from it. You can go to my website, https://www.meganhillukka.com/ to check it out and get registered for this free call. Anxiety call. I hope to see you there, and I'll see you next week, my friend. Take care. Bye bye.

If you like this podcast and have found it helpful, I want to invite you to come check out Grieving Mom's Haven. This is my monthly community for grieving moms, where you can learn positive coping mechanisms. Find a safe space with others who understand and learn lifelong skills that support you as you learn how to carry this weight of grief in your life.

There are group coaching calls where we do guided meditations, tapping meditations, breath work, and just talk. Knowing that everyone in the group is also walking the path of child loss, you can come to check out Grieving Moms Haven at www.grievingmomshaven.com.