Healing Through the Holidays: Overcoming Grief, Loneliness, and Addiction with Powerful Creative Strategies

In this powerful and vulnerable episode of the Confident Sober Women Podcast, host Shelby and guest Christy dive deep into the complex emotional landscape of grief, loss, and loneliness—especially during the holiday season. Drawing from personal experiences of recovery, grief, and healing, they offer compassionate strategies for managing difficult emotions and creating meaningful experiences.

Key Takeaways

• Understanding Grief: Grief isn't linear and doesn't have an expiration date. It's normal and healthy to experience emotions at your own pace.
• Creative Healing: Creativity can be a powerful tool for processing emotions, from painting and journaling to cooking and gardening.
• Building Support: Creating a supportive "A-team" of understanding individuals who can sit with you in your emotions is crucial.
• Redefining Expectations: You have the power to define what holidays and personal experiences mean to you.

Healing Strategies Discussed

1. Emotional Acknowledgment

• Normalize your feelings of sadness, loneliness, and grief
• Avoid rushing to "fix" or suppress emotions
• Recognize that not everyone will understand your emotional process

2. Creative Expression

• Use creativity as a healing mechanism
• Experiment with various forms of creative expression: 

3. Physical Movement

• Engage in movement to process and release emotions
• Simple activities like walking, sitting outside, or feeling sunshine can be healing
• Use physical activities to connect with your body and senses

4. Ritual Creation

• Develop personal rituals to honor loss and memories
• Examples include: 
  • Lighting candles
  • Creating memory journals
  • Establishing new family traditions
  • Participating in memorial events

Connect with the Host
Website: purpledogsober.com  Instagram: @purpledogsober

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Chapters

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• 18:58 (Cont.) Healing Through the Holidays: Overcoming Grief, Loneliness, and Addiction with Powerful Creative Strategies

Transcript

  Hey Christy, how are you? It's so great to have you here on the Confident Sober Women podcast. Thank you so much for joining me and I would love to you, for you to share a little bit more about your story and then we're going to chat. 

Yeah, Shelby, great. Thank you so much for having me. My story is I have been sober for six years.

I got sober after my divorce when I realized I, was spending a lot of time by myself on my couch especially when my kids were their dads and, drinking. A bottle of wine a night, just really feeling lost and not sure what to do and scared and all the things and just losing myself in that bottle of wine.

So I really knew something needed to change  and was lucky enough to have a few friends in my life who were sober and who I reached out to and who helped me along the way. And  here I am six years, six and a half years later. And biggest, most powerful thing I've ever done in my life for sure was to get sober. 

Yeah, I totally agree with that. How, so would you mind sharing a little bit more about like how you did that? Did you use a 12 step program or something else, or what worked for you? Yeah, 

I did not. I had a, so the friends that I had, they were in 12 steps themselves, so I went to a few meetings.

It just, it didn't resonate with me. I think, it's hard. Not hard, but you really have to search a little bit to find a group that really you can connect with. I just wasn't able to find that and I lived in a small town at the time and it wasn't working.  I found a lot of help online.

I read a lot of women's stories. That was at the start of quitlet was becoming a much more common thing. So just  Holly Whitaker, I think was still running the Tempest at the time. So I really dug into just the stories of other women. And the journey they'd been on and reaching out to my friends who were sober, they didn't hadn't go to the do the 12 step route, but they were there to support me to help me to send me encouragement.

That really helped.  

That's awesome. Yeah, it's really about building community, isn't it? Connection and community is really the opposite of addiction. And however, we can find that. I got sober and most people know my story. If you've been around here for a little while, but definitely finding your people and then also just layering on all of the other things that are going to give us That kind of healing we need because, we weren't just drinking that way for no reason.

And we do need to get to the bottom of that and heal the parts of us that were really hurting and that we were trying to escape from. When you, I agree with you, like the modern day recovery stuff is so powerful. We have so much access today, much more than when I got sober to, books, podcasts, literature, online meetings, so many things really it's a, it's a good time to be sober right now.

It is. 

Yeah. There's lots of, and you don't have to be, yeah, you can find people across the globe to get support from and connect with. And it's different than if, in real life, I think always ads, but a hundred percent, I think just reaching out to people.  

Yeah,  we live in a good time in that way as far as being able to connect.

It is holiday time. And sometimes these last month or so, couple months or weeks of the year can really be tumultuous. And so I really wanted to give everybody in my community, like a little bit of a quick burst of content and value around some of the topics that usually come up for people during this time.

And grief and loss and loneliness is really a big one, especially if, and even if the loss isn't fairly new it still can be a very difficult time for many people. And I just think. We need to highlight that and normalize it, but then also give people some real value on, what do we do?

Like, how do we get ourselves out of that space and create safety for ourselves and calm and healing?  

Yeah, absolutely. It is a. There's a lot during this time of year for sure. It's not the same happy memories for people and a lot of times if you are cut off or you're feeling isolated it's really hard to  get out of that space.

I think a big thing is to reach out to whoever's in your community or finding  maybe some new people in a community like we're talking about like online meetings or going to a drop in center or going to a meetup or something like just to break that isolation, just get off of your couch and out of your head as well.

I think that can be  a big way to break some of that.  Yeah, I agree. 

Definitely need to  stay active, make plans to get out. Even I, this isn't a grief and loss issue really, but I, as a therapist, I, it's an isolating job and, I'm down here in my basement in my office.

I work in my basement. I don't even have a window. And so I have to intentionally plan for yeah, Getting up and out pretty much every day, like all the time, because if I don't, like I get a little squirrely, if I don't interact with people that are outside of just like my husband and my son, and probably my house.

Yeah, I would love to hear, like maybe your take on, grief and loss and loneliness as it relates to maybe your own personal experience and then how you work with clients or what you recommend for people during this time to help support themselves. 

Yeah, absolutely. So grief and loss. Today, I weirdly enough is The anniversary of my dad's death two years ago, which  it's no, and last year I was on a podcast on the same day as well.

So I don't know what it is. It's, I guess I'm just meant to talk about my story on this day, which  I am fine with, but I think I think a big thing that sometimes we overlook is this rush to get out of the feeling. And sometimes you need to be with the feeling. So just to also normalize It's okay to be sad.

It's okay to feel lonely at this time.  But you don't want to get stuck in that feeling because that's the thing that can drag you under. So I think acknowledging like I do feel sad, you know for whatever reason like I do feel sad you know that my dad is not here, but the next step is to just acknowledge it and then to find that thing that's going to move it and some of the Things I use with my clients.

I use creativity a lot in the work that I do with my clients, and I know that can be a big scary word sometimes because it's, it brings up a lot of things, but I think just even writing down  what you're feeling I am sad, this is why I'm sad it doesn't have to be any fancy writing, it can just be bullet points, but just to get it out of your head and onto something concrete can be a huge step to really also, because sometimes it's not what you think it is when it's in your head, it's taken on a story of its own, and if you get on a piece of paper you can see oh now I understand what the thing is that's really behind my feeling lonely and my feeling sad.

So I think that can be a big piece to help figure out what it is. Also, I think movement is huge to get, that it's all about moving that emotion and that, that stuff through your body, especially when it comes to grief. Getting out of your house, even if it's just like walking around the block sitting on a, sit on your front step with a cup of coffee or cup of tea, like just to feel like the sunshine, even if it's really cold out, like just to start to feel some of your other senses and bring that into the healing process as well.

 Those are,  the creativity and the movement are probably my two biggest go to's and then those are what I work with my clients with as well.  

That's awesome. I love what you said about normalizing the feelings. I totally agree with that. And I spend a lot of time with my clients in practice on that too, because sometimes, especially on this topic, but really with any feelings, sometimes people, other people in our lives, and maybe you experience this,  don't really understand our level of emotionality and, or more than not, I think they don't know how to help or what to do.

And so then they have a tendency to get like really uncomfortable with your expression of sadness. Or grief or wanting to talk about stuff. And so people want to dismiss that, right? They want to get away. And so they'll be like, Oh, you're still doing that. It's been like two years, or why are you still upset about that breakup?

I feel like they, a lot of times that happens because they're uncomfortable with it and they don't also really know what to do. And so in effort, they just try to get away from it.  

Yeah, I think there's that whole thing where they maybe want to try to fix it, but, they, there is sometimes, there is no fix for grief, right?

It's a thing, it pops up at weird times. I think, I talk a lot about finding an A team to support you, so that's like having one or two people who you know,  They'll let you talk their ear off about whatever it is. I think that's, that whole thing that not everybody deserves to hear our story.

Finding those one or two people that are there for you, that will get it, that will, come over, have a cup of coffee, or be on the phone with you while you cry. Those are the people that, that you can trust.  And I know not everybody has those in their life, so sometimes that's where going to a support group or finding a meeting or something where you can just let stuff go without that kind of  judgment.

That people just, and sometimes they don't even know they're carrying it around. It's just, it's in our culture, it's supposed to just be like quick and fast and, so why are you, yeah, why are you still sad about that thing that happened two years ago or three years ago? And it's,  that's not how grief works.

Yeah.  

No, it's not. And just to, so to reiterate for everybody listening, just it's okay to have whatever those feelings are that are coming up, whether it's sadness, it could be anger, you could be like pissed off at the situation, or there could be frustration or confusion or just a lot of unanswered questions.

And I think that just acknowledging those things when they come up and noticing them, oh, gosh, and like paying attention to your body too, as you're feeling that Oh, I'm feeling I can feel a little bit of that tightness in my chest or my stomach is a little bit upset. And I really can feel the sadness and just being able to say that to yourself.

And like you've mentioned, jot it down really does acknowledge to yourself, like you're being a good friend to yourself in that. And giving yourself what you need because although yes, we can get a lot of things from other people very often. Also, we get a lot of disappointment.

And so where you can learn to do it for yourself would be good. So just be graceful, and just remind yourself that yes this kind of situation is the time it takes. And everybody's time it takes is could be a lifetime, it could be weeks, months, years. I don't know. It's your journey, and it's okay Now if it's getting really complicated or it's affecting the right areas of your life that you're not able to You know go to work or manage your children or whatever Then you might need a little bit of outside help with that because complicated grief is a real thing But you know in general for most people, yeah, it's gonna come and it's gonna have the ebb and flows, And then different anniversaries and holiday times are going to bring things up  So I'd love for you to share a little bit more about the creativity piece and the movement, like how you use that specific to grief and loss and loneliness.

Yeah, I said, so the creativity piece, a big piece of that is just, yeah, learning to sit with yourself, and I think especially when you have that history of using a substance to numb, you don't know how to sit with yourself because then your go to has been like, I just have to numb this feeling.

So sitting with I do a very deconstructed form of creativity where there's, It's so accessible. It's just putting paint on a page and I use a expired credit card or a gift card to smear it around  and it's just that process of getting your hands messy and getting your  touching the paper like that's how what we're really wired for as humans is we're not wired to scroll on a page.

Screen. You know what I mean? That is not doing anything for our mind body connection. So just getting your hands messy. So I use painting, but I think that creativity can be, messing around in a garden. It can be cooking a recipe for yourself to nurture yourself and nourish yourself, look after yourself.

It can be, playing a game with your children. It can be, um, listening to music, dancing in your kitchen, singing, like singing a song, like whatever your, I think we cut that off of ourselves though. And that leads us to just again, keeping all that stuff in where that creativity can let it just go out into the world where it can release itself.

So that's how I use creativity for myself. And it was really,  when I start to get itchy, I would go to my sketchbook or, or just even a journal, like just. Getting in that habit of just dumping stuff out of your head, like that's a creative process. It doesn't have to be anything that you show to anybody.

It can be just for you. I think the 

brain dump, I'm not a journaler and I really have been, I have done different things at different times, but it's just not my go to. But I think that just utilizing like a brain dump is wonderful. Like just free form, whether you maybe set a timer or you say, I'm going to do two pages of free, whatever it is, and just let your mind and really your body kind of release whatever wants to come out.

I think that's a beautiful way to just Do whatever's happening in your brain and get out of your brain so that you can free up space for other things. And you're so right that creativity comes in so many forms. You've mentioned so many really great ones. It doesn't have to be art. I think that's the first thing that we think of when we hear the word creativity.

I know I do, but it's so many other things. Yes, like cooking can be. Really very creative and very artistic, frankly but you can, utilize that where you, it's almost a form, it's a very much a form of self care too, when you're like feeding yourself properly and nourishing your body and you're using like an aesthetically pleasing experience where you have beautiful colors and, foods you can use, adult coloring books and things that are already prepared for you It doesn't have to be like, oh, I have to come up with my own painting And I love your just dump the paint on and smear it around that's just really cool.

There is something kind of um reptilian almost caveman, like of being dirty and back to our roots. And there's, that's a historical connection, I think, to just some of that, those parts of us that are less evolved. So definitely a great way to,  to  soothe yourself when you're having times of the just deep sadness or stress.

Yeah. Yeah. So like it can be just, rating your kids. If you have kids, you're with their craft bin and getting them some crayons and just script like that's how like pounding on an iPad doesn't get that same feel like you talked about anger earlier really like getting a red crayon and just scratching all over a piece of paper is much more cathartic than like punching on an iPad or something, right?

Like it's not that same sort of release. Yeah. So I think that can be a way just to discharge some of that stuff you're carrying around.  

Yeah, I totally agree with that. And one of the things that I think is also really important, it's also goes along with everything we've already been talking about, but really just learning and training yourself to speak your own truth out loud.

So instead of when people are saying, Hey, how you doing? Or and you don't just say I'm fine. Now sometimes that's appropriate, right? And like with your, with the regular passerby, but like with more people than maybe even just like your core one or two, like really try to open up and say, today's been a hard day or I'm feeling a little bit overwhelmed.

You don't have to go into all of the dirty details of Your story in order for you to share that you're not your best self. Do you know what I mean? 

No, I think that's a great a great point because I think we can sometimes tell ourselves stories. Oh, nobody cares about me.

Everybody's tired of me. Because we haven't made that connection with someone. So I think when you are you know this is just how I'm feeling. That's all it is. It's just how you're feeling. You're not putting anything else on it. I think that's really important, too. And then I think it allows space for me, the other person, to also, hey hey, I'm not doing that great either, or whatever.

I think it just starts to normalize. I don't have to have a smile on my face 24 7. I am allowed to feel, especially when heavy things have happened in your life, you are allowed to  be with those feelings in a way that makes sense to you.  

What do you think about creating Rituals of any kind. Do you ever think about that or use that?

I have done that a little bit in the past, I think it can be super cathartic to have whatever that, whatever it looks like it can be on the anniversary of something, it can be a weekly thing, whatever sort of makes, but again, it has to be personal to you, I think. In the past, I've lit a candle and read a passage out loud just like honoring my dad in particular we've had a few different just random dinners as family not necessarily on his anniversary, but just like to, again, to like, honor Where we are as a family and I think that can be really important to just I think a ritual I think allows you to step back  to pause on things and then also just honor where you are and You know what, and whoever or whatever the ritual is about, you're honoring that as well as creating that space to just be like, I need a time out in a way, I guess I think that's what, in my head, that's what a ritual kind of is like. 

Yeah, that makes sense to me. I think also what it makes me think of just a  way to honor and respect the life of your loved one. And create that like touchstone for healing. So a lot of times people will say things like, I wish that there was something I could do, or  I want to figure out a way to, memorialize my person or my loss.

And that's the stuff that I've brought up before is just, creating opportunities to do this. We see this regularly with people who create, like a scholarship fund or a golf outing, or a memorial run. So there's like those bigger kind of more community engaging opportunities that would be honoring your loved one, but also then there's more personal ones that really bring you in connection with that person and the memories, right?

So maybe, yeah, you light a candle. on their birthday or your anniversary or their death date or whatever it is. And maybe you just have you have a little memory journal, where you jot down some stuff or you look at photos. There could be, maybe you create a new tradition in this time of year.

This is the things that I was thinking about too. Like maybe you and some of your family or friends or people close to you start to do something together, as an activity. In honor of the person where you're, where you have the chance to like share stories and memories, but if you're also doing a thing, maybe you're volunteering or doing like a community event together, but all the while knowing that we're also thinking about like bringing that person along with us.

And yeah, 

that's nice. I like that. 

Yeah. I think that creates a lot of connection in that grieving process and the, just the feelings of loneliness, particularly during the holidays when, so often I see people who are, I don't have anybody, there's just everybody's around me.

They're going to this person's house and, or maybe you're even just, maybe you even haven't lost somebody, but I know for me, our kids are getting older. I still have one left at home, but they're aging. We're becoming, we're close to empty nesters. And. I hope that, we will always have that deep family connection, but what if, somebody, you're empty nesters and like your kids move away or, you, you just, you don't have a partner or whatever the case is, like you're suddenly your whole life could be very much different than it was.

And it can create a lot of loneliness. So that can be real. Yeah. So 

I'm, I am an empty nester. And I just moved to Minneapolis. I, my kids are on the east coast. I'm now in Minneapolis. I just went through that with Thanksgiving. But I really watched what I made it mean. You know what I mean? I sat alone in my house, I went out for a hike with some people on early Thanksgiving morning, I came home, I made myself a pumpkin pie, I made myself like a little small I cooked something for myself, it wasn't a turkey, it wasn't a traditional thing, but I really Every once in a while, I was like, God, I should be feeling lonely, but I'm like I don't.

I feel really content right now. Just, I think watching what you make it mean and also getting rid of a little bit of like cultural expectations or like what the holiday's supposed to look like, I think that can take some of that heaviness off. It's just one day out of the year. I was okay.

Like I got to do the things I wanted to do. And I think if you can  try to shift some of that, I know it can be hard for a lot of people. People are in very different places, so 100 percent that. They're estranged from their families, maybe there's a lot of different reasons, but  I think sometimes just what do I really want from this holiday?

What do I want to feel? What do I want to create? What do I want to bring into this? What do I want to experience? Asking yourself some of those questions,  maybe you can also remove yourself from What's culturally, what is on the TV or what's in those Hallmark movies, right? Like just removing yourself from them and being like, Hey, you know what?

It's okay that I didn't have a, go to a big, crazy Thanksgiving  meal. It was all good. So I think, yeah, watching when you make it mean sometimes can be a big way to help you set your you through those moments. I think. 

I think that is so brilliant. And I wish I had known that like weeks ago that I could have been using that all of these weeks, because I think that is such a critical part of. 

For all of us, being careful with what we make something mean. And I, that in early recovery, at least, and then in the 12 step rooms and things, this is a big topic, right? Where, people talk a lot about the highs and lows, of life, there's emotional highs and lows and my sponsor and people around me always say, if you just stay in the middle, if you learn to just stay in the middle, then you won't ever get too high or too low.

And so it won't be too hard to get back to the middle. And I'm like, Oh my gosh. And it was weird at first, but it made sense. Oh, it's my birthday. But you're right. It's like just another day. This is literally just another day of the year. And when we start to put all of this value on things and The way we make it look, and it has to be this way, and if it doesn't, then it's not going to be good enough, and I think that's a really important point.

Yeah, I 

think especially women because so much of the burden of creating the perfect holiday is placed on women, and I think that can mess with our heads too Oh no, it's not perfect. Oh, I didn't do this. What about this? I think sometimes we just take a step back and be like, no, what do we want to carry away from this?

Yes. Speak this month, whatever it is this day. What are the things that we really wanna carry with us? And I think that can just help you narrow, get rid of all that extra fluff that nobody needs, and just get to the real point of what the holiday is or what you wanna walk away with it from, or who you wanna connect with.

Yeah, I totally agree with that. I love that. Be careful what we make it mean. Yeah. And also like you get to make it mean what you want. Yeah. Like just, and just because it's. Not the way it was when you were growing up or the way you thought it would be like you get to make it the way you want it to mean and that's something I think we forget that we have power in that.

So yeah, especially I think when you're sober and maybe in situations that you don't want to be in like you are the boss you can remove yourself from that situation. You can make it a completely different experience you can you know you are  watching those things that you can't control right remembering that you can control your  health. 

Well, Chrissy, this has been such a fabulous conversation. I know my audience is going to really appreciate it. And I really appreciate your time and talent. Thank you so much for being here. Where do you like people to get ahold of you if they want to? 

Easiest thing, go to my website, purple dogs, sober.

com or Instagram at purple dog sober. 

Okay. I'll make sure I link those in the show notes below. And thank you again. And I hope you have a very Merry Christmas, whatever you're doing and at our pass across again soon. Thank you. Thanks a lot, Shelby. It was really great.