How to Navigate Grief During the Holidays
Here’s the Gist
The holidays can intensify feelings of loss and loneliness for men who are grieving.
Traditions and expectations can make grief resurface, even years later.
There is no “right” way to grieve—honoring loved ones can look different for everyone.
Therapy or therapy intensives provide space to process grief and find steadiness during an emotionally charged season.
Healing does not mean forgetting. It means learning to live alongside the loss with compassion and presence.
When “Joyful” Doesn’t Feel True
Every commercial, store display, and social post this time of year sends the same message: the holidays are supposed to be happy. But if you’re grieving, that message can feel like salt in a wound.
The holidays have a way of amplifying everything…especially loss. Maybe you lost someone recently and can’t imagine sitting at the same table without them. Or maybe the loss happened years ago, but something about the season brings it all rushing back.
For men, grief often shows up quietly. You might not talk about it much. You keep functioning, doing what needs to be done, while carrying an ache that never fully goes away. The world keeps moving, and you try to move with it, but inside, things feel heavier than you want to admit.
That weight can feel especially hard to hold during the holidays. And it’s not because you’re doing something wrong, it’s because grief is the reminder that love still exists, even when the person you loved doesn’t.
Therapy can help you navigate this time with intention instead of avoidance. It doesn’t make the loss disappear, but it helps you find steadiness in how you carry it.
Why the Holidays Can Amplify Grief
Even when life feels relatively stable, the holidays can stir things up.
Grief lives in the body, not just the mind. So when the music starts playing, the lights go up, and family traditions come back around, your nervous system remembers. You might not consciously think about the loss, but your body feels it.
For men with trauma, that experience can feel confusing or even frustrating. You might notice irritability, fatigue, or emotional numbness without immediately connecting it to grief. Sometimes the hardest part isn’t sadness—it’s the guilt or anger that surfaces alongside it.
Here’s why grief often intensifies this time of year:
1. Memories are Everywhere.
Holiday rituals are tied to people. The food, the traditions, even the inside jokes—they all carry the imprint of who used to be there. When that person is gone, those reminders can hit hard.
2. Cultural Pressure to Feel Joyful.
Our culture pushes “holiday cheer” relentlessly. When your reality doesn’t match that expectation, it can make you feel even more isolated. You might find yourself pretending to feel okay just to avoid awkward questions.
3. Family Dynamics Change.
Loss shifts relationships. The absence of one person can change how everyone interacts, and those unspoken tensions tend to surface during holiday gatherings.
4. Emotional Avoidance Backfires.
You might try to power through or distract yourself to keep things normal. But avoidance only delays the emotions that need space. Eventually, they find a way out—often through irritability, withdrawal, or burnout.
5. Trauma and Grief Intersect.
If you’ve experienced trauma, grief can trigger the same physiological responses: hypervigilance, shutdown, or emotional flooding. That overlap can make grief feel unpredictable or overwhelming.
Understanding why you feel the way you do is the first step in handling it differently. Grief doesn’t need to be “fixed.” It needs to be witnessed, felt, and supported.
Healthy Ways to Honor and Remember Loved Ones
There’s no timeline for grief and no “right” way to handle it during the holidays. What matters most is giving yourself permission to approach it honestly.
For men, this can be tough. You might feel pressure to stay strong or keep things light for the sake of others. But honoring your loss doesn’t mean losing control, it means creating space for what’s real.
Here are a few ways to do that:
1. Create a New Tradition
Traditions can evolve. You might light a candle before dinner, make your loved one’s favorite dish, or take a quiet walk where you can reflect. Small rituals help keep connection alive in ways that feel grounded rather than painful.
2. Write Them a Letter
Grief leaves a lot unsaid. Writing to the person you lost can help release some of what’s been sitting inside—regret, love, anger, gratitude. You don’t have to share it with anyone. The point is expression, not performance.
3. Give Back in Their Honor
Acts of generosity often bring a sense of purpose when you’re feeling lost. Volunteering, donating, or helping someone in need can become a meaningful way to keep their memory active in the world.
4. Allow for Quiet Moments
You don’t need to fill every silence with activity or noise. Sometimes healing comes through stillness. Setting aside even a few minutes to sit, breathe, or remember can bring relief.
5. Say Their Name
Avoiding the person’s name doesn’t protect you from pain—it usually deepens it. Speaking about them openly can be one of the most powerful ways to keep connection alive while also helping your nervous system release tension around the loss.
You don’t have to do all of these. Pick what feels authentic and let that be enough. Grief is personal. The way you honor your loved one should be too.
How Therapy Can Support You Through the Season
Grief and trauma often overlap in ways that are hard to separate. You might think you’re “just sad,” but the symptoms—emotional numbness, intrusive thoughts, hypervigilance, withdrawal, can all stem from your body’s attempt to protect itself.
Therapy helps you untangle those layers so that grief doesn’t have to control the entire season.
1. Understanding How Grief and Trauma Interact
In therapy, we explore how loss activates old wounds or survival responses. For men with trauma, grief can bring up buried feelings of guilt, helplessness, or failure. Recognizing those patterns helps you respond with compassion instead of shame.
2. Processing Emotions Safely
Many men struggle to express emotion because vulnerability has been framed as weakness. In therapy, emotion is treated as data—information that helps you understand what your mind and body need. It’s not about breaking down; it’s about breaking through avoidance.
3. Therapy Intensives for Focused Healing
For those who want to move through this work more deeply, therapy intensives offer focused time to process grief. Instead of spacing sessions weeks apart, intensives condense the work into days or hours, allowing you to stay in the emotional rhythm long enough to experience real change.
An intensive before or during the holidays can help you:
Identify specific triggers and coping strategies.
Release unprocessed emotions that are weighing you down.
Reconnect with values and relationships that bring meaning.
Enter the holidays with steadiness instead of dread.
4. Rebuilding Meaning and Connection
Therapy helps you integrate loss into your life story rather than feeling defined by it. That doesn’t mean forgetting. It means learning to carry love and grief together in a way that allows you to move forward with both.
When Grief Feels Too Heavy
Some men assume grief should fade over time, and when it doesn’t, they worry something is wrong. But grief isn’t linear. It comes in waves—sometimes gentle, sometimes sharp.
If you find yourself isolating, losing interest in things that once mattered, or feeling detached from others, it might be a sign that grief has turned into something deeper. That doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means your system needs support.
Therapy doesn’t erase grief; it helps you stay connected to life around it. It offers a space to explore questions like:
How do I keep moving when part of me feels stuck in the past?
How do I handle guilt about moments of happiness?
How do I talk about my loss when others have moved on?
Those are not easy questions. But you don’t have to answer them alone.
Finding Steadiness in a Season That Shakes You
Grief during the holidays is not a sign of weakness. It’s proof that love still matters.
If this season feels heavier than you expected, it might be time to give yourself the same compassion you’d offer anyone else in your position. You deserve space to slow down, reflect, and breathe.
A therapy intensive or ongoing therapy can provide that space. Whether you’re processing a recent loss or carrying grief that’s been sitting quietly for years, this work can help you feel grounded again, not by forgetting, but by learning how to live with meaning alongside the loss.
Schedule a consultation call today to talk about what support could look like this holiday season. Together, we can help you move through grief with clarity, presence, and peace.
Because healing isn’t about leaving someone behind. It’s about learning to carry their memory forward…without losing yourself in the process.
About the Author
Brittany Shannon, Ph.D., is a trauma therapist for men with more than 10 years of experience. She trained in the VA system, working with veterans at both outpatient and residential levels of care, and brings that expertise into her private practice today. Based in Kentucky, Dr. Shannon offers virtual therapy across all 43 PSYPACT states, specializing in trauma recovery, PTSD treatment, and men’s mental health. Her work focuses on helping men heal from painful experiences, break free from survival mode, and move forward with clarity and confidence.
You don’t have to keep pushing through this on your own.
