Marking the Milestones: Grieving Through Birthdays and Anniversaries

Summary

In this episode of Growth from Grief, Susan Andersen discusses the challenges of navigating grief, particularly during special days such as birthdays and anniversaries. She shares personal experiences and coping strategies, emphasizing the importance of planning, emotional awareness, and creating meaningful rituals. The conversation highlights the complexity of emotions associated with grief, including joy and guilt, and the physical responses that may arise. Susan encourages listeners to reflect on their experiences and express gratitude for the time spent with their loved ones, reminding them that there is no right way to grieve.

Takeaways

• Grief is a challenging journey that requires support.
• Special days can trigger intense emotions and memories.
• Planning ahead for special days can help manage grief.
• It's important to allow yourself to feel joy without guilt.
• Creating personal rituals can honor the memory of loved ones.
• Physical responses to grief can manifest unexpectedly.
• Yoga and mindfulness practices can aid in processing grief.
• Social media can be a tool for sharing memories and receiving support.
• Reflection on grief can lead to personal growth and understanding.
• Grieving is a unique process for everyone, and that's okay.

Thank you for listening! Visit www.sueandersenyoga.com for Yoga for Grief classes and additional resources.

Transcript

Susan Andersen (00:03.382)
Hello, I'm Sue Andersen, grief guide and yoga teacher dedicated to helping individuals navigate the challenging journey of loss. Welcome to Growth from Grief, where I aim to offer strategies to transition from the depths of grief to the path of healing. Whatever loss you are grappling with, here you'll discover support to ease both the physical and emotional burdens of grief. Together, let's embark on a journey towards strength, peace, and healing. I'm so glad you are here.

Susan Andersen (00:53.326)
Hi and welcome back to Growth from Grief. My name is Sue Andersen and thank you for joining today, our second podcast of 2025. And today I want to talk with you a little bit about dealing with birthdays, anniversaries and other special days.

You know, one of the most difficult times in our grief journey is dealing with these special days. When I look back in my own journey after Ian died, I really, you know, on the first birthday after he died, which was six months after he died, was his birthday, it just felt very, very surreal. I just wanted to get out of town. My birthday was three months before that. So my birthday was three months after he died and then his birthday was three months after my birthday. And both of those days I remember just being, I couldn't stand the pain. I wanted to get out of my house. I wanted to go somewhere.

And yet that wasn't satisfactory. You couldn't go far enough to get from the pain. The pain stayed with me, right? Pain stays with us. Early on in the journey, I wasn't at the point where I really had a good practice around using my breath and finding good, I'll call them coping skills, coping practices, practices that would help lessen my anxiety. And in my journal, I wrote, happy birthday. This is to Ian. I wrote, happy birthday. That's what I would have texted you this morning.

Susan Andersen (03:15.766)
And I continued writing, reflecting on the day he was born and the joy that his dad and I felt. And my last sentence was, my words are coming out as tears today.

Susan Andersen (03:38.414)
Three years later, I was getting more used to him not being here. I had begun a ritual of going to the cemetery. Shortly after he died, I was going probably once a week, and then after a year or so, I was going once every four weeks. And so on this particular birthday, three years after his death, I wrote in my journal that I was afraid that if I wrote something on his Facebook memorial page that nobody would respond, that people would have forgotten that it was his birthday. And yet I braved that, right? So after I went to the cemetery, I talked to him, I came back, and I wrote something on the Facebook page.

And boy, so many of his friends reached out, they responded, they wrote their own birthday remembrances. And I still write a little something on that page and people still respond. And that is just one of the nice things that I feel that people remember. And we'll talk about remembering a little bit more about others remembering these special days.

Susan Andersen (05:25.368)
But you know, the thought of these upcoming special days can really bring you to your knees. And sometimes it's helpful to plan ahead. So what do I mean by that? Well.

If you are in your first couple of years after a loss, you are counting the days to that next birthday, anniversary, your birthday, their birthday, whatever that special day might be. Think about, to get yourself out of your head, I guess, think about some things that you can do to reduce that overwhelm that you might feel on that day. Maybe schedule something that's low pressure. Maybe you block out time for just rest. Maybe you actually schedule time to take a walk. So have some intentional planning.

I think the other thing that's important in preparing for these special days is to include family and friends. you know, Maybe you have some close friends or family members that you can ask to check in on you on that special day. Maybe they would like to do some sort of remembrance with you. Maybe you just invite them to be on standby in case you don't want to be by yourself.

So being intentional in your preparation I think is very, very helpful while we're doing, you know, before we really get into this countdown of these special days.

Susan Andersen (07:44.352)
Another area to kind of think about is emotions that you might be feeling.  You know, sometimes we feel joy and then we feel guilty that we feel joy. So perhaps on maybe it's your birthday or it's an anniversary and you feel some joy about something, try not to let yourself immediately turn on the guilt and feel guilty that you are feeling this joy, this little moment of joy on this day that is a wedding anniversary or a birthday, your birthday, some other special, a graduation, something else special.

Something has something happens on that day and then you laugh or you you feel a little bit of joy. Allow yourself to feel that joy. Don't immediately go into guilt. Just take a breath and allow yourself to feel that. Joy and sorrow can go hand in hand, right? They're both there. They're both there.

Susan Andersen (09:22.196)
Another thing to think about on this day is just give yourself permission to feel whatever arises without judging yourself.  Maybe you just are numb. That's okay. That's the way you're feeling today.

Susan Andersen (09:51.822)
A third thing that you can do or think about in kind of a preparation, I guess, around these special days, birthdays and anniversaries, is to create a special or personal ritual, something that is very meaningful to you or maybe was meaningful to this person who died. Maybe it's lighting a candle. Maybe it's preparing their favorite meal or watching a movie or listening to music. Or maybe it's doing all the things that you want to do that'll make you feel a little bit better.

Susan Andersen (10:55.134)
I created and talk about in another episode about creating this pie day on Ian's birthday because he didn't like cake and I encouraged everyone to have a sweet or a savory piece of pie. And I still do that and other people do it too, relatives, friends, my friends, his friends. It's kind of fun that it still goes on this Pie Day.

You can also maybe just have a gathering of friends or family members to share some stories. So that could be some other ideas that you do on these special days.

So, we've talked about the complexity of emotions, preparing, intentional planning, surrounding yourself with people that you love, and creating rituals, something that's important to you or to your loved one.  Or perhaps hosting a small gathering.

But remember also that we may feel just layers, different layers of grief.

Susan Andersen (12:35.63)
You might think about milestones that this person will never reach. When my father died, was 64. In his 65th year, but he was 64, so he never got to retire. So I'm older than him now. And it's kind of weird thinking about that. And you know, that may come up for you too. These are emotions that just...They just happen. So don't be surprised if something else comes up that...reminds you of what the person is missing or just the fact that you are missing them on your birthday or again wedding anniversary as an example.

Another important element is to think about your physical response to these days and you might not even be aware of this.  You might not be aware that your stomach is upset and you're grumpy or grouchy or you're really teary-eyed two weeks, two days before this date. And now all of sudden you realize, wow, it's so-and-so's birthday or it's...the date of our wedding anniversary. And now you connect your physical symptoms to that day, because you looked on the calendar and you saw the date.

Susan Andersen (14:41.878)
Remember that different yoga practices are very helpful to release this grief that's living in our physical body - many gentle yoga practices and I have examples and short practices on my YouTube channel, breathing exercises, mindfulness, chanting, all of these types of yoga practices really do help release those grief symptoms that are living in the body.

Susan Andersen (15:35.106)
You may also have a physical reaction when you remember something, something significant about a date, something you did on your birthday last year with this loved one, something you did on their birthday. And you think about it and then all of a sudden you're feeling, you know, anxious and sick and you don't know why and then you realize, okay, I thought about that and now here it is back in my body.
So thinking about the physical response that you might have when these special days come up.

Susan Andersen (16:33.472)
Social media is kind of a double-edged sword, right? But it's nice to be able to share with your community on social media, you know, the memory of your loved one, some memories that you want to share, photos, or just saying, you know, happy birthday to that person, because people do respond. They want to support you. Your friends want to support you.

And if you have a memorial page, then you can express things, maybe expressing your feelings or letting people know how important it is that you have shared something with them about your loved one.

Susan Andersen (17:28.726)
One of the things I always think about before I'm posting on Ian's memorial page is who is even following this page and who's even going to respond to me when I put something up there. And I'm always surprised that someone responds. And it could be somebody that I don't even know. It's some high school friend or middle school friend that was invited to join the page and they respond with a memory and that's my gosh that is like the best feeling ever to hear something from this other person that you don't even know but they're sharing like a really funny story it's just wonderful really wonderful.  You have to put it out there, right? You have to be willing to share something on social media. It's vulnerable and you have to decide if that's something that you want to do.

So that's another way to support yourself during these special days.

Susan Andersen (18:51.414)
You may also want to spend some time just reflecting. And the further out you are from that initial day of that person's death, it might be easier to talk about your relationship with these dates and what you've learned and how how your grieving has changed, how your healing has changed.

You may also want to express some gratitude.  Maybe it's just getting up in the morning, being thankful that you had this time with this person and they were in your life and they made an impact.

Susan Andersen (19:58.7)
I want to close with this thought. It's really okay to not have it all figured out. There is no right way to grieve, to navigate these days, these birthdays, anniversaries.
Some years the emotions may be overwhelming. Some years you might feel stronger. Both of these scenarios are okay. Listen to your body, listen to yourself.

Susan Andersen (20:53.39)
So thank you so much for listening to this podcast. I hope you found some of these ideas helpful as you face the birthdays and anniversaries and other days that are special to you and to your loved one this year.

Please feel free to share this podcast with someone else who could benefit, who is grieving.

Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you in the next episode.