Don't Be a Grinch

The holidays can be particularly challenging for those who have experienced significant loss. Happiness is in the air during the holiday season, and that can be suffocating and difficult to stomach for those suffering. While it can be seductive to turn into The Grinch and avoid the holiday cheer altogether, that will only prolong our anguish because the key to happiness is wanting happiness for others. Inversely, the key to suffering is wanting happiness for only ourselves.

It is the Buddhist belief that suffering causes the human psyche to feed into self-cherishing, self-cleaning, and self-importance in a way that makes us cruel, a Grinch or a Scrooge. Self-cherishing and self-cleaning are a function of human life, and we all do both on some level daily. We are all trying to get more of what we believe will make us happy, and we all try to expel the things we think will make us unhappy. A profound loss causes these functions to work on hyperdrive, which fuels our self-importance and turns us into callous and selfish versions of ourselves.

Suffering breeds an inherent feeling of “uniqueness” in those experiencing it – “I am the only one suffering like this” or, “how can someone mistreat me? Don’t they know what I’m going through?” The subconscious feeling of uniqueness and constant focus on oneself doesn’t leave mental space to even think about, let alone desire, the happiness of others- therefore, we continue to suffer. With so much inner turmoil burning inside, it’s easy to say, “bah humbug,” when faced with holiday cheer.

Many of us were introduced to the archetype of The Grinch at a young age. It wasn’t until the most recent version of “The Grinch” that we began to understand why he hated Christmas – he had suffered a significant loss. He was orphaned at a young age and spent the holidays alone. After years in isolation, the Grinch built up walls of loneliness to cope with the tragedies he’d faced. When you experience how easily you can lose something you cherish, you tighten your grip on the things you love and block out anything that will bring you more pain.

Seeing the Whos filled with Christmas joy was simply too much for The Grinch to endure, and his pain was exacerbated by the belief that he could never be happy after his suffering. He chose to isolate himself rather than build relationships that could one day cause him despair. Ultimately, the only thing that brought him true happiness was growing relationships with others by being kind and actively participating in their joy. 

Avoiding this storyline has been a daily struggle for me as I face my first holiday season without my husband. I work hard to ensure my heart remains open and that I share love and joy with others. For the bereft, part of our ability to transcend grief and integrate it into a legacy for the loved one we are grieving is to continue to be kind to others and to remember that our pain is not unique. All beings are suffering, and no one’s pain is any more or less important than our own.