Overspending during the holidays can be a serious risk for grieving spouses struggling to make difficult emotional and sometimes financial adjustments after their loss. For many widows, holidays are the hardest part of grieving. When you have lost someone special, your world loses its celebratory qualities. Holidays can magnify this. All those jingling bells and fa-la-la-la-las can become an unintentional backdrop for pain. These emotions can lead to overspending.
There are plenty of financial articles and resources out there to help you not overspend during the holidays. Everything from making a list ahead of time to freezing your credit cards (literally). That is not what this article is going to be about. Instead, I am going to focus on your AWARENESS as a widow of the vulnerability to overspend and then CHOICE to help you maintain a healthy sense of control during the holiday season.
The act of emotional-driven spending itself creates a loss of control. The loss of control then increases anxiety that leads to more problematic spending in an effort to reduce the anxiety. A vicious cycle to break. For widows, overspending usually comes from trying to numb overwhelming emotional pain, cope with a sense of emptiness, or ‘buy’ happiness for other family members. In essence, it fills the void created by the loss of your husband.
What to do about it? For starters have awareness. Just knowing that your grief makes you vulnerable to emotionally-driven holiday spending can help you be more vigilant about why and how much you are spending. It will also help you stay in the present moment. Being in the moment gives you your power back – your power to make choices.
Instead of succumbing to overspending to get you through the holidays, choose to stand in a certain perspective about the holiday season to help restore your inner equilibrium. Take a look at what you value. What is most important to you this holiday season? For example, is it peacefulness, helping others, honoring your husband’s memory, or maintaining traditions? Maybe it’s just getting out of bed and making yourself look a bit better each morning, thus the value of self-love. Actions based on your values help to restore ‘flow’ in your life. Flow helps to deepen your learning so that you don’t get stuck in grief.
Simple steps can help you in this process. Ask yourself: What traditions are you willing to keep? What traditions do you want to say no to? What activities can you place on your calendar to enact the value you stated? Having a sense of choice in your life will bring out your inner strength. Even in the midst of despair, if you put what you value into motion, it will support you throughout this holiday season, and possibly, glimmers of aliveness and fulfillment will emerge.
I suggest placing your choices on your calendar. Look at it daily and step into the choices you have made to honor your value – a little hug of holiday ‘self-love’. For some people, putting a sticky every night on their mirror with how they will honor their holiday value tomorrow, allows them to go to sleep with something to look forward to.
In conclusion, it is natural to feel you may never enjoy the holidays again. Overspending can happen during the holiday season for many people, not just widows. Even in the midst of your grief, you are creative, resourceful, and whole. Awareness and choice are the keys to preventing using spending as a coping mechanism. You are unequivocally in charge of your choices. Be kind to yourself. Grief is not a problem to be solved (or shopped away). Instead, choose to intentionally honor what you value this holiday season.
Any opinions are those of Laura Amendola, and not necessarily those of Raymond James.
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