Feeling Sad This Father’s Day? You Are Not Alone.

7 Tips to help get you through this time

Father’s Day, and the days and weeks leading up to it, can be pure torture for those of us who have lost our Dads. The constant bombardment of Father’s Day marketing can, at best, make us feel annoyed and irritated, and, at worst, make us feel sad, alone and like we are not seen and don’t matter. 

If, like me, you have lost your Dad and are finding this time of year tough, I am so sorry; I hope this post will help you navigate this awful time and know that there are more of us grievers out there. If your Father is alive but absent or you have a strained relationship with your Dad, you may also find some of the tips in this post helpful. If you are all good in the Dad department, but have a friend who has lost their Father, why not forward them this blog post to help them out and show that you are thinking of them? Trust me, they’re having a difficult time right now and are feeling pretty forgotten.

Below are my main tips for getting through an emotionally difficult day like Father’s Day, as well as the days that lead up to it. Many of the tactics I outline have been given to me or reinforced by my amazing grief counsellor, Elisabeth Becker, the book ‘It’s Ok that you’re not Ok; Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture that Doesn’t Understand’ by Megan Devine, and various blog posts, emails and resources from the helpful website for grievers, ‘What’s Your Grief’. All of these tips are tried and tested by me on a daily basis and have especially been a life raft during times when I miss my Dad the most and the pain feels like too much to bear. I hope they will help you too. 

1. Be kind to yourself

Living with grief is the hardest thing I have ever done, and continue to do each day. It is such a demanding companion that can make everyday tasks seem completely overwhelming. One thing that I’ve learned to be common in grief is to compare yourself to others, or who you used to be, and feel like you should be doing better or that you are not doing enough, all the while forgetting the huge burden of grief that you carry on your back every single day. On the days around significant events like Father’s day (and whenever you are having a difficult day), it is so important to cut yourself some slack and be kind to yourself. For me it means accepting who I am and where I am right now without judgement and without the need or desire to improve. This means accepting that you are having a bad day and not feeling guilty about it or trying to buck up. It is self-acceptance and self kindness in its purest form.

But what does this actually look like in practice? Grief can make us listless, tired, forgetful and clumsy and it can be so easy to berate yourself harshly when you make a mistake or don’t have the energy to do something. A tactic I use to show myself more understanding and kindness is to stop negative self talk in its tracks. In the early stages of grief I used to do things like leave the stove on, forget my wallet, forget my phone number or knock over a full glass of water and I would call myself an idiot as well as a whole onslaught of other nasty words. Even now when I don’t have the energy to get things on my to-do list done or move our business forward, my mind calls me ‘lazy’ and a ‘failure’. One practice that I have been working on is to notice when my mind does this and to literally replace every negative word with the word ‘sweetheart’. I know this sounds so silly, but it really works. Imagine that you are talking to your best friend who lost their Dad or a helpless child version of yourself and say to yourself what you would say to them. For me it’s along the lines of ‘It’s ok sweetheart, these things happen. You’ve been through a hard time. Everything will be ok.’ It is truly amazing the sense of calm and relief that comes over you when you speak to yourself more kindly and treat yourself with more love. It is hard to remember to do this at first so a helpful tip is to stick post-it notes around your house with the kind word on it to help you remember. The more you practice this technique the easier it will become and eventually your harsh inner critic won’t be in the spotlight anymore.   

2. Calm your mind

Along these same lines, noticing your thoughts and choosing what to engage with is an invaluable practice. It can be so easy to get carried away with our thoughts, go down a rabbit hole and get ourselves emotionally and physically all worked up. The circumstances surrounding the death of a loved one are usually very traumatic and it is natural for your mind to fixate on them, even long after the event has occurred. The regret and trauma surrounding my Dad’s death meant that for so many months after my mind replayed every single conversation we had in the lead up to his death, it played alternate realities where I did call him back the day before he died, it replayed every argument we’d ever had since I was a child and the moment I found out about his death and the aftermath were played on repeat in my brain until it was literally torture. The panic would rise up in me and completely overwhelm my body. I was in ‘fight or flight’ mode constantly. I felt like the only way to stop these thoughts was to block them out so I constantly played the tv, podcasts or had someone with me, even whilst showering or trying to fall asleep. I literally couldn’t have a moment of silence or my brain would attack me with obsessive and disturbing thoughts about my Dad’s death.

Meditation has proved to be an invaluable technique in helping to train my mind to stop indulging in disturbing memories and thoughts.

Meditation can seem very daunting and mystical to people who don’t know much about it, but it is really just concentrating very hard on something (be it your breathing, your body, your surroundings, a visualization, the words being spoken) so that the volume is turned down on all of your hectic thoughts. It doesn’t stop the thoughts from coming, but it helps you to have distance from them; to choose just to observe them and not engage with them; to just notice them without letting them drag you down.

For complete beginners I highly recommend the intro course on the app Calm (7 Days of Calm) and for people who want a bit more variety, longer meditations and want to delve into different topics I recommend Insight Timer. A beautiful meditation I like to do when I am having bad days and feeling very negative about life is Honoring Life by Sarah Blondin. Try it and let me know what you think.

3. Look after your precious body

When we are grieving, our basic bodily needs are often the first thing to fall by the wayside or be ignored. Showering, eating right, sleeping, exercising, going to the bathroom are all things we don’t prioritize, but our bodies are the things that will carry us through this and they deserve to be prioritized and not doing these things can actually make the body very physically anxious and will make you feel much worse. Add in coping mechanisms like alcohol, drugs, caffeine and technology and everything can get a lot worse. I completely understand how these basic tasks needed to look after your body can seem overwhelming to a griever, especially on dates of significance like Father’s Day, but one way that I recommend making these tasks more manageable is to make a checklist for everything. Yes, I literally (still) have a checklist that says things like ‘shower’ ‘eat breakfast’ ‘workout’ ‘go to bed at 10pm’. It might seem childish or like overkill, but let go of those judgements; it makes looking after your body and staying healthy so much easier.

4. Simplify your tasks (or remove them from your list completely) 

What actually needs to be done? And what standard do they actually need to be done to? During times that are tough, instead of trying to go above and beyond, I recommend just doing the bare minimum. This requires you to let go of any perfectionist tendencies, prioritize your to-do list and let go of some expectations entirely. Why make life harder for yourself than it already has to be during this time? Once we realize that the world won’t come crumbling down because we didn’t do that item on our list, it becomes easier to remove more. 

5. Ask for help

People will often say in the early stages of grief ‘let me know if I can do anything’ or ‘I’m here if you need anything’, but we never reach out… Well, it’s time to take them up on their offer. Partners, friends and family often want to help grievers, but simply don’t know what to do. Even if your grief is no longer new, they will still be there for you and appreciate being told what you need help with during difficult times. For example, cooking and eating were the things I especially struggled with after losing Dad. After the trauma of losing my Dad, grocery shopping terrified me, meal planning confused me, cooking overwhelmed me and eating exhausted me. I simply couldn’t handle it, but I learned to ask for help. If you have a partner or roommate ask them to cook for you, have a friend help you find recipes and make a shopping list, order your groceries online or ask a friend or partner to shop for you or accompany you to the store. Asking for help will also work for other tasks like exercise, tidying your house / getting organized, laundry etc. Your friends and partner may have no idea how you are feeling about these tasks so it is important to let them in and give them an opportunity to turn their well meaning words into actions.

6. Take a tech break

Every time I open my email and see yet another marketing email for Father’s Day it is a little stab in my heart. This is 100x worse on the weekend of Father’s Day when I open my instagram and see all my friends having meals with their Dads and celebrating the day or writing loving posts about how much they rely on their Dads. It can make those of us who no longer have a Dad to hang out with and rely on feel so alone, especially if you are the only person in your group of friends to have lost your Dad (as is the case with me). My advice here is simple… do not look. Do not go on instagram or facebook, do not open your email. If you struggle with discipline, consider deleting the apps from your phone for a few days; that will halt any temptation. You will have a much more calm and peaceful weekend being off the grid for a little while. 

In the same vein, don’t feel pressured to post something on your own instagram about your own Dad. My sister has a large instagram following and on significant days (like my Dad’s birthday, the day of his death, Father’s day) she likes to post a photo of him and share a few words. I do not. Both are ok. Don’t feel pressured to share if it feels too upsetting or like too much effort. For me, it is far too overwhelming on those days to find the right photo, draft what I want to say and endure the nerves of posting and the bombardment of comments or messages from friends. Significant days are hard enough without adding additional tasks, so please don’t feel pressured to be public about your grief or your Dad if posting about it makes you too nervous or seems like an overwhelming task. Even writing this blog post has been a big task for me, but I wanted to do it to help others who are struggling at this time and I feel that this year I am strong enough to do so. If you want to post about him, certainly do, but please note that your love for your Dad is not dependent on whether or not you share a photo of him on instagram.  

7. Do something you enjoy on Father’s Day

Make a plan to do an activity that you enjoy this Father’s day. It might even be helpful to do something that you used to do with your Dad or that you know he’d enjoy. It can make you feel a lot closer to him. Either way, try to get out of the house, not be alone, and do something fun. On the anniversary of my Dad’s death this year, Adrian and I did a big workout, walked on the beach (both things my Dad loved to do and that gave me endorphins and made me feel better), we ordered his favorite Indian food and watched one of his favorite movies. What were your Dad’s favorite things? How can you incorporate them into your day? If you can’t face going out and doing an activity, just do something small like watching his favorite movie.

Those are my top tips for dealing with Father’s Day this year after the loss of your Dad and I hope that they bring you some comfort and make this time of year a little bit easier on you. This doesn’t mean that it won’t still be awful… it will... but hopefully a tiny wee bit less awful. Our profit driven culture tends to forget about us at this time of year, but it truly is ok that you are not ok right now. Please know that you are not alone and that even if the only part of this blog post that you take away is being kinder to yourself, that is enough. Grief is just love with nowhere to go and Father’s Day is a painful reminder of that for those of us who have lost our Dads.

Please comment below if this post has been helpful, or to share advice you have for other grievers who might read this. Also please reach out to us at contact@westrivewell.com if you are feeling alone and need to talk more about the loss you are experiencing.