In this episode, you are finally going to understand why January can feel heavy instead of hopeful, especially for parents of LGBTQ teens.

And you'll get one easy step you can take to feel lighter.

Welcome to More Human, More Kind, the podcast for parents of LGBTQ kids and anyone trying to stay human in a world that keeps heart hardening.

I'm Heather Hester.

And here we talk about fear, belonging, boundaries, courage, love, and what it means to protect what matters without losing yourself in the process.

Your child doesn't just need a parent who's informed.

They need a parent who is grounded and strong.

Let's take a breath and let's begin foreign.

Welcome to the podcast.

I'm Heather Hester.

Not everything beginning feels like light.

Sometimes beginnings feel like loss.

Why is that?

If the beginning of the year is bringing grief or sadness, exhaustion, or a sense of an emotional winter, then this episode is for you.

Today we're going to talk about why post holiday grief is not only common, it's completely normal.

You'll also discover how grief reshapes energy, attention and capacity, and why that matters in January specifically.

And you walk away with gentle practices for honoring your grief while still creating space for steadiness and hope.

So let's start with this truth.

January is not universally joyful.

For many of us, the quiet after the holidays amplifies everything we didn't have time or space to feel during those busy weeks of November and December.

And let's face it, with everything that is going on in our communities, our country, the world right now, it's really, really easy to not feel joyful, to feel heavy, to feel worried, to feel scared.

So if this month has felt already like heaviness instead of a beginning, a lightness, something new, you are not broken.

There's nothing wrong with you.

And there is likely at least a part of you that is grieving.

I have definitely had January's where the world celebrated fresh starts and the whole new Year new me energy.

While I was just trying to make it through the day where grief felt louder than hope, where the quiet was not peaceful, it was full of ghosts, memories, fears, the empty spaces around my table.

And I remember thinking, everyone else seems so excited and rejuvenated and ready to kick off this new year of new goals and plans.

Why do I feel like I'm sinking, like I can barely breathe?

Now I understand.

Grief follows its own seasons.

It does not consult the calendar, and it is definitely not linear.

So what exactly is January grief or beginning of the year grief?

Well, it can show up in these ways.

It can show up as sadness, heaviness, emotional flatness, flatness, just feeling blah, irritability, fatigue, overwhelm, or feeling lost or disoriented.

If you've never considered grief outside of a physical death, know that it can also show up as grief for a relationship.

Like the relationship a parent or a child, a friend, partner at work.

It can be grief for parts of you that just no longer exist.

Who you were as a child, a teen, a young adult.

Because before you fully understood the world.

It can show up as grief for the world.

Do I really need to say more?

It can show up as grief for your child's safety, or more accurately that because of today's society, so much of your effort, focus and worry go into ensuring their safety.

It could show up as grief for expectations unmet in relationships, in elected officials, even in things you have zero control over, like the weather.

For example, a friend of mine was supposed to go skiing in Colorado at the end of December.

She expected there to be snow.

There was not, and she had to cancel her trip and was really, really, understandably disappointed.

It can show up as grief for traditions that no longer fit.

And I think we each have at least one tradition that brings a deep sadness to let go of or move past or realize it is just no longer for the greater good of us or our families.

And it's not because those traditions were bad, but because they once held love.

And grief is love reaching for what used to be true.

Grief isn't just sadness.

It's not weakness.

It's not something going wrong inside of you.

Grief is what love becomes when the person, the relationship, the season, or the version of life you were loving is no longer available.

I want to say that again, just so you really, really, really hear it.

Grief is what love becomes when the person, the relationship, the season, or the version of life you were loving is no longer available.

Your love doesn't stop on command, so it keeps moving through your memories, your body, your longing, your tears.

That's why grief can feel so physical.

It's love still alive.

So if you're still wondering after all of that why on earth January grief hits so hard, here are a couple more possibilities that perhaps you have not thought of yet.

First, the holiday survival mode has finally ended.

You held so much for so long.

And if your nervous system was in a constant state of fight, flight, freeze or fawn, all of that pressure lifts.

It makes perfect sense, sense, biological sense, that your emotions will surface.

The second reason is there is a disconnect between cultural hope, and personal reality.

Everyone else seems energized, excited, planning, sharing new goals and habits for the year, but you feel not so much that way.

That mismatch can create shame or a feeling of disconnect between you and those around you.

Don't let it.

By leaning into what you are feeling and experiencing at such a deep level, you're doing the hard work of healing and growing, not just slapping a happy faced band aid on your life and pushing yourself in a direction you just aren't yet meant to go.

The third thing that could be going on is that you're just now realizing that grief lives in the body.

So honor that the nervous system remembers loss, loss of any kind.

So be curious about it.

Ask it what it needs from you.

I can almost guarantee that it isn't going to be just ignore me and get on with it.

Remember when I said earlier that grief isn't linear?

Embrace that.

The fourth thing that could be going on is that parents of LGBTQ youth often carrying what's called double grief.

Grief for what's been lost.

That change in your movie reel, the relationships that have shifted, or the innocence that ended too soon, and the grief that you carry in advance.

The quiet mourning that comes from constantly bracing for what could happen next.

The bullying, the rejection, the headlines, the fear that you'll have to keep fighting for your child's right to simply exist safely.

This grief is valid.

It deserves care, not comparison.

Here's what makes that double grief so exhausting.

It doesn't always look like grief on the outside.

Sometimes it looks like you being fine.

Sometimes it looks like you've been hyper prepared.

Sometimes it looks like you checking on your kid's mood for the 10th time, or watching the room a little too closely, or feelings your stomach just drop when someone says so how's your child doing in that tone.

When you love someone that fiercely and you know the world isn't always safe, your body starts living in protection mode.

And protection mode has a cost.

So when January arrives and we are already almost all the way through it for 2026, it's not unusual for everything you've been holding to finally show up, to just rise to the surface for you and begin to leak from the cracks.

Not because you're weak, but because you're finally done bracing.

So how can we work through this?

Acknowledge it, move through it, and let it go.

Here are five simple practices.

Pick one and try it.

The first is Name the grief season.

Ask yourself, is this acute grief?

Lingering grief, ambiguous grief, anticipatory grief?

Really Think about those.

There are dozens more you can add to that list, but just brainstorm on that for a little bit.

Another version of this one is the name it to tame it.

Remember, we've used that with fear so many times.

It works with grief too.

The second practice is to lower the bar.

Significantly lower the bar.

Grief reduces cognitive and emotional capacity by up to 30, 30%.

You are not supposed to function the same.

Give yourself permission to do less, and then even less than that.

The third practice is to create a micro remembrance ritual.

This one only needs 30 to 60 seconds.

It could be to light a candle, really intentionally write a name, play a really specific song, step outside, take your shoes off, walk in the grass, say a sentence out loud, I miss you, or this hurts, and be present with that.

Rituals anchor the heart.

The fourth practice is to ask your body what it needs.

Grief is physical.

So think about what your body is really telling you that it needs right now.

It could be warmth, rest, water, stillness, music, softness.

Let your body lead.

Just take some time to really anchor in, connect with your body and figure out what it needs.

And the fifth practice is to anchor yourself to one real human hope.

Not forced positivity, not toxic optimism, but a real human hope.

And it can be tiny, like a sunrise, a text from a friend, a breath, a moment of kindness.

Hope is not a node, it is a direction.

Grief actually mirrors the identity journey.

There is a loss of expectations, of old stories, maybe even of people.

But there's also emergence.

Grief clears space for truth.

It is not the opposite of hope.

It is the doorway to it.

So today's unlearn is if you are grieving, you are failing to be hopeful.

Like you're supposed to stay positive, stay strong, stay lifted no matter what.

But here is what is true.

Grief is not the opposite of hope.

Grief is proof that you love.

Grief, like I just said a few seconds ago, is the doorway to hope.

So here's your micro check.

I want you to really sit and think about this even for a 10 seconds.

Am I judging my feelings or am I honoring them?

Your feelings don't need fixing.

They need witnessing.

So instead of asking, why can't I just be okay?

Try asking, what is this grief asking me to protect, to name, or to tend?

And here is the language you can use around this.

Two things are true.

I'm scared and I'm still here.

I'm grieving and I'm still choosing love.

You do not have to force brightness.

You just have to keep coming back to what's true.

More human more kind.

That's the work.

So here's what I want to leave you with today.

Grief is not a detour from hope.

It is the evidence of your capacity to love deeply.

If you're feeling tender, heavy, uncertain, or scared right now, that doesn't mean that you're doing this wrong.

It means you're paying attention.

It means something inside you matters.

So instead of asking yourself to feel better, try offering yourself this.

Presence over pressure.

Truth over performance, witnessing over fixing.

Let two things be true at once.

You can be grieving and still moving forward.

You can be scared and still choosing love.

You can feel completely undone and still be whole.

That's not weakness.

That's humanity.

If this episode met you where you are, I invite you to carry one small act of gentleness with you today.

Whether it is a breath, a pause, hand over your heart.

Language that honors what's real instead of rushing it away.

New episodes of More Human, More Kind drop every Tuesday and Friday, so make sure you are subscribed if you want to keep walking this path together.

And if you're ready for deeper support space to process, integrate and tend to what has been heavy, you can learn more about working with me at morehumanmorekind.com/discovery.

There's no fixing required, just honesty and care.

Until next time, keep coming back to what's true.

That's the work.

More Human, more kind.

Of sa.