5 Tips to Overcome Grief and Loneliness Over the Holidays

Overcome Grief and Loneliness with these 5 Tips from author Theo Boyd.

DALLAS, TX — In My Grief Is Not Like Yours: Learning to Live After Unimaginable Loss, A Daughter’s Journey (Forefront Books; May 2023; ISBN: 978-1637631560; Hardcover; Click Here for Book Trailer), Theo Boyd writes with honesty and raw emotion about the day that started the contagion of devastating events that would leave her “without hope, without purpose, without direction.” After the terrible shock and pain of losing her Momma, losing her father, and losing her marriage, Boyd began writing.

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“I had to record my thoughts, questions, feelings, and fears,” she shares. “I needed to read something that hit me as hard as I had been hit.” 

My Grief Is Not Like Yours interweaves the story of Boyd’s struggle with complicated grief — the type of heavy, lingering grief that comes after an unexpected, unspeakable loss — with a tribute to her extraordinary parents, both native Texans and their devotion to each other.

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Heartfelt Advice from Boyd on How to Overcome Grief and Loneliness

In an interview, Boyd can add some heartfelt advice from a person who lived through extraordinary grief and can offer the following five survival tips to manage grief during the holidays:

1.) Keep their memory alive by sharing stories, making their favorite holiday dishes, or simply letting someone know you will not forget their loss. 

2.) Get professional advice (not the unsolicited advice of those around you). Find a professional person to talk to who specializes in your specific type of grief or situation. (Chapters 3 & 4)

3.) Give yourself the grace to manage the holiday season. Don’t if you do not think you can entertain like always. Believe it or not, people will understand. Give yourself the time you need to rest, reflect, and repair. (The intention I had in writing this book. Chapter 12)

4.) journal it! I find that writing helps me heal. In my book, I have an exercise called 100 Things. Write down 100 things (or fewer) about the person you are missing or the situation with which you are struggling.

5.) Just sit with someone. You do not have to say a word. We underestimate the power of our presence. (Chapter 13)

By talking openly about the emotional and mental aftershocks of loss, survivor’s guilt, fear of death, and suicide in My Grief Is Not Like Yours, Theo Boyd offers her readers comfort in knowing that in grief, they are not alone and, like her, they will find joy again.

Writer, Speaker, Teacher, and Farmgirl 

THEO BOYD

Shares the Story of Her Parents—Their Inspiring Lives and Their Tragic Deaths—and 

Her Difficult Path to Acceptance, Purpose, Comfort, and Hope in Her New Book, 

MY GRIEF IS NOT LIKE YOURS

Learning to Live After Unimaginable Loss, A Daughter’s Journey

In June 2019, Theo Boyd was content and fulfilled. She enjoyed teaching high school English and was proud to have a daughter in college. She had a beautiful home in a suburb of Dallas, Texas, and a successful husband. And she had a close, loving relationship with her sister and her parents. Life had become what she had always wanted—until July 29, 2019. On that terrible day, her mother was killed in a tragic farming accident. She was run over by a tractor. And her father was the driver. 

In MY GRIEF IS NOT LIKE YOURS: Learning to Live After Unimaginable Loss, A Daughter’s Journey (Forefront Books; May 2023; ISBN: 978-1637631560; $26.00 Hardcover – Click Here for Book Trailer), Theo Boyd writes with honesty and raw emotion about the day that started the contagion of devastating events that would leave her “without hope, without purpose, without direction.” After the terrible shock and pain of losing her Momma, Theo began writing. “I had to record my thoughts, questions, feelings, and fears,” she shares. “I needed to read something that hit me as hard as I had been hit.” 

At the time, Theo had no idea of the blows to come over the next three years. On June 19, 2022, Father’s Day, her Daddy ended his life. Before that heartbreak, her husband had begun to seek comfort outside of their marriage, and her trusted therapist passed away. For a while, it all brought Theo to her knees. But, thanks to her faith and what her parents had taught her, she got back up.   

In MY GRIEF IS NOT LIKE YOURS, Theo Boyd interweaves the story of her struggle with complicated grief—the type of heavy, lingering grief that comes after an unexpected, unspeakable loss—with a tribute to her extraordinary parents, both native Texans and their devotion to each other. 

• Born on November 24, 1944, Sue Wynell Boyd suffered severe and irreparable hearing loss after an illness at eighteen months old. She didn’t learn to speak until the age of ten, and as a little girl, her silence made her easy prey for a child-molesting monster. Small in stature but strong in spirit, she didn’t let her disability or hardship hold her back. After the adventure of working as a governess for a wealthy family in California, she married the handsome man who won her heart and settled into life as a hardworking farmer’s wife and mother.  

• Born on December 19, 1943, Joe Bob Boyd was the baby of his family. His mother prayed daily that he would one day become a preacher—and he did, serving the flock at Bethel Bible Church for thirty-three years. He was also a rancher, peanut farmer, history buff, aspiring inventor, and passionate storyteller. At home, he and his wife had their unspoken language. About a year before the horrific tractor accident that took Sue’s life, Joe Bob was diagnosed with White Matter Disease, a form of dementia that affects mobility, thinking, and memory.

While deeply personal, MY GRIEF IS NOT LIKE YOURS offers a wealth of insights and tools to help anyone grappling with grief feel what they need to feel and then begin to heal. Drawing on her own experience and wisdom from mental health professionals, self-care specialists, and spiritual teachers, Theo Boyd encourages and guides readers to: 

• Celebrate and remember everything that made their departed loved ones extraordinary. Start by listing one hundred of their defining qualities, talents, and quirks.   

• Be gentle with yourself and take care of yourself, including permitting yourself to eat, sleep, cry, yell and curse, ask for help, and laugh. 

• Find ways to support others as they grieve, whether by offering to pray together or simply listening, and recognize the caring acts of friends, neighbors, and funeral directors.  

By talking openly about the emotional and mental aftershocks of loss, survivor’s guilt, fear of death, and suicide in MY GRIEF IS NOT LIKE YOURS, Theo Boyd offers her readers comfort in knowing that grief they are not alone and, like her, they will find joy again.

About the Author

THEO BOYD, whose given name is Thelizabeth after her two grandmothers, Thelma and Elizabeth, is a farmgirl at heart. For most of her adult life, she lived in Waxahachie, Texas, about 30 minutes south of Dallas, where she taught high school English, raised her daughter, and actively volunteered in various organizations, her community, and her church. After 30 years, she moved back to her hometown of Whitney, Texas, to come to terms with the death of her mother in a tragic farming accident, followed three years later by her father’s suicide. She now devotes her time to writing and speaking about loss, grief, and faith with the mission of helping others find comfort and hope.   

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