“Why do I feel so sad around The Holidays?” I ask myself… As a lifelong Christmas enthusiast, I love the cozy merriment that accompanies the season; and I am always down for peak twinkle-core. So where does the pervasive feeling of general malaise come from?
…Do you remember back in high school feeling like getting ready for the prom was always more fun than the prom itself? And then, as a young adult, feeling like getting ready for the big New Year’s Eve party was always more fun than the New Year’s Eve party itself? Sometimes the anticipation of the thing is greater than the thing itself… Any because we know that, we know we’re being setup for a let down.
The older we get, the more it feels like we’re trying to hold onto, live up to, and recreate the magic of our childhood holiday experience. And while many of us may be offering the incredible gift of Holiday Magic to our kids, there are those of us who feel nostalgic for the memories that we, ourselves, will never again experience. Maybe that’s why The Holidays can feel like a grief-y time of year.
In the face of what should feel festive and merry, there’s often an underlying feeling that something is off… Something is not quite right. For some of us, we know exactly why that is: we’ve lost a friend, loved one, or pet. We’ve lost a pregnancy; another round of IVF has failed.
For others, it’s less obvious. And because we’ve never been taught how to accept grief simply as it is, we feel the need to justify its existence by finding weird excuses to blame it on. Sometimes the closest we get to finding an explanation for our grief, is, at best, an obscure sorrow… Like: Baby Name Mourning…
Baby Name MOURNING:
The grief of not being able to use the name you love
There are lots of reasons why you can no longer use a name you love…
•Sometimes a family member or bestie gets to use your favorite name(s) first;
•Sometimes you were hoping to use a special name, but decided not to have any more children;
•Sometimes the name(s) you loved when you were 18 just don’t really fit your current family values, lifestyle, and aspirations;
•Sometimes you the name(s) you love remind you of your ex
•Sometimes, for whatever the reason, it just no longer feels appropriate to use the name(s) anymore;
•Sometimes you simply outgrow the name(s) you once loved
The names we love represent more than just a name; They represent everything we believe about the world, and how we envision our future unfolding!
The names we love reflect *who we are* in the moment we’re loving them.
So when we don’t get to use those names that felt *deeply* resonant, it’s natural for us to mourn 💔😫😭
When our grief feels like an obscure sorrow—a silent woe, a hidden fear, or veiled melancholy— we often feel it’s too niche to share with others. We fear we’ll be judged, misunderstood, or laughed at. Generally speaking, Western Society fails us when it comes to mourning. We're not taught how to process our grief effectively, and we're not taught how to support others when they process their grief. Because we lack the tools and framework for mourning, grief can often feel shameful, chaotic, and overwhelming. We don't understand it ourselves, so we assume nobody else will either. Fearing that we might be judged, we tend to isolate ourselves and ruminate on the disappointment rather than work through it.
When it comes to Baby Name Mourning, I lead people through a deep healing process that's centered on radical empathy and direct communication. This process transcends Baby Names Mourning, and addresses mothers and birthing people who are struggling in their fertility journey, or have experienced birth trauma or pregnancy loss.
There's this common issue where a mother who's just come out of an emergency C-Section is trying to relay the depths of her grief, confusion, trauma, and disappointment, and she's met with the line, "at least you have a healthy baby."
There's this underlying urge to push women to be grateful for what went right, and encourage them to overlook or deny what went wrong.
I believe this urge lives inside all of us as a voice in our heads that tries to keep us in line by saying "you're unworthy of feeling disappointed. You're unworthy of taking the time to process these heavier emotions. You should only focus on the good. Put a smile on, and get back to doing the laundry." This urge uses shame to coerce us into a state of toxic positivity, which can fuel a doom-loop for those who are truly suffering.
I see this a lot with Baby Name Regret -- an off-shoot of Baby Name Mourning -- where clients who are otherwise functional in their postpartum period, are compulsively analyzing and reconsidering the name they chose for their child.
We have to grieve the loss of:
•unmet plans,
•the path that was redirected,
•the life we thought we were going to live,
•and for the loss of that old self who was so sure that THIS was going to be *THE NAME!*
Mourning doesn’t mean we have to give up our love for these names…
Mourning gives us an opportunity to recognize how sad we are that we don’t get to use them. It’s an acknowledgement of the love we once had for these names, and for the part of us that’s SO disappointed that we’ll never get to use them for our children.
As we grieve, we create space for new favorite names to come in. We even allow ourselves to imagine a new future: one that may not have the certainty or familiarity of names we’ve loved for years, but one that may ultimately be more aligned with who we’ve become.
If you’re interested in my ebook “Baby Name Mourning: A Healing Guide for Parents Working through the Grief on Not Being Able to Use the Name They Love” you can find it, here.
Did you experience Baby Name Mourning? What brought you solace?
Alt Text: This video depicts a sophisticated woman speaking to someone about her pregnancy and the name she and her fancy husband, Conrad, have chosen for their baby. She has a memory of the name she used to love, which is loud, fabulous, and obnoxious. It is clear that this name would not fit in with her new lifestyle. She mourns this loss.