The new season is a great reason to make and keep resolutions. Whether it’s eating right or cleaning out the garage, here are some tips for making and keeping resolutions.

9 characters printed on a sticky label, attached to an envelope. It can hit you like a punch in the stomach. That nauseous feeling that halts the progress you felt you were making. An inanimate piece of stationary that absent-mindedly has the capacity to slap you in the face. One step forward, two steps back. For years after my mother died, the local parish sent their letter requesting their dues to Mr. and Mrs. Elder. That’s the Mrs. Elder you held the funeral service for in your church only a few months ago, right? The one the parish priest spoke about so earnestly and eloquently from the altar? It felt so cold and unnecessary. The exact opposite of joined-up thinking but with the addition of causing immense pain to people who are already struggling. Sometimes I would be first one home after the post had arrived and the letter would be quietly dispatched to the recycling bin. Crisis averted for a few months at least. Other times, I would be out and my father would find it. When I came home, I would see the letter on the hall table and know what was coming. The first few times it happened, my father was furious. I would pop my head around the door and see him quietly fuming, eyes fixed on the TV. With looking at me, he slowly raise his voice, shouting about how insensitive and incompetent the parish office was. He wasn't entirely wrong. I contacted the parish office a couple of times to let them know they needed to update their database, but things never changed. As time passed, it didn't incite fury, but when he saw it, I could see the tears well up in his eyes. I went I saw his tears, I got angry, instantly flying into a day-destroying rage. It was all so avoidable on both sides. The easiest solution would be to fix the problem at source and as easy as that sounds. The church may be backed up by a powerful infrastructure at a global level, but in a lot of parishes, it will be one or two volunteers or part-time staff supporting the efforts of an over-worked parish priest. They are often over-worked themselves and may struggle with some aspects of technology. And it wasn't just the church. There were plenty of well-established private companies and organisations with large teams who continued to send letters addressed to my mum and no matter what the contents of the envelope, seeing her name always provided that instant reminder of the pain and loss we were suffering. Some of it was frivolous marketing material that my mother had no doubt legitimately signed up for by entering a competition or forgetting to tick a box on some form, but other stuff felt completely avoidable if one person or department had communicated effectively with the another. In terms of handling these types of incidents on an emotional level, it is very personal. It can feel like your loved one is being forgotten and that your huge loss and suffering does not count for much. Do not interpret incidents like this in that way. It's not why they happen and that's the first step in controlling how it affects you. The essence of this quote has been memed by millions of Instagram posts, but Marcus Aurelius summed it up best of all when he said ' “You don’t have to turn this into something. It doesn’t have to upset you.” It may be helpful to the grieving process to remember: 1. No organisation deliberately sets out to cause additional upset to bereaved people. At the end of the day, organisations are made up of people who are empathic. The system they operate within may not have the best mechanism in place to prevent it from happening, but on an individual level, they did not set out to cause you this pain. 2. This doesn't need to make you angry. Accept this as being part of the process. Mistakes happening. Reminders come from unexpected places. Try to keep your day on track when these reminders do come. 3. Use the reminder for something positive. Of course the reminder will hurt, but let that subside and use the prompt to think of some good memories that make you smile. 4. Remember that your grief is very personal and aside from your family and close friends, the world does not know about it. It may rightly be the centre of your world, but other people forget or may never even know. Ultimately, believe that it comes down to the fact it forces you to confront something you think you're dealing with better than you are. When you push something down, it's easy to feel like you're beating the negative feelings. But ignoring isn't the same as tackling and defeating. We can control where our minds wander and avoid thinking about pain, but when we get these unexpected reminders, it forces us to confront reality and the results can show that we're not as strong as we thought we were. Advice for managing the admin after someone dies