“Grief is just love with no place to go.” – Jamie Anderson
Grief is a uniquely devastating experience. It can feel impossible to keep going when your world has been altered so drastically. Time can be healing, but in the beginning, every day might feel like a battle. There is no simple answer to grief. Nothing can replace what you have lost. No amount of condolences or flowers can ease the heartache.
You may be feeling hopeless and lost. Grief can affect every aspect of your daily life and take a toll on your mental and physical health, so it’s important to understand the symptoms of grief and how to live with them.
If you’re wondering how to cope with loss, how to grieve, and how to move forward when part of you is missing, this guide is for you.
What is Grief?
Grief is an overwhelming emotional response to loss. We tend to think of grief as something we experience after the death of a loved one, be it a person or a pet. However, sometimes grief can follow a terminal diagnosis (either for ourselves or a loved one), divorce, breakup, job loss, miscarriage, or other endings in life. You can also grieve lost time or missed opportunities.
Unfortunately, grief will always be a part of life because we cannot avoid loss. Although everyone will experience it, not everyone grieves in the same way. There is no wrong way to grieve.
There are different types of grief, too:
Complicated Grief
This kind of grief stays with us. We might grapple with PTSD, anxiety, and depression because of it. With complicated grief, it’s important to consider seeking grief counseling or grief therapy.
Anticipatory Grief
This happens when there is a terminal diagnosis or any kind of impending loss that has not yet happened. Sometimes we tell ourselves it will be easier to handle a loss if we grieve before it occurs.
Delayed Grief
If you don’t grieve immediately after a loss, it doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you. You may experience delayed grief. There is no wrong time to start grieving.
Disenfranchised Grief
This is grief that society tends to minimize. It could be related to a breakup, fertility issues, or the death of a pet. Grief of any kind is devastating. You deserve support no matter what kind of loss you have experienced.
Ambiguous Grief
Ambiguous grief happens when we are grieving something we aren’t quite sure how to grieve or process. We may be grieving someone who is still alive but experiencing loss of mental capacity due to dementia or an accident, or grieving a missing person.
With all kinds of grief, you may experience symptoms of depression, such as decreased interest in activities that once felt exciting, isolation, withdrawal, fatigue, exhaustion, anxiety, and feelings of hopelessness. Grief and loss may also bring up feelings of abandonment, anger, or guilt.
How Do You ‘Get Over’ Grief?
Grieving isn’t easy. It’s messy and complicated and there is no ‘best’ way to go about it. Grief is not something you can ‘get over,’ but there are ways to deal with it.
You’ve likely heard of The 5 Stages of Grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. While these stages may describe the emotional journey that follows loss, they don’t offer any sort of roadmap for dealing with grief.
In the book Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy, William Worden outlines his theory for what needs to be done after loss in order for “the process of mourning to be completed” and “equilibrium to be reestablished.”
It’s important to note that these tasks might not ever be truly “completed,” because grief doesn’t just go away. However, Worden’s theory does provide some insight into the kind of work you may do in grief counseling.
Worden’s 4 Tasks for Mourning
Task #1: To accept the reality of the loss
Task #2: To work through the pain of grief
Task #3: To adjust to an environment in which the deceased (or your ex-partner, former job, etc.) is missing
Task #4: To find an enduring connection with the deceased or your past while embarking on a new life
If reading those four tasks left you asking, “But how do I do those things?” you might find Therese Rando, Ph.D.’s Six R’s of Mourning more helpful.
Rando’s Six R’s of Mourning
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Recognize the loss: this means acknowledging the death and understanding the death.
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React to the separation: this process involves experiencing the pain, feeling, identifying, accepting, and expressing reactions to the loss. It includes identifying and reacting to secondary losses.
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Recollect and re-experience the person or things that are no longer in your life and the relationship: this requires realistically reviewing and remembering them, as well as reviving and re-experiencing feelings.
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Relinquish old attachments to the person or things that are no longer in your life and the old assumptive world.
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Readjust to move adaptively into the new world without forgetting the old world: this means developing a new relationship with the person or things that are no longer in your life, adopting new ways of being in the world, and establishing a new identity.
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Reinvest. This means putting emotional energy into new people, goals, etc.
With the help of a grief counselor, you can work through these steps to learn how to live with grief and loss.
Many people find solace in the community. In times of grief, lean on your loved ones, join grief support groups or bereavement groups, and connect with people who bring you to hope and joy.
Volunteering, working with animals, and just keeping busy in general can be so helpful when dealing with grief.
What is The Difference Between Mourning and Grief?
Grief encompasses all of the feelings that accompany loss, such as sadness, anger, guilt, and frustration. Mourning is how you express your grief. Therese Rando’s theory is called the Six R’s of Mourning because each ‘R’ is an action that can help you process your grief.
How Long Does Grief Last?
Grief can last months or years. Sometimes grief is neverending.
We like to break grief down into stages, processes, steps, and tasks as if we can manage and tame it by simply following instructions. But the reality is that grief is ongoing and healing from grief is not a linear process. We can’t give ourselves a timeline for completing the steps that are supposed to help with grief.
How to Visualize How We Experience Grief Over Time
The Ball in the Box analogy is a good way to visualize how we experience grief over time. It goes like this:
There is a box with a ball and a pain button inside. In the beginning, the ball is so large that the box cannot be moved without causing pain. Over time, the ball shrinks and no longer hits the pain button as often. But when it does, it hurts all the same and the blows often catch you off guard. For most of us, the ball never really goes away, but we have enough time to recover between hits and can go about our days without too much pain.
It’s normal to be frustrated with grief. Allow yourself to feel what you feel for as long as you need to. It’s okay to not be okay.
Will Grief Counseling in California Help?
Above all, grief is personal. What helps some people might not work for you. No one can tell you exactly how to deal with your grief. Finding the right support and comfort that allows you to move through life after loss can be a learning process.
Even when it feels as though nothing will help the grief itself, grief counseling can provide you with support for depression, anxiety, anger, PTSD, and other challenges that often accompany significant loss.
Grief counseling can help you accept the difficult emotions you are experiencing and manage the distress to make life after loss bearable. Together with a grief counselor, you can learn to feel your feelings, adjust to your changed life, establish a new identity, and create a meaningful relationship with those you have lost.
What Therapy Approach is Best for Grief?
Since most losses are traumatic, Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy are good for those who are suffering from PTSD as well as grief and loss.
Other therapy approaches for grief may include cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and art therapy.
Kindful Body offers online grief counseling in California. Our caring grief counselors specialize in grief and loss therapy and can work with you through trauma therapy like EMDR and IFS, as well as art therapy, CBT, and ACT.
Interested in Grief Counseling in California?
Struggling with the loss of someone? Learn how online grief counseling in California with a Kindful Body therapist can help provide you with support and the coping skills you need to manage your grief. To get started follow these simple steps:
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Schedule a free 15-minute video consultation to learn how we can help you
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Meet with one of our caring grief therapists
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Begin your journey of healing
Other Services Available at Kindful Body
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