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Grief: Making Sense of Loss and Finding What Helps

  • Writer: Rebecca Corlett
    Rebecca Corlett
  • 13 minutes ago
  • 8 min read

If you've recently experienced a loss, you might be wondering if what you're feeling is "normal." Maybe you're angry when you think you should be sad. Maybe you feel nothing at all when everyone expects you to be crying. Or maybe you're exhausted in a way that sleep doesn't fix, and you can't understand why choosing what to have for breakfast feels impossible.


Here's what I want you to know: grief is messier, more complicated, and more individual than most people realize. And that's completely okay.


Hands cradle a wooden, broken heart against a red sweater backdrop, symbolizing sadness or loss.
A broken heart, symbolic of loss

What Grief Really Is (And The Reactions That Surprise People)


Grief isn't just sadness, though sadness is often part of it. Grief is your entire being - emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual - responding to loss. It's your heart and your body trying to figure out how to exist in a world that suddenly looks completely different.


You might experience the expected responses like intense sadness, but grief shows up in many other ways too. There are a whole range of reactions, including the ones that catch people off guard and often bring shame:


Relief - Maybe your loved one suffered for a long time, or maybe your relationship was complicated or difficult. Feeling relief doesn't mean you didn't love them or that you're a bad person. Relief and love can coexist.


Anger - You might be furious at the person who died for leaving you, angry at yourself, at doctors, at God, or at people who still have what you lost. Sometimes anger is a stand in for other more painful emotions. Anger can be the tip of the iceberg with other thoughts and feelings sitting behind it.


Nothing at all - Sometimes grief shows up as emotional numbness, maybe you’re still processing the shock or just not ready to feel it yet. This doesn't mean you don't care or that something's wrong with you.


Guilt about being happy or laughing - You might catch yourself thinking, "How can I be happy when they're gone?" Joy and laughter can act as a release valve, giving respite to more sorrowful emotions.  There’s no set rules about what to feel and when.  All emotions are real and valid.  


Physical symptoms - Fatigue, headaches, changes in appetite, feeling like you can't catch your breath, stomach issues, or pain and stiffness. What we feel emotionally can be felt and held in the body.


Mental fog - Difficulty concentrating, forgetting things, feeling scattered, or having trouble making decisions.


Fear and anxiety - Intense anxiety about your own death, fear of losing other people, panic about the future, or a sense that the world feels unreal or that you're moving through it like you're underwater. Loss can make everything feel unpredictable and scary.


All of this is normal. Your grief might look nothing like your friend's grief, or like grief in movies, and that doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. If you're experiencing any of these reactions, please know: they don't make you selfish, heartless, or abnormal. They make you human.



Let's Talk About Those "Stages"


You've probably heard about the five stages of grief, originally developed by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1969) for understanding how people cope with terminal illness. Here's the thing: they're not actually stages you move through in order, like levels in a video game. Research shows that grief is much more individual and cyclical than originally thought (Worden, 2018). They're more like weather patterns that come and go, sometimes cycling back, sometimes hitting you all at once.


The five stages - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance - were never meant to be a roadmap for grief. Kübler-Ross was studying how people facing their own death processed that reality, not how others grieve after a loss. Yet somehow, these stages became a cultural template for "how grief should look."


Why this matters: The stages model can generate unhelpful expectations. People worry they're "stuck" if they don't move through in order. They feel pressure to reach "acceptance" by a certain time. Family members might say things like "you should be past the anger stage by now." This misunderstanding can make people feel like they're grieving "wrong."


What actually happens: You might cycle through different emotions in minutes, not months. You might never experience some "stages" at all, or spend most of your time in one particular emotional space. You might feel acceptance about some aspects of your loss while still bargaining about others. You might revisit anger years later and that's completely normal.

Some days you might feel acceptance in the morning and denial by afternoon. Some weeks you might feel mostly anger. Some months might be heavy with sadness. There's no timeline, no correct order, and no graduation ceremony when you're "done."


The real value in knowing about these emotions is recognizing that if you do experience them, you're not losing your mind. Bargaining - trying to make deals with God or the universe - is normal. Feeling angry at the person who died is normal. Denying reality when it feels too big is normal. But you don't have to experience them all, and you don't have to experience them in any particular way.



Managing Grief: Practical Tools That Actually Help


When grief hits hard, your nervous system can go into overdrive. Your body might feel stuck in fight-or-flight mode, making everything feel overwhelming and urgent. The tools below aren't about "fixing" your grief or making it disappear - they're about helping you find moments of calm so you can function day to day.


These techniques include grounding exercises (which help you feel present and connected to your body), breathwork (which slows your heart rate and activates your body's natural calming response), and practical strategies for managing daily life when your emotional resources are depleted. Think of them as a toolkit you can reach for when grief feels too big to handle alone.


When Grief Feels Overwhelming


The 3-3-3 technique: Name 3 things you can see, 3 sounds you can hear, and move 3 parts of your body. This helps ground you when grief feels like it's running away with you.


Permission to feel it: Set a timer for 10-15 minutes and let yourself fully feel whatever you're experiencing. Cry, scream into a pillow, or just sit with the heaviness. When the timer goes off, gently shift to something that requires your attention.


Breathing space: Try breathing in for 4 counts, holding for 4, breathing out for 6. The longer exhale activates your body's calming response.


A person in white sits cross-legged, meditating on a mountain ledge with a backdrop of distant blue hills and vibrant orange flowers.
Take a moment to ground yourself.

Day-to-Day Survival


Lower the bar: This isn't the time for high standards. Fed is better than perfect. Clean clothes from the floor are fine. Ordering a take away instead of cooking counts as taking care of yourself.


One thing at a time: When everything feels impossible, pick one small thing. Sometimes that's brushing your teeth. Sometimes it's sending one text. That's enough for now.


Energy budgeting: Grief is exhausting. Think of your energy like money—you only have so much to spend each day. Social events might cost more energy than usual. Making phone calls might feel like a major expense. Budget accordingly.


Using Your Support Network


Accept help and be specific about what you need: If someone offers help, accept it. If someone says "let me know if you need anything," it’s ok to say yes. Be specific about the help that you might need, such as, "Can you drop off dinner Tuesday?" or "Can you sit with me while I make these phone calls?"


Give people jobs: Some people are good for practical help, others for just sitting with you, others for distracting you. It's okay to call different people for different needs.


Professional support: If you feel stuck or need support there’s a lot of help out there from services offering practical and legal advice through to proffesional counselling.  Remember seeking help isn’t weakness it’s strength.



What to Expect (Without Expecting Too Much)


Grief comes in waves, not straight lines. You might have a good day followed by three terrible ones. You might laugh at something and then feel guilty for laughing. You might dream about your loved one and wake up having to remember the loss all over again.


Grief bursts are normal - those sudden, intense moments when grief hits you out of nowhere (Stroebe & Schut, 2010). Maybe you're grocery shopping and suddenly can't breathe because you reached for something they used to love.


Anniversary reactions are common - feeling worse around birthdays, holidays, or the monthly anniversary of the loss (Rando, 1993).


Grief brain is real - difficulty concentrating, forgetting things, feeling scattered. Your brain is processing a lot. Be patient with yourself.



Moving Forward (Not "Moving On")


Here's something important: the goal isn't to "get over" your loss or to "move on." The goal is to learn how to carry your grief and your love in ways that allow you to live fully again. Contemporary grief research emphasizes that we don't "recover" from significant losses but rather learn to integrate them into our ongoing lives (Neimeyer, 2001; Klass et al., 1996).


Dr. Lois Tonkin's (1996) model of "growing around grief" offers a helpful way to understand this process. Rather than your grief shrinking over time, your life gradually expands around it. The grief remains just as significant, but you develop more experiences, relationships, and meaning alongside it. Think of it like a ball in a box - the ball (your grief) stays the same size, but the box (your life) slowly gets bigger.


Grief changes over time. The intensity usually softens, though it may never completely disappear. You're not trying to forget or stop loving the person you lost. You're learning how to love them and live your life at the same time.


Some days will be harder than others. Some seasons will knock you sideways. And some days, you might surprise yourself by feeling moments of genuine joy again. All of this is part of the journey.



You're Not Broken


If you take nothing else from this post, please take this: you are not broken. Grief is not a problem to be solved but a natural response to love and loss. The depth of your grief often reflects the depth of your love, and there's nothing wrong with feeling it fully.


Be patient with yourself. Be gentle with yourself. And remember that healing doesn't mean forgetting, it means learning to live with love and loss intertwined.


Getting Additional Support


If you need someone to talk to right now, or want ongoing professional support, here are some trusted UK resources:



Remember, reaching out for support isn't a sign of weakness, it's a sign of self-care and courage.

Working Through Grief Together


If you're looking for professional support to navigate your grief journey, I offer individual grief counselling in a safe, compassionate space where you can process your loss at your own pace. Sometimes having someone trained in grief work walk alongside you can make all the difference in finding your way forward.


To learn more about how counselling may help or to book a free introductory phone call, please visit www.sunflowercounselling.co.uk or contact me at rebecca@sunflowercounselling.co.uk .



References


Klass, D., Silverman, P.R. & Nickman, S.L. (Eds.). (1996). Continuing bonds: New understandings of grief. Taylor & Francis.

Kübler-Ross, E. (1969). On death and dying. Macmillan.

Neimeyer, R.A. (2001). Meaning reconstruction and the experience of loss. American Psychological Association.

Rando, T.A. (1993). Treatment of complicated mourning. Research Press.

Stroebe, M. & Schut, H. (2010). The dual process model of coping with bereavement: A decade on. OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying, 61(4), 273-289.

Tonkin, L. (1996). Growing around grief: Another way of looking at grief and recovery. Bereavement Care, 15(1), 10.

Worden, J.W. (2018). Grief counseling and grief therapy: A handbook for the mental health practitioner (5th ed.). Springer.

© 2023 by Sunflower Counselling.

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