04/03/2026
A few words about grief.
Grief is defined as coping with loss.
What most people miss, is that grief isn’t limited to the death of a loved one.
Divorce/end of a relationship, loss of a job, career or livelihood, a home, a pet, a friendship or other meaningful connection, perhaps even just losing something that you love doing, are just some examples where for some reason a void is created in your life, that wasn’t there before. Even down to grieving for the life you could’ve had if you’d made different choices.
That can feel like a minor bump in the road, or a huge chasm and there’s no defined time frame for grief to come along and take your legs from under you.
Everyone’s experience is different.
Then there’s the grief cycle. A tumble dryer of different life events on what seems like a never ending spin cycle. It’s hard to see your way out of it, when the doors on lock, the heat is rising and suffocating you from the inside out. The water of tears sometimes drains away, but it can leave you feeling brittle, like you could still crack at any moment.
Then there’s the whole ‘not airing your laundry’ analogy. Where we desperately try to hide our real feelings about something… and for what? Pride? Self preservation? Fear of embarrassment? Protecting another person?
Here’s the truth…
Until you start to acknowledge those feelings rather than bury them, I don’t think you can ever truly be free from the rinse and repeat cycle of grief.
…and guess what…..
IT’S OK TO FEEL THIS WAY
I feel I’ve finally learned what grief is and how to acknowledge it. Only in the last two, to three years though… and I could give you my experiences of all of the examples I’ve offered above, that I’d held onto until recently.
Grief changed me. I learned that everything and everyone I loved, left. I learned that if something happened that I couldn’t deal with emotionally, I pushed it (or them) away. I learned that I wasn’t welcoming of nice people and being loved, because sooner or later they would leave.
That’s me.
TODAY.
But it’s ok.
I know this now.
My eyes are wide open.
…and I’m dealing with it.
There’s one thing that makes grief even harder though.
When they’re gone, but they’re still here. Just not the way you knew before. That’s the toughest grief of all. There’s no peace. There’s no closure. They didn’t go to a ‘better place’. Their energy didn’t change form into a new soul, or an angel, or a star. They’re there still every day, in your heart as you once knew, but now a stranger to your face. A hollow shell of a heart grieves for them, whilst they’re often oblivious to the pain behind your eyes.
So what do you do? You revert to putting them in a box and locking it away, never truly dealing with the feelings.
…and that’s also fine.
They were here to teach you a lesson. Sometimes a welcome one, other times no so…. But every lesson is for our growing, and by accepting that the time you did have with them was a gift, then acceptance of the loss, on some level can begin.
