11/21/2025
Every morning, I wake up with a pit in my stomach. Grief exhausts me. I cry at least once a day and can’t imagine a future without my husband—how could I ever love again? I drag myself through work and the basic chores needed just to have food and clean clothes. I am completely overwhelmed.-Sarah J., grief support group participant
Anyone who has ever been in grief can tell you that it can feel never ending and all-consuming. The magnitude of these emotions, coupled with our society’s own fear of grief and of the bereaved themselves, can leave grievers feeling both isolated and hopeless about ever experiencing connection, joy and enthusiasm for life again. However, as pervasive and constant as grief feels, very few grievers fail to experience at least a few moments each day when their grief dissipates, even slightly. Recognizing those moments can help us feel less overwhelmed by our grief and begin to see a way through, as we witness those moments becoming longer and more frequent. Creating your own “grief animal” can make identifying these moments easier.
Envisioning a “grief animal” as a companion by your side is a form of externalization. This psychological technique was first explored in systemic therapy, developed in the 1940s and 50s. Systemic therapy, unlike traditional psychotherapy, addresses unwanted emotions and behavior patterns without analyzing their initial causes. Instead, it helps patients develop new ways of coping and relating to people and the world. Externalization also features in narrative therapy, which helps patients rewrite the narrative of their lives. As author Karley White describes in her article Externalizing Depression: A Narrative Approach for Personal Transformation, externalization “creates a space for us to sit with depression as a separate entity from ourselves, allowing us to treat it as a passing visitor instead of a permanent resident.”
Repressing grief doesn’t work because, as the saying goes, what we resist persists. Moving through grief is the only option for adapting to loss and accessing the growth and resilience that can come from facing hardship. Externalizing grief can help loosen its grip, while still accepting it as part of our experience. Identifying and welcoming a grief animal is one form of externalization I often teach participants in my peer support grief therapy groups.
Creating and Befriending Your Grief Animal
To create your own grief animal, follow these steps:
Sit quietly in a comfortable position. Take a couple of deep breaths and center yourself. For a minute or so, just follow your breath, no pressure to breathe a certain way – just turn your focus onto it.
Drop into your body and conjure up what it feels like when you feel overwhelmed with grief. Where does it show up – in your throat? In your stomach? Spend a moment with that feeling.
Take the feeling and project it outside of your body. Give the feeling an animal form—any kind of animal. It could be a giant, ponderous panda bear, a small, scared cat, or an old dog. It doesn’t matter which kind of animal it is, as long as it feels right to you.
This is your grief animal. In the coming days, when you begin to feel grief, envision your grief animal sitting next to you or walking beside you. Consciously say to yourself, “My animal is with me now.”
Over the next days, try to notice when the grief lifts a bit. Consciously say to yourself, “My animal has stepped away.” You are trying to fine-tune your awareness to those moments when your grief lifts just a bit.
Over time, you will likely notice your animal wandering away for longer and longer periods. Some days, your animal may stick by your side all day, and some days it might not show up until later in the day, or it might be present in the morning but then leave you until the next day. Observe its rhythms.
Although this exercise might sound a little fantastical, it is really useful for helping us loosen grief’s grip on us and shifting our sense that it is ever present and constant. The aim here is to create a small space between our core identity and the feeling of grief - although we may experience grief, we are not grief itself. And even though it may feel like a dark blanket covering us 24/7, there are always tiny moments when the light peeks through, even just a bit. Tracking and identifying these moments can help you maintain the courage to move forward.
Through externalization, you may even start to feel tender towards your grief, as if it is a sad companion reflecting your love for the person you lost. Since grief never fully vanishes, you may reach a point where you go days or months without a visit from your grief animal. When it reappears, remind yourself that it comes and goes, and trust in your capacity to move forward. In this way, befriending your grief animal becomes not just a tool for coping but a sign of your own strength and resilience on the path through loss.
Every morning, I wake up with a pit in my stomach. Grief exhausts me. I cry at least once a day and can’t imagine a future without my husband—how could I ever love again? I drag myself through work and the basic chores needed just to have food and clean clothes. I am completely overwhelmed.-Sara...
