Part 1: Dealing with grief and loss
Grief is a deeply personal, yet universal, experience. As a psychotherapist, I’ve sat with many individuals as they’ve navigated the often overwhelming terrain of loss. Whether it's the death of a loved one, the end of a relationship, a life-changing diagnosis, or even the loss of a long-held dream, grief is something we all encounter—yet it remains one of the least spoken about, and often most misunderstood, emotional experiences.
Over the next 5 series we will explore what grief is all about and how you can be supported throughout the process.
🕊️ Part 1: Grief Isn’t Linear – Making Space for the Messiness of Loss
Grief has no timetable. No predictable path. No neat transition from sadness to peace. It’s not something we “get over” or “move through” in a straight line. And yet, so often, we expect ourselves, or others, to grieve quickly, quietly, and neatly.
As a psychotherapist, I’ve sat with many people in the thick of grief. Some arrive feeling guilty that they’re still crying after a few months. Others feel confused that they’re not crying. Some feel anger, others relief. Some feel nothing at all.
Let me say this as clearly as I can: all of it is normal.
💬 What We’ve Been Taught About Grief
Many of us are familiar with the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Introduced by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in the 1960s, this model was originally intended to describe the emotional responses of people who were moving onto the next life, not necessarily those left behind.
Over time, the five stages became widely applied to all forms of loss. While the model has helped many people make sense of their emotions, it can also create unrealistic expectations in that grief will move in an orderly sequence, and that acceptance is the final goal.
But grief doesn’t behave that way.
You might feel acceptance in the morning and collapse in tears by lunchtime. You might skip a stage entirely, or revisit one years later when you least expect it. That doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. It means you're human.
🌊 Grief Is a Wave, Not a Ladder
I often describe grief as a wave. At first, it’s crashing, relentless, overwhelming, knocking the wind out of you. Over time, the waves may become less frequent, but they can still rise without warning.
A song. A smell. A date on the calendar.
Suddenly, there it is again; the ache, the tears, the memories. Many people find this confusing, even scary. “I thought I was okay. Why am I back here again?”
But you’re not back at the beginning. You’re just meeting your grief again but this time, from a different place. Each wave is an invitation to feel, to remember, and to honour what mattered.
🧠 Other Ways to Understand Grief
Beyond the five stages, there are other helpful models:
The Dual Process Model (Stroebe & Schut) suggests we oscillate between loss-oriented activities (grieving, remembering, yearning) and restoration-oriented ones (working, caring for others, adjusting to life). Both are part of healing.
Worden’s Tasks of Mourning include accepting the reality of the loss, processing the pain, adjusting to a world without the person, and finding a new connection with them while continuing life.
These models reflect what many people experience: grief as a process that requires flexibility, space, and compassion.
🕯️ Making Space for the Messiness
Grief is not tidy. It can be full of contradictions:
You might feel numb and devastated.
You might miss someone dearly and feel angry with them.
You might laugh at a memory while crying.
One of the most healing things we can do, for ourselves and others, is to allow grief to be exactly what it is. Messy. Mysterious. Not always understood, but deeply felt.
🌱 Moving at the Pace of the Heart
There’s no rush. There’s no deadline. Whether you’re six days or six years out from a loss, your grief is valid. Healing doesn’t mean forgetting. It means learning how to live alongside the absence, how to carry both love and loss in the same breath.
If you’re grieving right now, please hear this: You are not broken. You are responding to something that changed your life. And healing doesn’t require you to be strong all of the time. It simply asks that you be honest, gentle, and patient with your heart.
Up next in this series:
“Unseen and Unspoken – When Grief Isn’t Recognised”; exploring the quiet, hidden kinds of grief that often go unacknowledged but are deeply real.
