Grief and Loss
Grief is not something to get over. It is something you learn to carry.
I have my own experience with loss, including the kind that does not always get recognized or named by others. That is part of why this work matters so much to me.
Grief Does Not Always Look the Way You Expect
Grief shows up in more forms than most people realize. Disenfranchised grief is loss that others do not recognize or validate, a friendship ending, a pet dying, a relationship that was never public. Anticipatory grief means grieving someone or something before it is actually gone. Ambiguous loss happens when someone is physically present but emotionally absent, or physically gone with no resolution. Even solastalgia counts, the grief of watching a place you love change or disappear.
If what you are carrying does not fit the grief you have seen modeled or talked about, that does not make it less real.
How I Think About Grief
My understanding of grief is shaped by a few key ideas. Worden's tasks of mourning frame grief as something active, not passive, there is real work involved in accepting a loss, processing the pain, adjusting to a world without what was lost, and finding a way to carry it forward. Continuing bonds theory pushes back on the old idea that healing means letting go entirely, instead suggesting that maintaining a connection to what or who you lost can be part of healing, not a barrier to it. The dual process model describes grief as movement back and forth between confronting the loss directly and simply living your life, both are part of the process, not one replacing the other.
A Book I Return To
The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller has shaped a lot of how I think about grief, particularly its idea that grief is not a problem to solve but a skill we have lost practice in as a culture. If you want to read further, Worden's Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy and Klass, Silverman and Nickman's Continuing Bonds are both good places to start.
Children's Grief
Grief looks different in children than it does in adults, and it does not always follow a straight line. A child might be playing one moment and sobbing the next, that is not a sign something is wrong, it is often just how grief moves through a younger nervous system. I also work with parents who are trying to support a grieving child while grieving themselves.
If You Are Not Sure This Applies to You
You do not need a death to be grieving. Divorce, illness, a friendship ending, a move, a diagnosis, all of these can carry real loss. If something in you feels unsettled or unnamed, this may still be the right place to start.