Navigating the Terrain of Grief and Grieving

What is grief, and what is grieving?

It helps to make a small distinction. Grief is the internal emotional response to loss. Grieving is the active process of navigating and coping with that loss over time. Grieving is often filled with unbearable longing, yearning, anguish, and a profound sense of disorientation. While there is no one-size-fits-all path through it, understanding something of how grief works may offer a little solace and steadiness as you walk this tender path.

Grief as proof of life — and of love

Grief is not a disorder. It is a normal and necessary human experience, and it serves as proof of life and, more tenderly still, proof of love. It is universal, yet it is felt in an intensely unique way by each of us. The poet and musician Nick Cave captures this beautifully when he reflects that if we love, we grieve — that grief and love are forever intertwined.

If we love, we grieve. … Grief and love are forever intertwined.

Nick Cave · Musician and writer

The neurological impact of grief

Grief affects us on a neurological level, with profound and often disorienting effects. The neuroscientist and psychologist Mary-Frances O’Connor describes grieving as a form of learning: the brain has spent a lifetime building a kind of internal map of where our loved one is, so that we can find them when we need them. When that person is gone, the brain must slowly and effortfully update its map to accommodate a reality that does not fit its basic operating principles.¹ This is part of why grief can feel so destabilising, and why we can feel as though we are losing our minds. We are not. The brain is simply doing some of the hardest learning it will ever do.

The chaos of grief

Grief is often aptly described as chaos. The chaos of grief refers to the unpredictable, overwhelming, and often confusing experience of dealing with loss — particularly when it arrives unexpectedly or suddenly. Grief is not a linear process, and it is common to feel a wide range of intense and sometimes contradictory emotions, often within the same hour. Relief alongside despair. Numbness alongside rage. Laughter that surprises us, then guilt for having laughed.

An unpredictable, winding path — not a linear race

Contrary to popular belief, grief does not follow a tidy, predictable sequence of stages. It is an ongoing process with no defined endpoint. The psychotherapist Matt Licata offers a gentler framing — that grief is an activity within the heart that we may be asked to tend to throughout our lives.

Put simply: grief does not end, because love does not end. Grief is, in a sense, the price we pay for love. You cannot get over grief — but you can learn to live with it, and to grow around it over time. This is one of the most hopeful images we have in grief work, and it is worth picturing.

The rollercoaster of grief: the Dual-Process Model

Grieving is less a straight road and more a rollercoaster, with its ups and downs, twists and turns. Researchers Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut described this ebb and flow as the Dual-Process Model of grief. In it, we naturally oscillate between two states. There is no need to force this movement — the heart tends to find its own rhythm.

Both phases are normal and necessary, and moving back and forth between them is precisely what helps us integrate the loss. A day spent immersed in memories is not a setback. A day spent functioning, even laughing, is not a betrayal. Both belong.

Grief’s unpredictable waves

Grief is messy and unpredictable, often arriving in waves, especially in the early days. A piece of music, an anniversary, a particular slant of light, or a seemingly random moment can pull a wave in from nowhere. Resisting these waves is futile and tends to deepen the pain. As the old saying goes, what you resist persists. Learning to yield to these currents, the way we might learn to move with waves in the sea rather than brace against them, is an essential part of healing.

Turning towards the pain

Although it may seem counterintuitive, it helps to learn to turn towards the pain rather than to avoid or suppress it. Acknowledging and engaging with the difficult emotions is how grief is processed. This can be done in small, manageable doses — what is sometimes called touching in on grief. We do not have to feel all of it at once.

In The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Francis Weller reminds us that facing loss takes immense courage. Grieving can be draining, overwhelming, and disorienting. And yet, as Brené Brown points out, the word courage comes from the Latin cor, meaning heart. Grieving invites us to listen deeply to our own hearts as we navigate the pain of loss. Expressing sadness is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of strength.

Honouring your unique journey

The paradox of grief is that it is both universal and deeply personal. Your grief, and your way through it, is as unique as you are. Comparing your experience to anyone else’s tends to be both unhelpful and unkind to yourself. Remember, too, that many losses go unacknowledged by those around us — disenfranchised losses, such as the loss of a pet, a job, a pregnancy, or a friendship. These losses are valid, and they can be profoundly painful. It often helps to find your own meaningful ways to express and honour them.

Cultivating compassion for yourself

Our dominant culture often pressures us to move on, and quickly. Yet self-compassion is one of the most steadying companions we have in grief. Buddhist psychology speaks of the two arrows of suffering: the first arrow is the pain itself, and the second is the harsh, judgmental way we so often respond to our own pain. Grief is exhausting — it is called grief work for good reason. As best you can, aim to treat yourself with the same kindness you would offer a dear friend. Turn inward gently, hold your own heart with tenderness, and stay attuned to what you need.

You cannot get over grief, but you can learn to live with it and grow around it over time.

Connecting and finding rituals

Isolation tends to intensify grief. Our modern cultures have, sadly, lost much of what Indigenous cultures across the earth have understood for millennia — that shared experiences of grief and shared rituals hold tremendous healing power. Consider reaching towards others who understand loss, whether through a support group, counselling, or simply time with friends who can sit with you. Ritual can be equally sustaining: creating an altar, writing letters to your loved one, or assembling a memory box can all help maintain a loving, meaningful connection.

Balancing holding on and letting go

Grief invites us both to cherish what was and to begin new chapters. There is a balance to be found between honouring the past and building a future, and grief therapy has a name for it: Continuing Bonds. Rather than severing our connection with the person who has died, we re-establish it in a new form — one that lets us keep expressing our love in tangible ways. Conversations with your loved one, mementos, an altar, a memory box: these are not signs that you are stuck. They are ways the bond continues.

Finding beauty and gratitude

Even amid immense pain, it is worth gently seeking out moments of beauty and gratitude. Resilience grows when we can hold life’s paradoxes — when we can let sorrow and gratitude sit side by side. Actively looking for the good and the beautiful helps build new neural connections, slowly paving the way for hope and joy to return. The writer Terry Tempest Williams captures the heart of this when she suggests that grief dares us to love once more.

Remember, you are not alone on this journey.