Hearing the word “grief” we most commonly understand the loss of death is involved. The process of adapting to life without someone important in our world can rock even the most grounded person. Even in the modern world pushing us to “multi-task” our grief (aka. ‘get back to normal’ culture), we recognize that death can be a big deal.
As culture discontinues many grieving rituals and pushes to minimize the reality of death, we are in a sense becoming grief-illiterate. There may be a general awareness of the idea that there are ‘stages of grief’ (not entirely accurate), that anger and sadness are valid, but beyond that we are often unfamiliar with the complexity of rebuilding our life after a shocking change.
It shouldn’t be a surprise then that we fail to notice the way grief shows up in losses that don’t involve death. The death of a pet, empty nest, involuntary job loss—these losses are just as likely to need grieving. Experiencing infidelity or betrayal, divorce, miscarriage or struggles with infertility, these are all times that carry identity, relational, or even abstract losses.
Relational and Emotional Losses
Losing a friendship or family estrangement are clear moments of relational loss. Understandably divorce or even long-term break-ups are hard. It’s easy in these moments to focus on the loss of a person. Friends will remind us there are “more out there” and we often pursue healing through replacing the person lost; dating, more time with our family, building new friendships.
The underside of relational loss is the loss of trust and confidence in our value to others or the potential ‘danger’ of letting people matter. We can feel a loss of trust in general, in ourselves, in potential friends or partners. Family estrangement can cause us to question our value to others who were supposed to be lifelong connections.
Emotional loss can be facing the reality of unmet expectations or feeling unseen and unheard in a relationship. Trying to let go of “what should have been” is complicated and nuanced. We might blame ourselves for unreal expectations. We might invalidate our own sadness. All of this can create a sense of control over loss.
Identity and Self-Concept Loss
When we are young, major life shifts are exciting. Change can bring opportunity to build our life and build our identity. Exploring our interests, finding people and opportunities that resonate with our values, this brings change and losses that are viewed as part of growth.
While this is true in theory, losses occurring at unexpected times in life, in concert with each other, or repetitively, these losses can outweigh our tolerance. After investing 10-15 years in a career, suddenly being laid off looks less like opportunity and feels more like a shift in a foundational piece of our life. After pouring ourselves into our children’s well-being, an empty nest brings mixed feelings. That’s a key part of grief—we are not always sad first. We can be completely disoriented, confused about what we feel.
Typically an identity or self-concept loss comes after a major change. Other times, it emerges suddenly around ongoing life events. Aging, health decline, postpartum or post-menopause body changes can show up suddenly in a moment of realization. A social media post, a selfie from years ago, a school reunion— these can bring into sharp focus the change that is happening every day against our will.
Losing a dream, losing certainty, losing “normalcy”, losing innocence or even lost years invested in something that evaporates, these are all things worthy of grieving. So how do we grieve? What is the difference between pushing through a transition and noticing we are grieving?
Grief is Natural
First, knowing that it is natural for everyone to have moments of loss and grief can give us hope. No, you are not “overly emotional” or “losing it”. It could be that this loss is rooted so deeply in who you are and your life, that it is unfair to ask you to just “move on”. In essence, we have a bit of a road map besides having a mental breakdown or being depressed. You can expect anger, sadness, a deep and driving need to “get back to the way things are”. And you can expect that will never happen. Grieving requires us to know the loss intimately and accept the challenge of rebuilding tomorrow.
Grief has Triggers
There will be days when you can imagine and see your life post-change. And then suddenly you will be reminded of how good it was. You will be reminded how unfair it was to have something taken. You will feel all of those emotions again. And you are still growing and healing.
Just as with more traditional grief, we can know there will be good and bad days. It will seem impossible that we ever “get past” this. And we can know that over time, as we make sense of it, as we connect with ourselves and our new life, it will hurt less often and less intensely.
Grief is a Healing Process
Healing takes patience. We do not get up out of bed and say “today I’m better”. Each time we face the memory, the trigger, the new reality, we are processing. Allowing the feelings to be real, but not determine our life is one of the most difficult things. I can deeply feel grief, but must know that I am moving through it. I feel the loss so that I can exit on the other side with a deeper version of myself. I may not be the same. I may not see the world the same. But I can be okay. Maybe even happy.
Another reason it can feel so frustrating and out of control is there is no “healthy” timeline for this process. It is possible to get stuck and to rush grief. When we talk ourselves out of the past to feel better about the future, that is disingenuous. Feeling the loss deeply, even when it is scary, does not threaten our future. Inversely, “stuckness” is living in the past. When we can’t show up in current life, talk about or imagine a future— then we may need help moving forward.
Grieving the Abstract
If you have had large amounts of unplanned or unwanted change in your life, it can be helpful to create space for grief. This is the opposite of letting everyone tell you “it’s fine” or “move on”. It may only happen in the privacy of your journal or with a therapist, but you probably need to hear your own thoughts and feelings, to recognize what loss you are enduring.
Name the Loss(es)- Acknowledging what you have lost is a great starting point. You are having feelings for a reason. What are you losing? How long had you been investing? How central to your life was this? How unexpected? What rebuilding are you facing?
Create Meaning- It might be marking the calendar, journaling, creating a yearly ritual to help you remember in an active, productive way. It might be finding a group of people that truly get the loss you have experienced. Get intentional about the story you will tell about this event. That story will shift and change as you heal, but it’s a worthy story either way.
Find Opportunity- When we lose something, we can become better at knowing what is important to us, what we value. It might even be that losing something we loved creates time and energy for new pursuits. As you feel ready, try on new things. Sample hobbies, new ways of doing things, new relationships. There will be parts of you that will never forget the past; but you also have parts that may thrive in this new reality.
Grief is not reserved for death—it is the natural response to losing anything that mattered. When we expand our understanding of grief, we expand our capacity for compassion, both for ourselves and for others. The goal is not to rush toward resolution or to “get over it,” but to learn how to carry what has changed without losing ourselves in the process. When we name our losses, allow their impact, and slowly re-engage with life, we are not moving on—we are moving forward, with a deeper awareness of what it means to be human.
