When Grief Comes to Stay

Grief - the uninvited guest

Grief is one of the most universal human experiences, yet it is often one of the hardest emotions to sit with.

Most of us are taught how to achieve, solve problems, push through challenges, and move on. Very few of us are taught how to grieve.

When people hear the word grief, they often think of death. Yet grief shows up whenever something changes, ends, is lost, or fails to become what we hoped it would be.

• We grieve the death of a loved one.

• We grieve a relationship ending.

• We grieve a health diagnosis.

• We grieve the loss of a job.

• We grieve a dream that never came true, a future

• we imagined, or a version of ourselves that no longer exists.
  

Parents may grieve when their children grow up and no longer need them in the same way.

A couple may grieve the relationship they thought they would have.

Someone facing illness may grieve not only their health but also the life they once knew.

Grief is far broader than we often acknowledge.

Grief Doesn't Follow a Schedule

One of the greatest misconceptions about grief is that it should follow a neat timeline.

Many people believe they should be "over it" after a few weeks or months. Yet grief rarely works that way.

Grief moves in waves.

Some days the sea is calm. We can work, laugh, connect with others, and feel almost like ourselves again. Then a song plays, a birthday arrives, a familiar smell appears, or a memory surfaces. Suddenly a wave of grief washes over us.

This does not mean we are moving backwards.

It simply means we are human.

The wave eventually passes. Then another may come.

Over time the waves often become less overwhelming, but they may never disappear completely.

Our Discomfort With Grief

One of the challenges with grief is that many of us were never taught how to be with it.

We were not taught how to sit with our own grief. We were not taught how to sit with someone else's grief. And we were certainly not taught how to support children through grief.

When someone is grieving, the people around them often become uncomfortable. Not because they don't care, but because they feel helpless.

They want the person to feel better. They want the pain to stop. They don't know what to say.

So they try to fix it, distract from it, minimise it, or move the person away from the feeling altogether.

We hear things like:

• "Don't cry."

• "You're okay."

• "Stay positive."

• "At least..."

• "Everything happens for a reason."

Yet grief rarely needs fixing.

More often, it needs witnessing.

Sometimes the greatest gift we can offer another person is our presence rather than our solutions.

What We Teach Children About Grief

Children experience this too.

A child falls over and begins crying. An adult quickly responds, "You're okay."

Sometimes they are physically okay, but emotionally they are expressing a fright, a shock, disappointment, embarrassment, or pain.

In our rush to comfort them, we can unintentionally teach them that difficult emotions should be pushed away rather than felt.

Children grieve many things.

• The loss of a pet.

• A friendship ending.

• Changing schools.

• Moving house.

• A parent moving out after separation.

• The arrival of a new sibling.

• The loss of a routine or a sense of safety.

As adults, we can underestimate the impact these experiences have on a child. What may seem small to us can feel enormous to them.

When We Teach Children to Hide Their Grief

The messages children receive about emotions can differ depending on their gender, family, culture, and upbringing.

Many boys grow up hearing messages such as:

• "Don't cry."

• "Toughen up."

• "Be a man."

• "Big boys don't cry."

• "Don't be a girl."

Often these comments are not intended to be harmful. They are frequently passed down from previous generations who were taught the same thing.

Yet the message a child may receive is that sadness is unacceptable, vulnerability is weakness, and difficult emotions should be hidden.

Girls can receive their own version of limiting messages. They may be allowed to express sadness but discouraged from expressing anger, frustration, or disappointment.

Over time, children learn which emotions are considered acceptable and which are not.

The challenge is that emotions do not simply disappear because we ignore them.

When grief cannot be expressed, it often finds other ways to emerge.

• Sometimes it appears as anger.

• Sometimes anxiety.

• Sometimes withdrawal.

• Sometimes perfectionism, people pleasing, or a need to stay busy.

As adults, many people discover that they are not only grieving a loss. They are also learning how to feel emotions they were never given permission to experience in the first place.

One of the most powerful things we can offer children is permission to feel.

Not permission to act out or hurt others, but permission to experience the full range of human emotions.

Instead of saying, "Don't cry," we might say:

• "I can see you're upset."

• "That was really hard for you."

• "I'm here with you."

• "It's okay to feel sad."

These simple responses teach children that emotions are not something to fear, fix, or hide. They are experiences that can be felt, expressed, and moved through.

Grief Arrives in Stages

I remember working with a five-year-old child whose mother had died from cancer.

In the beginning, she would openly tell people, "My mum died."

The words seemed almost factual, as though she was repeating information she knew to be true.

Several months later she came into a session and quietly said, "My mum's still dead."

This time something had changed.

The reality of what those words meant had landed differently.

There was sadness behind them. There was understanding beginning to emerge.

As we talked, I asked her what had happened to her mum.

She replied, "She passed away."

When I asked if she knew what that meant, she said no.

What struck me was how grief unfolds in layers.

Children often revisit grief as they grow.

A five-year-old understands death differently to a ten-year-old. A ten-year-old understands it differently to a teenager.

As their understanding expands, they may grieve again and again.

Not because they are moving backwards, but because they are making sense of the loss through new eyes.

Sometimes children want to talk about what happened.

Sometimes they don't.

Sometimes they want to cry.

Sometimes they simply want to play.

Play can be a child's way of processing experiences that are too big for words.

The Stories We Add to Grief

The pain of grief is often difficult enough on its own.

What can make it even harder are the stories we attach to it.

Many people unconsciously add layers such as:

• It was my fault.

• I should have done more.

• I should be over this by now.

• I'm weak for feeling this way.

• I'm not coping as well as everyone else.

• I shouldn't still be upset.

The grief itself is painful.

The judgement about the grief creates a second layer of suffering.

Sometimes healing begins when we allow grief to simply be grief.

Not a sign that we have failed.

Not proof that we are broken.

Not evidence that we should be further along.

Just grief.

A natural response to loss.

When Grief Wears a Different Face

One of the reasons grief can be difficult to recognise is that it does not always look like sadness.

Sometimes grief shows up as anger.

In fact, anger is often the emotion we see on the surface, while grief sits quietly underneath.

A person may appear angry about a separation, but beneath the anger may be heartbreak, disappointment, loneliness, or the loss of the future they imagined.

A teenager may seem angry and defiant, while underneath they are grieving a friendship, a family change, or feeling misunderstood and disconnected.

A child may become irritable or act out following a loss because they do not yet have the words to express what they are feeling.

For many boys and men, anger may become one of the few socially acceptable emotions they are allowed to express. If sadness, grief, fear, or vulnerability are discouraged, anger can become the emotion that carries all the others.

This does not mean all anger is grief. Anger is an important emotion in its own right and can help us recognise when something feels unfair, unsafe, or out of alignment with our values.

However, when anger seems bigger than the situation itself, it can be helpful to gently ask:

"What else might be underneath this?"

Sometimes beneath the anger we find sadness.

Sometimes disappointment.

Sometimes fear.

And very often, grief.

When Grief Moves Into the Spare Room

I recently heard someone describe grief in a way that stayed with me.

They said that for a long time they kept trying to push grief away, hoping it would leave.

Eventually they realised grief had moved into the spare room.

It wasn't leaving any time soon.

At first they resisted its presence. They tried to stay busy. They distracted themselves. They avoided thinking about it.

But grief waited patiently.

Eventually they discovered that fighting grief required more energy than acknowledging it.

Something shifted when they stopped trying to evict it.

The grief was still there. It still visited. It still moved through them.

But it no longer occupied every room in the house.

Perhaps this is part of what acceptance looks like.

Not liking the grief.

Not wanting it.

But recognising that it has become part of our experience.

The Loss Beneath the Loss

Grief often creates other fears and protective strategies.

A child who loses a parent may unconsciously begin worrying about losing another parent.

Someone who experiences a painful separation may become fearful of trusting again.

Someone facing a health challenge may become anxious about the future.

Without realising it, we can build protective behaviours around our grief.

We may become people pleasers.

We may avoid relationships.

We may become overly responsible for everyone around us.

We may try to control things that cannot be controlled.

The grief itself is one layer.

The adaptations we create around the grief can become another.

Part of healing is not only allowing the grief but becoming curious about the patterns that formed around it.

Grief Lives in the Body

Grief is not only emotional.

It is physical.

It can show up as exhaustion, heaviness, tears, tightness in the chest, changes in appetite, disrupted sleep, poor concentration, or a sense of numbness.

Many people think they are grieving incorrectly because it doesn't look the way they expected.

But grief often lives in the body long before we have words for it.

This is why talking about grief is not always enough.

Sometimes we need to cry.

Sometimes we need to move.

Sometimes we need quiet.

Sometimes we need connection.

Sometimes we need rest.

The body often knows how to process grief when we allow it the space to do so.

Gentle Ways to Support Yourself Through Grief

If you are moving through a period of grief, consider:

• Allowing your feelings rather than analysing them.

• Making space for the waves when they come.

• Connecting with trusted people who can sit with you rather than try to fix you.

• Taking care of your body through sleep, movement, nourishment, and rest.

• Reducing self-judgement when difficult emotions arise.

• Seeking professional support if the grief feels overwhelming or isolating.

• Remembering that joy and grief can exist together.

You can laugh and still be grieving.

You can feel gratitude and sadness at the same time.

You can continue living while still carrying loss.

A Final Thought

Perhaps grief is not something we need to conquer.

Perhaps it is something we learn to carry.

Not because we enjoy it.

Not because we want it.

But because grief is often the price we pay for loving, caring, hoping, dreaming, and being deeply connected to life.

If grief has recently arrived at your door, perhaps you do not need to force it away.

Perhaps the invitation is simply to acknowledge its presence, make space for what needs to be felt, and trust that, in time, you will find your own way of walking forward with it.

The waves will come and go.

And so will moments of peace.