Grief doesn’t always look like crying and missing the person (or whatever has died or ended that was deeply installed in your heart and life).

It can look like depression even though it isn’t. You might have no energy to do anything and not find joy in the things you were finding joy in. You may feel lackluster, empty, or low without a lot of feelings or expressing of yourself. 

Grief can feel like a raw searing loneliness. Like there’s a big gaping hole that once was filled with that person and your purpose with that person, place, thing or situation. This is a very specific type of loneliness. Loneliness that is the absence of what was.

If you’ve been a caregiver over a long period of time, then grief can feel like all the years you gave lead you away from the life you knew into a cave of survival. And that cave is gone too along with that person you gave it all to.

Greif is about the goneness and its many layers. How that affects you may not be typical to what we think grief might look like. Such as crying, wanting to talk about it or be with other people. Or in experiencing emotional longing for who or what is gone.

There can be a strange feeling where you don’t long for what is gone but you still feel that absence. That particular form of grief emptiness is an adjustment period.

A huge part of grieving is making space and honoring the transition from what has died into what is going to be reborn within yourself as a result. Death transforms you. Space is needed to process the end and that doesn’t mean mentally talking it through per se, it just means stillness and rest and time. 

Grief can be felt different every time. The grief I am experiencing with the death of my father first showed up in my body and I hadn’t experienced that before. My body got hurt and then it got sick because it needed me to stop doing everything. I had a hard time with that but I knew that surrendering was important.

Some grief is so big that the entire universe has to stop for there to be a grand sacred pause.

To honor the end for as long as it takes requires awareness, prioritizing, and self-care. Unfortunately most of us don’t have the privilege to take the kind of rest we need but even if you have to work full-time or more it might look like doing that and then doing absolutely nothing else for a period of time.

And it’s OK if you feel depressed or you don’t feel like talking to anyone. It’s not clinical depression and you will come out of it. Nobody knows what it’s like to grieve but yourself. We grieve alone, even if we’re grieving with family and friends because everyone grieves differently.

And what you need is what you need.

Maybe you need to write or paint or sing or dance or be alone or not be alone or eat all the treats or fast or take a vacation or cry your eyes out or wander around like a strange ghost not knowing who you are or couch rot, or some of the above or all of the above and everything else I’m not mentioning.

You might experience grief in agonizing waves or in gentle showers of tears or sorrow. Or you might find yourself in a daze. Spaced out. Forgetful. Detached. 

You might need to take time to remember. Going through old emails and texts and voice messages, letters and pictures.

If you surrender to how you feel and don’t judge yourself and don’t compare yourself, grief will be your guide. It will last however long it lasts and also grief lasts for the rest of your life. Sometimes.

Grief can get stuck if you don’t allow it to be present. When my mother died, grief got stuck inside of my father and he did fall into a seven year depression. He never came out out of. That is not the same thing as the period of time where you might think you’re depressed but really you’re just grieving.

How do you tell the difference?

If you are allowing grief to move through you then you are practicing self-awareness, self-love and taking time to listen and attune to what you need. When grief gets stuck you’re carrying on with life and avoiding yourself.

It takes patience, love and skill to be an aware human that doesn’t calcify from getting stuck by grief and life’s trials. But even if you do, that’s OK too. We are all at different points on the path. I say this because I give love to my father and where he was on the path.

As a healer, I am devoted to self-awareness self love, healing, and growing. Grief is a big part of anyone’s life journey. Learning how to grieve is a big part because we are not taught by our culture which does not support the grieving process beyond a funeral, flowers, and cards. And that might not be what you need to grieve at all. 

My intention in writing this blog is to share with you what I am learning. To help carve out space for you to get in touch with the grief you are experiencing. 

Grief wears many faces. May you allow yourself the time and ways that you need. May you also allow for the flow because grief ultimately needs flow, surrender and letting go.

I see you.