Grief

Grief can make your world stop moving.

Some people feel grief as a heavy weight on their chest.

Others notice it as a fog, forgetting why they walked into a room.

Some don’t call it grief at all, because the loss was a job, a pet or a relationship.

Maybe you feel:

• adrift
• aching
• foggy
• relieved

Grief is your body and mind adjusting to a world that has changed.

Your grief makes sense, because what you lost mattered.

What Causes Grief?

Grief can follow any loss that changes your life or your sense of who you are:

• A death: a parent, partner, child, friend or pet.
• A relationship: a divorce, a breakup, estrangement or a friendship that ended.
• Your health or identity: a diagnosis, chronic illness, infertility or pregnancy loss.
• Your place in the world: a job, a home, a country or a community lost to fire or flood.

Losses others don’t recognize can be harder to grieve, because there’s less room to share them.

Every loss that mattered to you deserves room to be grieved.

Grief and Trauma

What if your grief is tangled with fear?

After trauma, your body can hold both at the same time.

Images, sounds or dates can bring the fear back before you know why. 

That’s part of why grief can feel stuck or surge out of nowhere.

Grief after trauma can look like avoiding reminders, staying too busy to feel or bracing for another loss.

Each of these once helped you survive something too painful to take in.

With enough safety, your body can make room to remember instead of relive.