Grief: Coping with Loss & Remaining Connected

Grief is one of the hardest emotions to walk through. Let's walk through this together.

If you have recently lost a loved one — a parent, a partner, a pet — or you are navigating a separation or a first holiday without someone dear, I am so sorry. My heart is with you. I can and cannot understand what you are going through. I wish you much tenderness, grace, patience, and care.

A number of people I’ve spoken with recently are navigating deep grief — from the death of a loved one (animals too), to a separation or break up, or a really rough transition. Whatever you are mourning, I hope that you can take time to feel whatever is arising. It is a simple idea, but not always easy.

If you notice you are zippy or more impatient or feeling anti-social, these can all be signals that the nervous system is dysregulated and there are emotions up for processing. When someone we love dies or leaves, our psyches, bodies, and nervous systems need time to reorganize because the familiar channels of relating are no longer available. Contemporary grief research affirms that bereavement is not only emotional; it is deeply physiological. Our attachment systems are disrupted, overwhelmed, frozen. The body needs time to metabolize the sudden change - even if we knew death was imminent, there's only so much preparation a body can do.

If you're feeling shut down, distant, unable to feel your emotions, unable to focus or get out of bed, please visit my posts on nervous system regulation and vagal toning. Practices that support parasympathetic settling — mindful breathing, gentle movement, orienting, humming, time in nature — can create enough safety and space for grief to move through. Regulating the nervous system can give us the capacity to let go. This doesn't mean letting go of the person (or pet), it means liberating your physical being from the weight and pain of loss so that you deepen your sense of connection - within yourself, with your loved one.

This can be an alienating, disorienting time, which makes it even more important to share with trusted friends and family members, a therapist or coach — someone who can generously and compassionately hold space while you explore the many layers. Research consistently shows that connection is one of the most protective factors in the grief and recovery process. It's natural to feel separate or distant from other loved ones. Death has a way of putting things into stark contrast and withdrawal and isolation are very common, human responses. The heart is mending. It's also important to remember that we do not heal in isolation. Even though grief can feel profoundly lonely, others can help us through. You are not alone.

If you know me, you know that most of my immediate family has passed on. My brother was the first. I was 21. My mom followed when I was 23. Many years later, I lost my dad. My brother’s unexpected death threw our small family into a tailspin. Understandably, my mom went inward into a deep depression and two years later she passed from ovarian cancer. After vigilantly and lovingly caring for her, my dad disappeared into a world of pain, prescription meds, and alcohol. I was lost too — adrift in a vast unknowable sea of grief for years.

For a long time, I felt like a walking zombie, unsure of how to relate to people or find joy in things. I was the first of my peers to lose someone and I felt very much alone. And yet, I still managed to perform as the high-functioning good girl, student, employee I was raised to be. If it were up to me, I would've worn that mask until god knows . . . Thankfully, with the support of therapy, dear friends, an amazing boss, and wise spiritual teachers and healers, I crawled my way back to life.

Over the years, many friends and clients have come to me in times of loss and mourning. I do not have a roadmap for grief, but I know the terrain. I have read and felt extensively. I even wrote a master’s thesis comparing worldviews and rituals of death and dying across cultures. I wanted answers because the pain was unfathomable and acceptance of the loss initially felt impossible.

After several cathartic releases, I had a few pivotal realizations.

First, the grief process can be excruciating and mysterious. It cannot be forced or rushed. It takes what it takes — two years, five years, twenty years. Modern bereavement theory finally eschews this. We no longer speak of “getting over it.” Instead, we understand that grief has seasons. It may be glacial for a time. It may be a tsunami. It evolves as we evolve.

Second, acceptance is key. Our instinct is to resist reality (avoid, numb, distract), so as not to let it be so. But for me, healing only began when I stopped "arguing" or "bargaining" with the fact that my loved one had passed. Acceptance is not to be confused with positivity or approval. Acceptance is softening enough to admit the pain and feel the feelings.

Third, the pain we feel is often the unexpressed love and other unspoken emotions for that person or event. The excruciating ache is intricately tied to a specific Love that can no longer be shared in physical human form. The pain we feel is also not only about that person - it's all the losses, sadness and disappointments compounded and stored in the body newly awake and calling for care.

Fourth, someone leaving a relationship or the planet is between them and their highest creative — it is their journey. Once I realized that my love was a direct through-line to the essence of my loved ones, and once I deeply understood that I had not been left or abandoned, the real healing began.

And Fifth, our body-minds need time to rewire and learn how to relate "in spirit" or in more subtle ways. One of the most important shifts in contemporary grief research is called “continuing bonds.” We now understand that healthy grieving does not require severing connection with the deceased. In fact, maintaining an inner relationship is often associated with greater integration and resilience.

After their transitions, I started communicating regularly with my brother, mom, dad, grandparents, aunts, and so on. I have been blessed with visitations, and perhaps more importantly, I have found ways to express my care, missing, gratitude, and other (less savory) emotions. I write letters, especially when they come to mind frequently or are appearing often in dreams. I sometimes speak aloud as if they are in the room. I take the time it would have taken to call them if they were alive and instead journal or cook their favorite foods or visit a place they loved. On anniversaries and birthdays, I prepare gifts, write a card, and create rituals around remembrance and celebration.

Today, I have different relationships with each person who has crossed over. I tell my dad jokes. I reach out to my mom when I need relationship advice. I call on my grandmother and auntie for spiritual guidance. Somehow, my brother has become my real estate angel.

Because our connection never ends, we learn new ways of relating.

Grief comes in many forms and layers. For a year after my brother died, I felt numb. I could not grieve his passing until the shock wore off and I contacted my many other layered emotions, some of which had nothing to do with him or sadness at all. With help, I slowly thawed. The tears came.

Sometimes grief feels endless. It will not always feel the way it does right now. Your being knows how to move through this in its own timing.

Holistic and spiritual traditions have long understood what science is now confirming: grief must passage through the body. Movement, processing, chanting, prayer, somatic therapies, just being/allowing, acupuncture, massage, ritual, time in nature, working with skilled intuitives or healers all help. When approached consciously, grieving begets integration and even evolution. Taking care so that the nervous system reorganizes allow emotions to metabolize and your sense of connectivity to grow.

The biggest takeaway from all of my experiences of loss is that we do not complete grief recovery alone. It is a process. There is no time limit. Yes, time plays a role. But it's the intentional relating — feeling, expressing, remembering, connecting — that transforms excruciating sorrow into glimmers of connection and even joy again.

Grief is tough. Full stop. It'll probably never be convenient or comfortable. But. It can crack us open to an enduring Love, and a deeper, more intimate experience of connenction with our loved ones, ourselves and the great beyond (within).

If you have recently lost a loved one — a parent, a partner, a pet — or you are navigating a separation or a first holiday without someone dear, I am so sorry. My heart is with you. I can and cannot understand what you are going through. I wish you much tenderness, grace, patience, and care.

If you'd like support, I'm here for you virtually via Zoom, FaceTime and telephone for intuitive and transformational life coach sessions and distance energy healing.

I offer in-person sessions in Tucson AZ as an intuitive life coach offering acupuncture Chinese Medicine, reiki - energy healing, and craniosacral therapy, specializing in deep healing and transformation.

Xx Britta

Licensed Acupuncturist, Online Life Coach, Intuitive, Healer, Energy Medicine Practitioner

📞 917-519-2432 📧 britta@intuitivehealthhealing.com

Coping with loss and grief recovery takes time, attention and care. Please reach out for support.