So often, especially in Western culture, grief is treated as something we’re expected to “get over”, so that life can return to “normal.” But grief is not a problem to be solved. It’s a companion on the journey through loss. When we welcome it with compassion, we can begin to understand its complexities and find ways to live alongside it.

Sometimes it can feel like a fine line between allowing ourselves to feel emotions like sadness and anger, and worrying that we’ll get stuck there forever. My experience tells me that we can feel deeply and fully without being lost in the darkness.

The stages of grief and beyond

Many people are familiar with the so-called “stages of grief” — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These ideas can be helpful, but they can also feel too neat for something as messy and human as loss. Grief is rarely linear. You may find yourself moving back and forth between feelings, or experiencing several at once.

It’s also common to feel misunderstood. Friends or family might not always know what to say, and sometimes even we can’t name what we’re going through. Simply being able to say, “I know I’m feeling something, but I don’t know what it is,” can be the beginning of healing.

And grief isn’t always about death. We may mourn the end of a relationship, redundancy, the ache of infertility, or the farewell to a former self as we move from independence to parenthood. We can also grieve the childhood we never had because of neglect or abuse. These losses are real, valid, and deserving of compassion.

Different faces of grief

Sometimes grief doesn’t look the way we expect. It can feel confusing, invisible, or even invalidated by others… Two concepts I often explore with clients are ambiguous loss and disenfranchised grief.

Ambiguous loss

If you’ve ever felt grief for someone who is still there it can be a confusing experience. This is often called ambiguous loss — the ache of living in a kind of goodbye that never really happens, leaving you in a confusing middle ground.

 This may be the experience of having a loved one with dementia, where your loved one is physically here but the person you once knew is gone. It can also be living with the impact of addiction, as you grieve the loss of the person you know to the disease. Similarly, for survivors of sexual assault, the grief is twofold: they may mourn the loss of their former self, a feeling that a part of their identity has been taken from them, even though they are still physically present. For family and friends, the loss is also ambiguous as they navigate the changes they see in their loved one, who may be physically here but emotionally and psychologically different after the trauma. 

Unlike traditional grief, the goal with ambiguous loss isn't finding 'closure.' Instead, it's about learning to live with the complexities. It means finding a new way to balance the feeling that your loved one is both 'here and gone.' Therapy can offer a safe space to name the confusion and pain, and to begin shaping a life that, while unplanned, can still be meaningful and full of hope.

Disenfranchised grief

If you’re hurting from a loss, but you feel like you have to grieve in private because your pain isn't considered "significant enough" by others, you may be experiencing disenfranchised grief. A type of grief that isn't recognised or supported by society, culture, or even by those closest to us.

For example, someone grieving a miscarriage might be told to "just try again," while someone losing a job or a beloved pet might be told, "it was just a job" or "just an animal." This can leave you feeling isolated and confused, as if your deep pain is "wrong" or invalid.

In a safe space like therapy, we work to re-enfranchise your grief—to bring it out of the shadows and give it the recognition and compassion it deserves. You don’t need anyone’s permission to feel the depth of your loss. Your grief is real, and it deserves to be honoured.

What this means for you

If you’re experiencing grief in any form, please know this: you are not broken, selfish, or weak. You are human — responding in a deeply human way to something painful.

Processing grief takes time, patience, and kindness. Journaling, meditation, time in nature, or simply allowing yourself to rest can help. With support, the rawness of grief can soften. It doesn’t disappear, but it can become part of you in a gentler way — less overwhelming, more integrated, and held with compassion.

Not to offer silver linings — but to honour loss, make meaning, and consider what might come next.

If you are grieving — in whatever form that takes — you are not broken, and you are not alone. Therapy offers a safe space to honour the pain of holding love, dreams, and identity changes without an outlet. Understanding that this time can feel lonely. It’s a space designed for grieving, reflecting, and gently asking what now?