I always thought talking about grief was just a challenge for my family. But now that I’ve worked as a death doula and coach for several years, I’m finding that we weren’t so unusual after all!
So many others that I’ve worked with after a loss share a similar rarely spoken philosophy as my grandparents and parents… “Buck up! Be strong! Tears and sadness are just a sign of weakness… and if we are anything… we are not weak!” They use different words, but it’s the same message… “Don’t speak of this!!”
On one hand, it has been such a relief to realize that I have not been alone in my silent grief. But on the other hand, when I realized that there is a silent grief that is near epidemic proportions in our country, I knew it was time to get more grief literate so I could be of more service to my clients and client families once their loved ones have died.
I realized it was time to break my own silence and educate myself on this deep black hole that can eat people alive. It certainly ate many of my family members, even over generations.
“And how does it do that?” you may ask! Well, when grief is kept in the dark and in solitary confinement, it can manifest itself in many mentally unhealthy ways… through depression… through suicidal ideations… through relationship breakdowns, unhealthy codependencies and abuse… through alcoholism… through addictions of all stripes… and through more silence about all of those things!
So, away I went to do just that… get myself more educated about what grief is… how we can face it with more honesty and compassion for ourselves and others… and especially how to bring it out of the silence and darkness.
Starting with this post, I will be sharing more about grief in the future.
I do this for myself, my family, my clients and to bring this information out into the world. Together let’s end this silent epidemic.
I honestly believe grief is at the root of many of our societal woes. But that discussion will need to be put on hold until another time.
The following is an excerpt from a sharing that I did after I created a grief workshop called The Grieving Lotus. Please stay tuned for more workshop announcements in the next few months.
If you are grieving out there, I hope you find the following information supportive. And I want you to know… You are not alone!! Please reach out to a friend, family member, grief doula or grief counselor if you feel you are sinking and know you need more direct 1 to 1 support.
Now, here we go…
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Grief, my friends, has many, many faces.
Some will likely feel familiar, but others are not widely discussed or known.
My hope is that by having more of these conversations about grief and its impacts, we can broaden our awareness that grief is all around us, and we are not as alone in our grief as it sometimes feels.
Please hear me that “normalizing” our understanding of grief is not what I’m personally aiming for… because, while grief is part of the human experience and consequently by definition “normal”… it is also uniquely personal to each of us.

Grief is individual… singular… a solo experience.
Why??? …Because each relationship is inimitable. There are no substitutes… no duplications… no repeats… no do-overs.
No matter who or what we may be in relationship with… another human being, an animal, our house, our bank account, our body, and the list goes on into infinity… our relationship to that person or “thing” is uniquely our own.
As a result, we will experience our grief similarly to that relationship… uniquely in our own way.
And yet, even with that being said, there are common threads to all these unique tapestries. And it’s those threads that I want to share with you in a little more depth today.

- The face of grief I’d like to begin with first is how grief often arises from a loss that occurs in relation to time.
- The one we’re most familiar with are the losses that took place in the past (either far or near). And here losses can be broken down even further into gradual, occurring over an extended time as with illness or age, and sudden which arises with a heart attack, stroke or suicide as a few examples
- But there are also losses that are happening now, in the present tense, such as a loved one who has dementia or a serious illness.
- And relatedly there are losses where we are anticipating them in the future.
- In addition, grief (or the expected signs of grief in the form of sadness) may even be delayed for short (days, weeks) or long periods (months, years) of time,
- And interestingly, the exact opposite may occur where grief may be very complicated and becomes stuck in its acute, raw level where a person may be feeling deep sorrow for a very long time spanning years or decades.
- A second face of grief to consider is how our losses activate our emotions in various ways
- Our grief may take on the forms of many different emotions. Consequently, grief may not always look like sadness, which is what society has taught us to expect. Instead grief can also look like fear, anger, apathy, guilt, shame, and all the emotional colors of the rainbow.
- And our grief can even be all of these at once, sometimes cycling through faster than we can recognize them. This is what’s often occurring when we have complicated grief, which is grief with many complex layers to it.
- The level of trauma associated with our loss will also affect the emotional impact to us. Trauma occurs when our bodies, and the energy system in it, is overwhelmed and cannot handle the volume or types of stimuli that are impacting it… sometimes all at once and sometimes repeatedly… without enough time to absorb them fully.
- Sudden losses, such as when a suicide has occurred, often, but not always, have an element of trauma wrapped into them.
- A third face of grief relates to how visible our losses are, both to ourselves and others.
- Masked grief frequently can occur in children when they are observed acting out or demonstrating behavioral issues with others.
- Absent grief happens when a person is showing no outwards signs of emotional or behavioral changes in relation to the loss, contrary to what others may be expecting.
- Visibility also impacts our grief in relation to how wellthe person who died hid what was happening to and with them. This often occurs with a suicide death or an illness, such as AIDS or an STD that comes with a lot of stigma tied to it.
- And speaking of stigma, disenfranchised grief often occurs for the one who is grieving a suicide loss because of that same stigma that may have kept the person feeling suicidal from expressing their feelings to others.
- Disenfranchised grief is any griefthat is not seen, acknowledged or recognized by others.
- It can also occur due to societal and personal biases against the griever or the person who died, such as those based on race, gender-identity, sexual orientation, drug use/abuse, and many others.
- Grief for a miscarriage, the loss of a pet, body parts when undergoing surgeries, sexual dysfunctions, and again, many others are more examples where grief can be dismissed or not seen by loved ones or our society at large.
- And yet a fourth face I’d like to share involves our proximity or relationship to the loss. As I think most of us are well aware, but maybe sometimes forget… the closer we are in physical, emotional or relational connection to the person or thing that we are losing or have lost, the deeper we are going to feel the impacts of that loss.

And the impacts of grief can, and usually do, encompass all aspects of our lives… physical, emotional, spiritual, relational, social, and mental.
It is also not uncommon for grief to impact all of those areas all at once sometimes resulting in lifelong and/or devastating outcomes.
Again, those impacts are unique to each of us and take on many forms based on the many faces of grief shared above. And in future messages, we will consider still other aspects of grief.
But for today, one of the key takeaways I’d like for us to hold onto is that grief is not a one-size fits all, even though our society sometimes treats it that way.
Many of the faces of grief may convergetogether at the same time, or they may weave in and out with each other at different times.
However, no matter what grief each of us is facing or how deep the pain is penetrating, we can move and grow through our losses… when we’re ready.
And when that time comes… when we’re ready… we will find that space within us where there is more grace, more peace and ultimately more joy.
And we will get there, my friends, by opening and allowing each loss whether past, present or future… to be seen and honored in its unique facets, dimensions and colors.
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If this post touched you, and you’re looking for more 1:1 support, please reach out to set-up a complimentary 45-minute session. My email address is [email protected] to schedule this now.
Gratefully yours in love & light, Karen 💛