After years of working with people in ministry, in the church, and in my health and wellness business, I’ve come to believe something deeply:
A lot of the pain people carry isn’t just caused by grief…it’s caused by not knowing how to face it.
Not knowing how to sit with it.
Acknowledge it.
Process it.
I’ve had to learn this the hard way in my own life too.
When grief goes unprocessed, it doesn’t just sit quietly in the background. It shows up as:
- Broken or strained relationships
- Shallow or disconnected relationships
- Anxiety and depression
- Physical symptoms in the body
- Numbness or difficulty feeling joy
- Patterns we can’t seem to break
- Avoidance of people or situations
And over time, sadness turns into something heavier…ongoing pain.
The problem is, most of us were never taught how to grieve.
Instead, we were taught to:
- Stay busy
- Push through
- Be strong
- Keep it together
- Grieve quietly AND alone
And while those things might help us cope in the moment, they don’t actually bring healing.
I don’t think anyone wants to stay stuck in patterns that hurt them or the people they love. But when you don’t have the tools to do something different, you default to what you’ve been shown. That’s why this work matters so much to me.
One of the things I value most about the Grief Recovery Method is that it gives people a way to gently examine what they’ve been carrying–and why.
It creates space to look at the beliefs we hold about grief, and how those beliefs shape our lives.
And maybe most importantly, it gives you a place to be witnessed.
Not fixed.
Not rushed.
Just heard.
I recently worked with someone who was processing the loss of a friendship. She described it like this:
“It allowed me to open a box I had tucked away, look at everything inside, sit with it, say the things I didn’t even know I needed to say…and then close it again. It was really sad but I feel like I can finally move forward.”
That’s what this work does.
It doesn’t erase the loss. It changes your relationship to it.
We often treat sadness like something is wrong. But sadness is a natural response to loss. The problem isn’t feeling sad. The problem is what happens when we don’t allow ourselves to feel it.
Because when emotions get pushed down over and over again, they don’t disappear. They turn into long-term pain.
Grief doesn’t need to be avoided.
It needs to be felt and processed.
So if you’re carrying something heavy, here’s what I want you to remember:
You will never “get over it.”
But you can move through it.
You may never be the same, but you get to decide who you become next.
You don’t have to stay stuck in patterns that aren’t serving you. There is another way forward.
You don’t have to live numb or overwhelmed. You can feel again AND fully live again.
Grief is part of being human.
But staying stuck in it doesn’t have to be.