The Work of Grief: Making it Through the First Few Months

May 3, 2023
, 10:33 pm
, Grief

“If, as a culture, we don’t bear witness to grief, the burden of loss is placed entirely upon the bereaved, while the rest of us avert our eyes and wait for those in mourning to stop being sad, to let go, to move on, to cheer up. And if they don’t — if they have loved too deeply, if they do wake each morning thinking, I cannot continue to live — well, then we pathologize their pain; we call their suffering a disease. We do not help them: we tell them that they need to get help.” – Cheryl Strayed, Brave Enough

In the early months after a loss, time stops making sense.

Days feel long and heavy. Simple tasks take enormous effort. You may wake up each morning unsure how you’re supposed to keep going when everything feels altered.

Grief doesn’t just live in the heart — it settles into the body, the nervous system, the rhythm of daily life. And yet, the world around you often expects something different: that you’ll be “coping,” “strong,” or slowly returning to who you were before.

When grief first arrives, it can feel unbearably lonely, even when others are around. Not because no one cares, but because the depth of your loss feels impossible to explain. This is the work of grief: learning how to live inside a reality you didn’t choose, one moment at a time.

So how do we make it through those initial months, when simply getting through the day is a challenge and we can’t imagine ever feeling joy again?

Everyone grieves differently, but psychologists and researchers agree that the following ways to move forward are helpful for many people:

1.Take the time you need

As the opening quote affirms, Western culture doesn’t do well with grief. The fact that bereavement leave from work averages a mere 3-5 days, depending on the nature of the relationship and the employer’s policy, demonstrates a severe lack of cultural awareness around the needs of the grieving individual. The fault doesn’t lie with the employer, or any one person really. We have turned ourselves into a nation of high-paced productivity, and somewhere along the way we forgot to factor in our emotions and needs.

Despite our culture’s insistence that we need to move on as soon as possible, everything we know about grief says it’s important to take your time. Trying to rush through it, deny it, or put on a strong front, only leads to stress and depression, which will eventually make itself known in the body. The feelings of grief are so hard, but they need to be felt before you can fully move on.

If you are unable to take time for yourself away from work and other life demands, try to fit grieving time in to your schedule. It may sound crazy to have to plan time to grieve, but knowing that you will dedicate a few minutes at some point in the day to be alone with your emotions can help you cope with a demanding work environment. Think of it like fitting in a workout—your emotions need the healing time just as much as your body needs the time to move.

Are You Struggling to Live With Grief After a Loss?

Grief can feel isolating and exhausting, especially in a world that expects you to keep functioning. Counselling offers a steady, compassionate space to process your loss, honour your grief, and feel supported — without pressure to “move on.”

Learn More About Grief Counselling Book your Free consultation Today

Our counselling services are available to residents of British Columbia.

2. Feel your emotions

Many of us weren’t raised to give consideration to our feelings. Thoughts, yes, but feelings are often dismissed as unhelpful, or even a sign of weakness. What has made us so afraid to feel? Certainly we are a society conditioned to see emotions as weakness, but the tragedy of that is a life cut off from joy and vulnerability. If we suppress one type of emotion we have difficulty feeling any type of emotion. The result is disconnection and numbness.

If you are someone who has difficulty accessing your emotions it can be helpful to see emotions simply as a form of energy that needs to pass through your body. If it gets stuck, it will express itself in some other form—as illness, stress, or depression.

So allow yourself to feel. Don’t avoid or shut down. This can be our first impulse, and may lead to avoidant behaviours such as overworking, drinking, comfort eating, overdosing on Netflix, or any other pass time you turn to when you don’t want to feel difficult emotions.

Have you ever heard it said that you must go “through” the mountain and not “around” it? There is so much truth in this metaphor. Suppressed or denied grief will always find its way back to you.

3. Accept help

In the midst of deep sadness it can be hard to reach out. What stops us is not wanting to “depress” other people or appear helpless. But those who truly care for you will want you to lean on them. They may not know what to say, but this is your opportunity to deepen that relationship and tell them what you need. Often in the midst of grief it’s not words we need (which can often be misplaced or unhelpful) but rather someone to sit with us, hold us, and help us deal with day-to-day tasks that may feel unmanageable.

4. Know the Stages of Grief

In the depths of grief, it can feel like you’re losing your footing — emotionally, mentally, even physically. One moment you may feel numb, the next overwhelmed with sadness or anger. This can be frightening, especially if you don’t recognize what’s happening or worry that something is “wrong” with you.

You may have heard of the stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These stages can be helpful not as a roadmap, but as a shared language for some of the emotional states people experience after loss.

What’s important to know is this: grief does not move in stages, and it does not move forward in a straight line.

You may experience some of these states and not others. You may move in and out of the same one many times. You may feel several at once. And you may never arrive at a place that feels like “acceptance” in the way it’s often described — and that does not mean you are doing grief wrong.

Here is a gentler way to understand these commonly named experiences:

Denial / Shock
This can show up as numbness, disbelief, or a sense that the loss isn’t real. It’s often the nervous system’s way of protecting you from being overwhelmed all at once.

Anger
Anger may be directed at a person, a situation, the universe, or even yourself. It often arises when the reality of loss begins to register and can be a way of expressing pain, injustice, or helplessness.

Bargaining
Bargaining reflects the mind’s attempt to regain control — replaying scenarios, imagining different outcomes, or wishing something could have been done differently. It’s a natural response to the powerlessness of loss.

Depression
This may involve heavy sadness, withdrawal, exhaustion, or a sense of meaninglessness. It does not necessarily mean clinical depression. For many, it is a profound and understandable response to loss.

Acceptance
Acceptance does not mean being “over it” or feeling okay about what happened. It often looks more like learning how to live with the loss — finding ways to hold both grief and life at the same time.

These experiences are descriptive, not prescriptive. They are not milestones to reach or boxes to check off. Over time, many people notice that the intensity of grief shifts, ebbs, and flows, but it does so in its own way, and on its own timeline.

There is no correct sequence. There is no finish line. There is only your experience — and it deserves compassion.

5. Remove Expectations

In my counselling practice one of the most common phrases I hear is “I should,” and my usual response is, “Why should you?” So many of our thoughts and behaviours are dictated by what we think we should do, either because it is the cultural expectation, or an expectation that we learned from our parents in childhood. When I hear a “should” it tells me that something is in opposition. So a person feels or wants one thing, but believes they “should” do another. Living according to shoulds can lead to anxiety and increased suffering. Of course, there are exceptions when a “should” is really our consciousness trying to talk to us, for example, “I should really stop and help that person who stalled their car.”

So if any of these “should” statements sound familiar, STOP. It isn’t helpful and will only exacerbate your suffering.

“I should be over it by now.”
“I should have been there.”
“I shouldn’t have behaved in XX way”
“I shouldn’t feel angry” (or any other emotion)
“I shouldn’t bother other people with my grief.”

Do you tell yourself any other should statements? Make your own list…

6. Talk About Your Loss

I learned something really important about grief from a friend who lost her child: people want to talk about the person they have lost. Sometimes this depends on the circumstances (a woman may not want to talk too much about her ex-husband for example), but for many whose loved ones have died, talking about them keeps their memory alive. This can be hard for family and friends who may want to avoid talking about the loss altogether because it feels awkward or they don’t want to upset their friend or family member, but if talking about your loved one helps you then don’t worry if others feel awkward. They’ll adapt.

7. It Takes a Long as it Takes

In the midst of grief people often ask, how long will it take before I feel okay again? The answer is that there is no answer; it takes as long as it takes. I have read the book “Tears to Triumph” by Marianne Williamson several times and one thing I always remember her saying is if you have a thousand tears to cry then you must cry a thousand tears, and no fewer. And if you have ten thousand tears to cry then you must cry ten thousand tears and no fewer. It takes as long as it takes—grief can’t be rushed.