When grief finds you

Grief does not always wait for a private moment. It shows up at work, in the car, in the grocery store, while you are getting ready for bed. One second you are doing something ordinary, and the next it is here.

Your first instinct might be to make it stop, to get busy, to tell yourself not now. That instinct makes sense. But grief arriving in the middle of an ordinary day is not a setback, and it does not mean you are failing at this. Like other feelings, it can rise, ask for your attention, and pass.

So before you run from it, you can try something else. Notice it. Name what is happening, whatever that is: I miss them. This reminded me of them. This hurts. Then give it a little room. Not the whole day, maybe just this minute.

Then ask yourself what you need next. A breath, a few tears, a text to someone, a minute outside, or just to keep going. You do not have to make grief disappear before you decide.

You do not have to chase it away, and you do not have to hand it the rest of your day. You can do a little of both.

Sometimes this is all it is. Grief shows up, you stay with yourself while it does, and then you go back to your day, having let it be here for a moment instead of pushing it down.

If grief found you today in the middle of something ordinary, you are not being dramatic and you are not going backward. You are a person carrying someone you loved, on a day that happened to hold them for a second. You are allowed to notice that, and you are allowed to keep going.

If a moment like this finds you tonight, WithYou is here to talk it through. Free. No account needed. Open WithYou

Written by Dr. Monica Simon.