Grief: living with the space someone left behind
“The best way out is always through”
With this quote, Robert Frost beautifully captures the only real way through the pain of grief.
Losing someone can feel as though the world has shifted underneath you. Even ordinary moments can suddenly feel unfamiliar, heavy, or unreal.
Many people believe grief should follow a predictable path or gradually disappear with time. But grief rarely moves in a straight line. Some days may feel manageable, while others bring an overwhelming wave of pain that seems to arrive out of nowhere.
If you are grieving, you may recognise some of these experiences:
Crying unexpectedly
A sharp, physical feeling of heartbreak
Moments of disbelief or unreality
A constant heaviness or sadness
Sudden waves of missing the person intensely
Feeling emotionally numb or disconnected
Everyday reminders bringing everything back
Difficulty concentrating or staying present
Feeling deeply alone, even around others
Guilt about things said, unsaid, done, or not done
These are natural responses to loss. Grief is not a sign that something is wrong with you. It is a human response to separation, attachment, and love.
At the same time, even natural pain can become prolonged when we fall into patterns that unintentionally keep us stuck inside the suffering. In Brief Strategic Therapy, these are called attempted solutions or psychological traps: strategies that try to reduce pain but end up maintaining it.
The traps that keep grief stuck
Avoidance and emotional suppression
One of the most common responses to grief is trying not to feel it. People may keep constantly busy to avoid emotional pain; push tears away or try to “stay strong”; avoid songs, places, objects, or memories connected to the person; distract themselves continuously so they never have to stop and fee.
This often comes from a completely understandable wish: if I do not fully feel it, maybe it will hurt less.
But emotions do not disappear because they are suppressed. In fact, the more we try not to feel something, the more emotionally charged it often becomes. Avoided memories and reminders begin to feel more threatening over time, not less.
Pain that is not processed tends to return repeatedly, demanding attention.
The trap of overthinking grief
Another common attempt to cope is trying to mentally solve the loss. This may look like replaying the circumstances again and again; asking “why did this happen?” repeatedly; imagining different outcomes or alternative scenarios; reconstructing life as it could have been if the person were still her.
At first, this can feel like processing. It feels active, analytical, and meaningful. But grief is not a problem the mind can solve. There is no answer capable of undoing the loss. The more someone searches for the perfect explanation, the more they reopen the emotional wound without resolution. What feels like understanding gradually becomes repetition.
Both suppression and rumination are often attempts to regain control over emotional pain. Yet they frequently create a second layer of suffering: frustration at not being able to control grief itself.
Withdrawing from life
Grief can also lead people to slowly step away from life. This may involve: withdrawing from relationship; losing interest in activities; avoiding future plans; isolating oneself emotionally or socially.
Sometimes this withdrawal happens because staying immersed in pain feels like remaining connected to the person who was lost. Moving forward may feel disloyal, almost like a betrayal. Other times, withdrawal becomes a form of self-punishment: “How can I enjoy life when they are gone?”
In both cases, life becomes progressively smaller. The intention may be to protect oneself or honour the loss, but the result is often deeper disconnection, emptiness, and isolation.
The trap of reassurance
Some people cope by repeatedly seeking comfort through talking about the loss or looking for reassurance from others.
Support and connection are important. But when reassurance becomes the primary way of regulating grief, relief tends to be temporary. The comfort fades quickly, leading to the need for more reassurance again and again.
No reassurance can remove the reality of the loss itself.
Over time, dependence on external soothing can interfere with the deeper emotional processing grief requires.
The way through grief
One of the most painful truths about grief is that there is no shortcut around it.
Emotions themselves are not the problem (you can read my article about it: Understanding the Language of Emotions). Often, it is the struggle against them that intensifies suffering.
Grief needs space to move. Not endless immersion, and not total avoidance — but moments where the pain can be experienced without trying to suppress it, analyse it away, or escape it.
This may mean allowing yourself to:
Cry without stopping yourself
Feel sadness without immediately distracting from it
Remember without forcing meaning
Stay present with the emotion without fighting it
Emotions move like waves. They rise, peak, and eventually shift. But when we continuously interrupt or resist them, they often remain emotionally unfinished. Like a storm at sea, grief comes in waves. And waves, by nature, pass.
Even though grief is a natural human experience, that does not mean you have to struggle through it by yourself or simply wait for time to fix it.
Brief Strategic Therapy focuses not only on the pain of the loss itself, but also on the patterns that may be keeping grief going, prolonged, or overwhelming. By understanding and changing these patterns, it becomes possible to process grief differently — without forgetting the person who was lost.
If grief has started to feel unmanageable, isolating, or endless, support is available.
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