Grief in All its Forms

Christine Knight
Dec 2
5 min read

The Role of Grief

"Grief, I've learned, is really just love. It's all the love you want to give but cannot. Grief is just love with no place to go."— Jamie Anderson

Unacknowledged grief becomes rage.

Suppressed grief becomes depression.

Abandoned grief becomes chronic dysregulation.

We live in a culture that is obsessed with resolution. With getting over things. With clean

lines and happy endings. We are expected to grieve quickly, quietly, and then return to "normal" as if grief is a disruption — rather than part of being alive.

But grief is not something you "get over."It's something you move with.Something you tend to.

The Grief That Has No Name

What part of your story still needs to be grieved — not judged, not bypassed, not fixed, but held in tenderness?

We were never taught how to grieve what we didn't get.

There was no funeral for the safe childhood that never existed.No condolences for the innocence lost too young.No casseroles delivered when our nervous systems were hijacked by chaos or shame.

And yet, this grief is real. Deeply real.

Dr. Gabor Maté writes about "the hungry ghost realm" — the place inside us still aching for what we didn't receive. Unmet developmental needs don't disappear with time; they calcify into emotional habits, beliefs, and nervous system defaults.

Unacknowledged grief becomes rage.

Suppressed grief becomes depression.

Abandoned grief becomes chronic dysregulation.

We don't just carry grief in our hearts — we carry it in our bodies. In our hypervigilance. Our shutdowns. Our overachieving. Our silence.

Until we name this grief, it rules us from the shadows.

Grief and the Nervous System

Grief isn't just emotional — it's biological.

Peter Levine, founder of Somatic Experiencing, teaches that our nervous system processes grief the same way it processes trauma: through waves of contraction and expansion.

But here's the thing: most of us are stuck in contraction.Tight. Guarded. Braced.

Our systems learned early on that grief wasn't safe — that big emotions got punished or ignored. That vulnerability made us unsafe in the tribe.

So the body locked down.And that lockdown became the default.

Now, when grief starts to rise — through a song, a memory, a moment of stillness — our system panics. It says, "Nope. Too much. Shut it down."

But healing means re-learning how to stay present through the wave. To let grief rise and crest, and to know that we won't drown.

We can build a tolerance for that wave. Breath by breath. With support. With intention. With reverence.

The Betrayal We Feel Within

There is a particular grief no one talks about: The grief of having to abandon yourself to belong.

This grief runs deep. It is the grief of self-betrayal.

As children, we instinctively knew we had to contort ourselves to be safe. To silence our truth. To suppress our emotions. To make ourselves small enough to avoid being "too much."

We abandoned joy, curiosity, anger, needs, sensitivity — all to stay in the tribe.

And we survived. But there was a cost.A heartbreak. A grief that still pulses beneath the surface:

"I couldn't be who I really was... and no one noticed."

Brené Brown says, "Belonging is being accepted for you. Fitting in is being accepted for being like everyone else."

Most of us didn't belong. We fit in.We learned to become who they needed us to be.And now, as adults, we grieve what we had to leave behind.

This grief is sacred. Because when we honor it, we take a step toward home. Toward re-integration. Toward true belonging — starting with ourselves.

The Grief of Letting Go

Letting go isn't always liberation. Sometimes it's grief first.

We grieve the unhealthy patterns we now see clearly.We grieve the relationships we poured into that could never hold us.We grieve the old identities — the strong one, the fixer, the overachiever — that got us this far.

Letting go hurts. Even when it's right. Even when it's necessary.

Because those patterns, those people, those personas... were our survival strategies. They worked. Until they didn't. And now, we release them not with shame, but with grief-soaked gratitude.

"Thank you for getting me this far. I don't need you to carry me anymore."

Avoidance is a Form of Numbing

So many of us avoid grief because we fear it will consume us. We think if we let it in, we'll fall apart and never get back up.

But the truth is, it's the avoidance that exhausts us.It's the daily pushing down, numbing out, smiling through, that drains our spirit.

We drink it down. We scroll past it. We work over it. We meditate away from it. We bypass in the name of "high vibes only" or "positive thinking."

But what if grief isn't something to avoid... but something to partner with?

In the words of Francis Weller, "Grief is not a feeling to be overcome, but a companion to be walked with."

We stop numbing when we stop fearing grief.And we stop fearing grief when we remember: we can survive it. We already have.

Grief Rituals and Honoring What Was Lost

Grief needs ritual.

It needs structure. Safety. Sacredness.Because grief is not only emotional — it's spiritual.

Modern life has no ritual for this kind of mourning.

So we create our own:

Writing letters to our younger selves
Naming what was lost aloud
Creating altar spaces or burning ceremonies
Walking in nature with the intention of releasing
Crying to music that breaks us open
Speaking our story to someone who can hold it

Grief ritual reclaims our power. It says:"I'm allowed to name what was taken.I'm allowed to mourn what was never given.And I'm allowed to heal."

Forgiveness as a Byproduct of Grief

Forgiveness isn't something we force — it's something we grow into when grief is given the space it needs.

When we grieve the innocence lost...When we grieve the parents we needed...When we grieve the safety that never was...

...only then can forgiveness become an organic unfolding.

Forgiveness isn't forgetting. It isn't excusing.It's simply releasing the grip the past has on our nervous system.

And that release comes after we've done the sacred work of grieving.We don't rush it.We don't fake it.

We simply allow grief to do its alchemy.

Grief Makes Space for Joy

Here's the paradox: the deeper we allow grief, the more space we make for joy.

Unfelt grief clogs the system. It's like a dam — trapping all the water, all the movement.And when we finally let it flow... joy sneaks in behind it.

Not performative joy. Not Instagram joy.But quiet, sacred, grounded joy.The kind of joy that says, "I'm still here. I made it. And I'm beginning again."

In grieving, we become more alive.