What If Grief Isn’t Something We Move On From?

What if the reason grief feels so difficult isn’t simply because of the loss, but because we’re trying so hard to leave it behind?

I’ve often wondered whether our struggle is less with grief itself and more with our expectations about how we should grieve and for how long?

A butterfly necklace lay in a trinket dish

Grief, like other life experiences, can come with its own set of perceived rules and expectations.  Messages about grief can sometimes leave us with the impression that there is a “right” way to grieve.  So, when our experience doesn’t match what we believe grief should look like, we can begin to question ourselves, doubt our feelings, or wonder whether we’re grieving correctly.

We may question why we are not feeling what we think we should be feeling.  We may feel guilty if we are not as sad as we believe we ought to be, if we’re not crying constantly.  In moments of happiness, laughter and joy we may think “I shouldn’t be happy” or believe that life needs to be put on hold during our grief. 

We may begin to see our grief as something to fight, get through or move past.  Believing that grief is time-limited, we may find ourselves thinking, "Surely I should be over this by now” once a certain amount of time has passed.  As though grief is something that can be completed.  And if we do not grieve as we believe we ‘should’ then we can feel a sense of failure.

Yet grief isn't a task to complete or a problem to solve. It isn't something we can tick off a list once we've spent a certain amount of time with it.  So why do many of us feel a sense of pressure to move on?

What if part of our struggle comes from believing that healing means leaving our grief behind? That moving forward somehow requires us to stop missing the person, relationship or life we have lost. But what if healing isn't about letting go? What if it's about finding a way to carry our loss with us while still allowing ourselves to live, grow and move forward?  Perhaps, over time, we don’t leave our grief behind but learn how to make room for it in our lives.

I've often found the egg analogy helpful when thinking about grief. It's like carrying an egg in your pocket. In the beginning, you're constantly aware of it. Every movement feels shaped by its presence. Over time, the egg doesn't vanish, but you become more practised at carrying it. You learn how to move through life while making room for it. There are days when you're hardly aware it's there, and others when a memory, place or moment brings its presence sharply back into focus. The egg remains, but your relationship with it changes.

Perhaps grief, like the egg, is something that doesn’t ever vanish, but rather something we learn to carry differently.  The loss remains a part of us and our story, woven into the fabric of who we are.  Maybe, over time, it becomes less about leaving our grief behind and more about learning how to move forward with it.