There’s No Manual for Grief, but Here’s My Attempt At One

May this light your way in the darkness

The toughest part of grief is that you can’t control it. And often, it controls you. There are many things that we can’t predict, avoid, or count on in the grief journey. It develops over time and never ceases to take us by surprise.

My grief journey won’t look exactly like yours. We all have different insecurities and triggers, and different layers of trauma to process. However, I wanted to share some guidelines and wisdom I have gained along the way, as well as some personal stories that might help the wandering reader.

I’ve been healing from a loss of my soulmate — my twin flame — for four years now. Since his death, I have coached many people on a similar journey. There are things I wish I had known when this happened to me. I have been to the depths of depression and back, and I want to help others find hope again. If you’re feeling lost and unsure about how to go on, may this help to light your way!

The Path of Grief Isn’t Linear or Predictable

Grief does not give you clarity, nor does it let you predict the path ahead. If you think you’ll get incrementally better as time goes on, you’ll find you’re wrong nearly every time. You can’t set goals for a healing journey — it takes a path of its own.

You will be surprised how far along you are in a year from now, and yet, sometimes when you’re dealing with the second anniversary of someone’s death, it is harder than the first anniversary. We sometimes feel that we’re regressing. The soul does not heal according to plan, and it doesn’t make logical sense.

Sometimes, the mind prevents you from healing something now and allows it to come up at a later date, when you’re stronger and can face it better.

Every year that has passed on the anniversary, I am surprised at my grief responses. Sometimes I have emotional meltdowns and collapse into a puddle of tears one month before the date of the loss, and sometimes it happens after it. I rarely have a strong reaction to the date itself. I think it’s because certain situations that remind me of those terrible moments are what trigger my grief, not dates.

I also find it surprising how, to this day, I can sometimes feel that I am right back in that first moment when I found out he’d died. It’s like we can time-travel when we’re grieving. We can feel better over time, only to have it all wash over us in an instant, leaving us drowning in sorrow again. But it does get easier each time the wave comes back as we learn how to come up for air.

You Grieve the Loss of Yourself

In the first year of grieving, I was sad about missing my soulmate. My strong emotions were directed at the loss and unfairness of the situation. I was angry with the universe for taking him away from me, and I was in constant disbelief that he was gone. I missed my best friend.

As time passed, I noticed that my moments of deep grief occurred when I was sad about what I went through, instead of feeling sad about the loss itself. I grieve the loss of self in an instant of panic or hopelessness, instead of a loss of him.

For instance, I look back at how I was barely surviving, a single, unemployed mom in 2021, with nobody checking on me or worried about my mental health. I was so alone, trying to keep myself alive. I don’t know how I survived those days when I’d drop off my daughter at school and then come home and lie in bed for hours crying, curled up into a ball. I felt hopeless and lost. I saw no purpose in my life. I have found a purpose now, four years later — but that feeling of purposelessness still haunts me at times.

I now grieve the loss of my identity, feeling sorry for my past self, scared to ever feel that low again. I grieve the loss of time, and I empathize with myself about the fears of the past — having to face my deepest fears of all: that I might die alone and life might have no meaning. I mourn the loss of hope that I felt when almost nobody cared what I was going through. It’s different from the grief and shock I felt right after the loss happened. It’s a new kind of feeling.

Grief Manifests in the Physical Body

I am always shocked when my grief crosses from the emotional realm into the physical realm and begins to wreak havoc on my body. People act like grief is a mental journey only — as if you can control it a little through reasoning and self-forgiveness. But people don’t seem to understand how it becomes a whole new ballgame when it’s in your physical cells instead of your nonphysical thoughts.

My grief arrived in my physical body as ailments that doctors can’t understand. There is no apparent cause. Sometimes they tell me it is from stress, and sometimes I figure that out on my own.

I have nothing medically wrong with me. Bodily pain, reactions, and symptoms occur that seem unrelated to my grief until I realize the timeline when they began is in alignment with my grief journey. The cells in your body are conscious — they take on the same burden that your mind carries.

The trauma is carried both physically and non-physically.

I also have PTSD that isn’t mental — it manifests as a physical form of anxiety. My mind may be clear and calm, but the body remembers things on its own. And reactions might be triggered and flare up into something detrimental if you aren’t mindful of your grief processing.

Don’t suppress your grief. Allow it to come to the surface when it needs to. Allow it to be released when it arises in the emotions instead of waiting for it to arise through the body just when it’s least convenient.

I also advise you never to wish you weren’t alive. Don’t forsake the miracle of life. Stay grateful as much as you can — always find one thing you can be happy about. If you start to hate being alive, the universe will manifest reasons for you to become grateful for your health.

Grief is Different for Everyone

You’ll discover people’s true natures in the process of grieving. Despair and loss mean different things to different people — and it forces everyone to examine their mortality closely. Some people can’t handle this level of pain or fear.

While many of us are grieving, it’s strange how it is such a solitary journey. That’s because there are few of us who grieve in the same way. Ironically, when you seek others who are also grieving a loss, sometimes it makes you feel even more alone because they don’t understand your exact situation.

Along the way, you’ll meet people who have no way of understanding your grief because they have not experienced anything like it. You’ll also meet people who can’t empathize with you because they have experienced grief like yours (or worse), and can’t let their minds go there again. In addition, you’ll find multitudes of people who can’t handle grief maturely, and use it as a weapon or treat it as a competition.

Everyone’s experience is different. Some people go through grief with anger and immaturity, lashing out at the world. Others take it on as a deep depression, and they recede from social life for a long time. It may surprise you how people lack empathy and even judge you while you’re in a state of mourning.

Don’t expect that everyone will grieve like you. If you find another person who is supporting you through this journey on a similar path, consider yourself lucky.

The Right People Arrive in Your Life

Along the way, you may lose friends because of this grief. That’s okay. Not everyone is meant to come with you into this new phase of the journey. And the universe is loving (despite what it may seem) — it will bring you new people who can help you now.

I found a whole new group of people who understood my pain. I founded a network of friends located across the country who had been through a similar grief experience. They had just met me, but they were there for me when I needed to talk. Grief brings strangers together — you might be surprised what you’ll discover that you can build a new group of friends as you transform into someone new.

Time Does Heal

I used to hate it when people told me “time heals” — I was so stubborn about it that I would reply “we’ll see about that!” I didn’t want to heal, in a way. Healing feels scary, too — like it’s a loss. You may feel that if you heal, you’re giving up the connection to that person and the naturally horrific feeling of losing them. It might feel like it wasn’t significant if you can truly heal and move on.

I get it. I didn’t want to heal, either. I wanted to feel better, and I wanted to find a reason to go on living. But I didn’t believe that time would heal me — the grief was too piercing. It was too painful to believe that it would ever go away.

However, I was wrong. Time does heal. The universe does eventually bring new adventures. If you hang in there and get through the dark night of the soul, you’ll eventually emerge on the other side — trust me.

I didn’t “move on” but I did learn to live with the grief — and I allowed it to motivate me to fulfill my purpose in life.

You may feel hopeless. You may feel like giving up. You may feel like you no longer want to be here. But this is not the end. The sun will come out again — especially if you leave some room in your heart for a miracle to happen.