How does grief affect the brain. What are the differences between grief and grieving. Why does adapting to loss take time. How can we navigate intense emotions during bereavement. What brain functions are involved in processing loss.

The Neurobiology of Grief: How Loss Rewires the Brain

Grief is a profound and complex experience that affects multiple brain functions. From memory recall to perspective-taking, and even physiological processes like heart rate regulation and pain perception, the impact of loss reverberates throughout our neural networks. Understanding the neurobiology of grief can provide valuable insights into why the process of adapting to loss takes time and requires patience.

Research conducted by Mary-Frances O’Connor, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Arizona, sheds light on the intricate relationship between grief and the brain. Her work reveals that grieving is a form of learning, teaching us how to navigate a world without our loved one. This process involves significant neural reorganization and adaptation.

Key Brain Functions Affected by Grief

• Memory retrieval and formation
• Emotional regulation
• Social cognition and empathy
• Attention and concentration
• Autonomic nervous system function

These neurological changes explain why even small reminders of our loss, such as an empty chair at the dinner table or a missed birthday, can trigger intense emotional responses. The brain is constantly working to integrate the new reality of absence into our existing neural frameworks.

Grief vs. Grieving: Understanding the Crucial Distinction

While often used interchangeably, grief and grieving represent distinct aspects of the bereavement process. Recognizing this difference is essential for understanding the long-term nature of loss and the potential for adaptation.

What is grief?

Grief is the immediate emotional response to loss. It’s the overwhelming wave of feelings that can knock us off our feet without warning. This acute state of grief can resurface throughout our lives, triggered by significant moments or memories.

What is grieving?

Grieving, on the other hand, is the ongoing process of adapting to life without our loved one. It involves learning new patterns of behavior, adjusting our sense of identity, and gradually integrating the loss into our life narrative. Grieving has a temporal component and reflects our changing relationship with the grief itself.

O’Connor explains that while we may experience grief indefinitely, our response to it evolves. The 100th wave of grief may feel familiar, even if still painful, allowing us to navigate it with more resilience than the first.

The Emotional Landscape of Loss: Navigating Intense Feelings

Grieving encompasses a vast array of emotions, often experienced with heightened intensity. This emotional amplification can be challenging to manage and may strain relationships with others who might not fully comprehend the depth of our pain.

Common Emotions in Grief

• Sadness and despair
• Anxiety and panic
• Anger and irritability
• Guilt and regret
• Longing and yearning

One emotion that can be particularly disruptive during the grieving process is anger. The intensity of this anger may catch both the grieving individual and those around them off guard, leading to potential conflicts or misunderstandings.

Why is anger often prominent in grief?

Anger in grief can stem from various sources:

1. Frustration at the perceived unfairness of the loss
2. A sense of abandonment by the deceased
3. Displacement of other painful emotions that feel too overwhelming to confront directly
4. A way of maintaining a connection to the deceased through intense emotion

Recognizing the role of anger in the grieving process can help individuals and their support systems respond with greater compassion and understanding.

The Social Brain in Mourning: Redefining the Self After Loss

One of the most profound impacts of loss is how it reshapes our sense of self and our place in the world. O’Connor’s research highlights how deeply our identities are intertwined with our relationships, making the loss of a loved one feel like losing a part of ourselves.

How does the brain encode relationships?

The human brain is inherently social, encoding relationships as integral parts of our self-concept. Terms like “sibling” or “spouse” imply a connection between two individuals, and this connection is reflected in our neural pathways. When we lose someone, the brain must reconfigure these deeply ingrained patterns.

This neurological reality explains why people often describe feeling like they’ve lost a part of themselves after a significant loss. The brain is literally rewiring itself to accommodate a new reality where the “we” has become an “I.”

Challenges in Identity Reconstruction

• Redefining roles and responsibilities
• Adjusting to changes in social dynamics
• Developing new routines and habits
• Finding meaning and purpose without the loved one

The process of reconstructing our identity after loss is gradual and often challenging. It requires patience, self-compassion, and support from others as we navigate this fundamental shift in our sense of self.

The Learning Brain: Grief as a Process of Adaptation

Viewing grief through the lens of learning offers a powerful framework for understanding the adaptation process. O’Connor’s research suggests that grieving is essentially the brain learning to exist in a world without the physical presence of a loved one.

What does the brain need to learn during grief?

The grieving brain must learn:

1. New patterns of daily life without the deceased
2. How to regulate emotions in the absence of a key relationship
3. Ways to maintain a connection to the deceased while accepting their physical absence
4. Strategies for finding meaning and purpose in a changed world

This learning process is gradual and non-linear. It requires repeated exposure to the reality of the loss and the support of others to build confidence in our ability to adapt.

The Role of Neural Plasticity in Grief

Neural plasticity, the brain’s ability to form new connections and reorganize existing ones, plays a crucial role in the grieving process. This plasticity allows for the formation of new neural pathways that reflect our changed reality and support our adaptation to loss.

Understanding grief as a learning process can help foster patience and self-compassion during the often lengthy and challenging journey of bereavement.

Coping Strategies: Supporting the Grieving Brain

While grief is a natural and necessary process, there are strategies that can support the brain’s adaptation to loss and promote healing.

Effective Coping Mechanisms for Grief

• Acknowledging and expressing emotions
• Maintaining connections with supportive others
• Engaging in self-care practices
• Creating rituals or memorials to honor the deceased
• Seeking professional support when needed

O’Connor emphasizes the importance of not avoiding grief or trying to hide our feelings. Connecting with others who understand our experience can be particularly beneficial, as it provides validation and support during the adaptation process.

How can we support someone who is grieving?

Supporting a grieving individual involves:

1. Listening without judgment
2. Acknowledging the loss and its ongoing impact
3. Offering practical help with daily tasks
4. Being patient with the grieving process
5. Remembering and speaking about the deceased

By understanding the neurological basis of grief, we can approach the grieving process with greater patience and compassion, both for ourselves and for others experiencing loss.

The Enduring Nature of Grief: Adapting to a New Normal

One of the most challenging aspects of grief is accepting that it doesn’t have a definitive endpoint. Instead, grief becomes integrated into our lives, shaping our experiences and perspectives over time.

How does grief change over time?

While the intensity of grief may diminish, it can resurface unexpectedly, especially during significant life events or milestones. A woman who lost her mother in childhood, for example, may experience a renewed sense of loss on her wedding day.

This ongoing nature of grief doesn’t mean we’re stuck or failing to move forward. Rather, it reflects the enduring impact of significant relationships on our lives and our ability to carry our loved ones with us, even in their absence.

Signs of Healthy Grief Adaptation

• Ability to find joy and meaning in life again
• Capacity to speak about the deceased without overwhelming distress
• Integration of the loss into one’s life narrative
• Development of new relationships and pursuits
• Increased resilience when facing future losses or challenges

Adapting to grief doesn’t mean forgetting or “getting over” the loss. Instead, it involves learning to live alongside the grief, allowing it to inform our lives without overwhelming them.

Understanding the neurological underpinnings of grief can provide comfort and context for those navigating loss. It reminds us that the sometimes confusing and overwhelming experience of bereavement is a natural process of our brains adapting to a profound change in our lives.

As we continue to study the intersection of neuroscience and grief, we gain valuable insights into how to support ourselves and others through the complex journey of loss. By recognizing grief as a form of learning and adaptation, we can approach it with greater patience, compassion, and hope for our capacity to heal and grow.

How grief and loss affect your brain, and why it takes time to adapt : Shots

Grief is tied to all sorts of different brain functions, says researcher and author Mary-Frances O’Connor. That can range from being able to recall memories to taking the perspective of another person, to even things like regulating our heart rate and the experience of pain and suffering.

Adam Lister/Getty Images

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Grief is tied to all sorts of different brain functions, says researcher and author Mary-Frances O’Connor. That can range from being able to recall memories to taking the perspective of another person, to even things like regulating our heart rate and the experience of pain and suffering.

Adam Lister/Getty Images

Holidays are never quite the same after someone we love dies. Even small aspects of a birthday or a Christmas celebration — an empty seat at the dinner table, one less gift to buy or make — can serve as jarring reminders of how our lives have been forever changed. Although these realizations are hard to face, clinical psychologist Mary-Frances O’Connor says we shouldn’t avoid them or try to hide our feelings.

“Grief is a universal experience,” she notes, “and when we can connect, it is better.”

O’Connor, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Arizona, studies what happens in our brains when we experience grief. She says grieving is a form of learning — one that teaches us how to be in the world without someone we love in it. “The background is running all the time for people who are grieving, thinking about new habits and how they interact now.”

Adjusting to the fact that we’ll never again spend time with our loved ones can be painful. It takes time — and involves changes in the brain. “What we see in science is, if you have a grief experience and you have support so that you have a little bit of time to learn, and confidence from the people around you, that you will in fact adapt. “

O’Connor’s upcoming book, The Grieving Brain, explores what scientists know about how our minds grapple with the loss of a loved one.

Interview highlights

On the grieving process

When we have the experience of being in a relationship, the sense of who we are is bound up with that other person. The word sibling, the word spouse implies two people. And so when the other person is gone, we suddenly have to learn a totally new set of rules to operate in the world. The “we” is as important as the “you” and “me,” and the brain, interestingly, really does encode it that way. So when people say “I feel like I’ve lost part of myself,” that is for a good reason. The brain also feels that way, as it were, and codes the “we” as much as the “you” and the “I.”

On the difference between grief and grieving

Grief is that emotional state that just knocks you off your feet and comes over you like a wave. Grieving necessarily has a time component to it. Grieving is what happens as we adapt to the fact that our loved one is gone, that we’re carrying the absence of them with us. And the reason that this distinction makes sense is, grief is a natural response to loss — so we’ll feel grief forever. A woman who lost her mother as a young person is going to experience that grief on her wedding day because it’s a new moment where she’s having a response to loss.

Grief is like someone turned up the volume dial all of a sudden. The emotion that I think often interferes with our relationships and friendships when we’re grieving is anger, because the anger feels so intense.

But “grieving” means that our relationship to that grief changes over time. So the first time, maybe even the first 100 times, you’re knocked off your feet with grief, it feels terrible and awful and unfamiliar. But maybe the 101st time, you think to yourself, “I hate this, I don’t want this to be true. But I do recognize it, and I do know that I will get through the wave. “

On the emotions involved in grieving

The range of emotions that someone experiences when they’re grieving is as long a list as the range of emotions we have in any relationship. Commonly there’s panic, there’s anxiety, there’s sadness, there’s yearning. But what we sometimes forget is that there’s also difficulty concentrating and confusion about what happens next.

I am often struck by the intensity of the emotions. Grief is like someone turned up the volume dial all of a sudden. The emotion that I think often interferes with our relationships and friendships when we’re grieving is anger, because the anger feels so intense. You have someone blow up at a dinner party and you think, “What’s happening with them?” And then to try and remember, “Oh, they’re grieving and everything is amped up a little bit.”

On what is happening in our brains

We have neuroimaging studies basically of grief, of the momentary reaction where you have that emotional yearning experience. There are less than a handful of studies looking at more than one moment in the same person across time — so looking at their grieving trajectory. What we know right now in these early days of the neurobiology of grief is really coming from snapshots.

Having said that, one of the things that we know is that grief is tied to all sorts of different brain functions we have, from being able to recall memories to taking the perspective of another person, to even things like regulating our heart rate and the experience of pain and suffering. So lots of different parts of the brain are orchestrating this experience that we have when we feel grief.

On prolonged grief

When you’re knocked over by that wave of grief, you want to know, “When will this end?” From a research perspective, there is a very small proportion of people who might have what we now call prolonged grief disorder, something we start looking for after six months or a year [after a death or loss]. … And what we are seeing, [in such cases], is that this person has not been able to function day to day the way that they wish that they could. They’re not getting out the door to work or getting dinner on the table for their kids or they’re not able to, say, listen to music because it’s just too upsetting. So these types of concerns … suggest it would be helpful to intervene and get them back on the healing trajectory where they will still feel grief, but they will adapt to it differently.

The older term that we were using for a long time was “complicated grief.” And although prolonged grief disorder is the term we’ve settled on, there’s a reason that I like the term complicated — because it makes you think of complications.

With COVID, the loved ones that are left behind made the sacrifice of not being with their loved ones in the hospital in order to stop the spread. And that sacrifice needs to be recognized — they did something for the greater good.

As an example, one of those is the grief-related rumination that people sometimes experience. The better term for that that people will recognize is the “would’ve, should’ve, could’ve” thoughts. And they just roll through your head over and over again. The problem with these thoughts — we sometimes call “counterfactuals” — is that they all end in this virtual scenario where the person doesn’t die. And that’s just not reality. And so, by spinning in these thoughts, not only is there no answer — there are an infinite number of possibilities with no actual answer of what would have happened — but it also isn’t necessarily helping us to adapt to the painful reality that they did die. And so our virtual version is not really helping us to learn how to be in the world now.

It’s less than 10% of people who experience prolonged grief disorder. And what that means is 90% of people experience difficult grief and suffering, but don’t have a disorder after losing a loved one. I think it’s so important to remember that … because we don’t want to hide grief away … in a psychiatrist’s office or a counselor’s office, except in indications where that would be helpful to get people back on track.

On how to support grieving people in your life

I think when you care for someone who is going through this terrible process of losing someone, it really is more about listening to them and seeing where they’re at in their learning than it is about trying to make them feel better. The point is not to cheer them up. The point is to be with them and let them know that you will be with them and that you can imagine a future for them where they’re not constantly being knocked over by the waves of grief.

On losing people to the pandemic

One of the topics I think is not much in the national conversation is that so many of the deaths of our loved ones happened in hospitals, emergency rooms and ICUs — and we weren’t there to see it. And that is for a very good reason, because we were trying to stop the spread of COVID. So having family members in hospitals did not make sense.

But it means that people are without these memories of watching their loved one become more ill and watching those changes that happen in their body that prepare our mind for the possibility that they might die. To go through that process without those memories makes it much harder to learn what has happened. So many people feel it hasn’t really sunk in yet that they’re gone.

What I don’t hear very often is the fact that with COVID, the loved ones that are left behind made the sacrifice of not being with their loved ones in the hospital in order to stop the spread. And that sacrifice needs to be recognized, I think. In part to help people heal, so that it’s understood why they’re having such a difficult time. And to elevate the understanding that they did something for the greater good — and they gave up something while they did it.

An excerpted audio version of this interview first appeared in a recent episode of NPR’s daily science podcast, Short Wave, hosted by Emily Kwong and produced by Berly McCoy.

Coping with Grief and Loss

What is grief?

Grief is a natural response to loss. It’s the emotional suffering you feel when something or someone you love is taken away. Often, the pain of loss can feel overwhelming. You may experience all kinds of difficult and unexpected emotions, from shock or anger to disbelief, guilt, and profound sadness. The pain of grief can also disrupt your physical health, making it difficult to sleep, eat, or even think straight. These are normal reactions to loss—and the more significant the loss, the more intense your grief will be.

Coping with the loss of someone or something you love is one of life’s biggest challenges. You may associate grieving with the death of a loved one—which is often the cause of the most intense type of grief—but any loss can cause grief, including:

1. Divorce or relationship breakup
2. Loss of health
3. Losing a job
4. Loss of financial stability
5. A miscarriage
6. Retirement
7. Death of a pet
8. Loss of a cherished dream
9. A loved one’s serious illness
10. Loss of a friendship
11. Loss of safety after a trauma
12. Selling the family home

Even subtle losses in life can trigger a sense of grief. For example, you might grieve after moving away from home, graduating from college, or changing jobs.

Whatever your loss, it’s personal to you, so don’t feel ashamed about how you feel, or believe that it’s somehow only appropriate to grieve for certain things. If the person, animal, relationship, or situation was significant to you, it’s normal to grieve the loss you’re experiencing. Whatever the cause of your grief, though, there are healthy ways to cope with the pain that, in time, can ease your sadness and help you come to terms with your loss, find new meaning, and eventually move on with your life.

The grief of losing a loved one

Whether it’s a close friend, spouse, partner, parent, child, or other relative, few things are as painful as losing someone you love. After such a significant loss, life may never seem quite the same again. But in time, you can ease your sorrow, start to look to the future, and eventually come to terms with your loss.

Read: Bereavement: Grieving the Loss of a Loved One.

The grieving process

Grieving is a highly individual experience; there’s no right or wrong way to grieve. How you grieve depends on many factors, including your personality and coping style, your life experience, your faith, and how significant the loss was to you.

Inevitably, the grieving process takes time. Healing happens gradually; it can’t be forced or hurried—and there is no “normal” timetable for grieving. Some people start to feel better in weeks or months. For others, the grieving process is measured in years. Whatever your grief experience, it’s important to be patient with yourself and allow the process to naturally unfold.

Myths and facts about grief and grieving
Myth: The pain will go away faster if you ignore it   Fact: Trying to ignore your pain or keep it from surfacing will only make it worse in the long run. For real healing, it is necessary to face your grief and actively deal with it.
Myth: It’s important to “be strong” in the face of loss.   Fact: Feeling sad, frightened, or lonely is a normal reaction to loss. Crying doesn’t mean you are weak. You don’t need to “protect” your family or friends by putting on a brave front. Showing your true feelings can help them and you.
Myth: If you don’t cry, it means you aren’t sorry about the loss.   Fact: Crying is a normal response to sadness, but it’s not the only one. Those who don’t cry may feel the pain just as deeply as others. They may simply have other ways of showing it.
Myth: Grieving should last about a year.   Fact: There is no specific time frame for grieving. How long it takes differs from person to person.
Myth: Moving on with your life means forgetting about your loss.   Fact: Moving on means you’ve accepted your loss—but that’s not the same as forgetting. You can move on with your life and keep the memory of someone or something you lost as an important part of you. In fact, as we move through life, these memories can become more and more integral to defining the people we are.

How to deal with the grieving process

While grieving a loss is an inevitable part of life, there are ways to help cope with the pain, come to terms with your grief, and eventually, find a way to pick up the pieces and move on with your life.

1. Acknowledge your pain.
2. Accept that grief can trigger many different and unexpected emotions.
3. Understand that your grieving process will be unique to you.
4. Seek out face-to-face support from people who care about you.
5. Support yourself emotionally by taking care of yourself physically.
6. Recognize the difference between grief and depression.

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What are the five stages of grief?

In 1969, psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross introduced what became known as the “five stages of grief.” These stages of grief were based on her studies of the feelings of patients facing terminal illness, but many people have generalized them to other types of negative life changes and losses, such as the death of a loved one or a break-up.

The five stages of grief

Denial: “This can’t be happening to me.”

Anger: “Why is this happening? Who is to blame?”

Bargaining: “Make this not happen, and in return I will ____.”

Depression: “I’m too sad to do anything.”

Acceptance: “I’m at peace with what happened. ”

If you are experiencing any of these emotions following a loss, it may help to know that your reaction is natural and that you’ll heal in time. However, not everyone who grieves goes through all of these stages—and that’s okay. Contrary to popular belief, you do not have to go through each stage in order to heal. In fact, some people resolve their grief without going through any of these stages. And if you do go through these stages of grief, you probably won’t experience them in a neat, sequential order, so don’t worry about what you “should” be feeling or which stage you’re supposed to be in.

Kübler-Ross herself never intended for these stages to be a rigid framework that applies to everyone who mourns. In her last book before her death in 2004, she said of the five stages of grief: “They were never meant to help tuck messy emotions into neat packages. They are responses to loss that many people have, but there is not a typical response to loss, as there is no typical loss.  Our grieving is as individual as our lives.”

Grief can be a roller coaster

Instead of a series of stages, we might also think of the grieving process as a roller coaster, full of ups and downs, highs and lows. Like many roller coasters, the ride tends to be rougher in the beginning, the lows may be deeper and longer.

The difficult periods should become less intense and shorter as time goes by, but it takes time to work through a loss. Even years after a loss, especially at special events such as a family wedding or the birth of a child, we may still experience a strong sense of grief.

Source: Hospice Foundation of America

Symptoms of grief

While loss affects people in different ways, many of us experience the following symptoms when we’re grieving. Just remember that almost anything that you experience in the early stages of grief is normal—including feeling like you’re going crazy, feeling like you’re in a bad dream, or questioning your religious or spiritual beliefs.

Emotional symptoms of grief

Shock and disbelief. Right after a loss, it can be hard to accept what happened. You may feel numb, have trouble believing that the loss really happened, or even deny the truth. If a pet or someone you love has died, for example, you may keep expecting them to show up, even though you know they’re gone.

Sadness. Profound sadness is probably the most universally experienced symptom of grief. You may have feelings of emptiness, despair, yearning, or deep loneliness. You may also cry a lot or feel emotionally unstable.

Guilt. You may regret or feel guilty about things you did or didn’t say or do. You may also feel guilty about certain feelings (feeling relieved when a person died after a long, difficult illness, for example). You may even feel guilty for not doing more to prevent your loss, even if it was completely out of your hands.

Fear. A significant loss can trigger a host of worries and fears. If you’ve lost your partner, your job, or your home, for example, you may feel anxious, helpless, or insecure about the future. You may even have panic attacks. The death of a loved one can trigger fears about your own mortality, of facing life without that person, or the responsibilities you now face alone.

[Read: Dealing with Uncertainty]

Anger. Even if the loss was nobody’s fault, you may feel angry and resentful. If you lost a loved one, you may be angry with yourself, God, the doctors, or even the person who died for abandoning you. You may feel the need to blame someone for the injustice that was done to you.

Physical symptoms of grief

We often think of grief as a strictly emotional process, but grief often involves physical problems, including:

• Fatigue
• Nausea
• Lowered immunity
• Weight loss or weight gain
• Aches and pains
• Insomnia

Types of grief

Since the experience of grieving following the loss of someone or something important to you tends to be unique to you, it’s difficult to label any type of grief as either “normal” or “abnormal”. However, there are types of grief that fall outside the expected symptoms and reactions described above. These include:

Anticipatory grief

As the name suggests, anticipatory grief develops before a significant loss occurs rather than after. If a loved one is terminally ill, for example, you have an aging pet, or you know that your retirement or job loss is imminent you may start grieving your loss before it has fully unfolded.

[Read: When a Loved One is Terminally Ill]

Like conventional grief, anticipatory grief can involve a mix of confusing emotions, particularly anger. Some people even equate it to giving up hope and refuse to allow themselves to grieve before their loss has occurred. However, anticipatory grief can also give you chance to prepare for your loss, resolve any unfinished business, or say your goodbyes, for example.

Disenfranchised grief

Disenfranchised grief can occur when your loss is devalued, stigmatized, or cannot be openly mourned. Some people may minimize the loss of a job, a pet, or a friendship, for example, as something that’s not worth grieving over. You may feel stigmatized if you suffered a miscarriage or lost a loved one to suicide.

Disenfranchised grief can also occur when your relationship to a deceased is not recognized. Some people may consider it inappropriate to grieve for a work colleague, classmate, or neighbor, for example. As a close friend or same-sex partner you may be denied the same sympathy and understanding as a blood relative. This can make it even more difficult to come to terms with your loss and navigate the grieving process.

Complicated grief

The pain at a significant loss may never completely disappear, but it should ease up over time. When it doesn’t—and it keeps you from resuming your daily life and relationships—it may be a sign of complicated grief.

Complicated grief usually arises from the death of a loved one, where the loss has left you stuck in a state of bereavement. You may be unable to accept your loved one has gone, search for them in familiar places, experience intense longing, or even feel that life isn’t worth living.

If you’re experiencing complicated grief and the pain from your loss remains unresolved, it’s important to reach out for support and take the steps that will enable you to heal.

Seeking support for grief and loss

The pain of grief can often cause you to want to withdraw from others and retreat into your shell. But having the face-to-face support of other people is vital to healing from loss. Even if you’re not comfortable talking about your feelings under normal circumstances, it’s important to express them when you’re grieving.

While sharing your loss can make the burden of grief easier to carry, that doesn’t mean that every time you interact with friends and family, you need to talk about your loss. Comfort can also come from just being around others who care about you. The key is not to isolate yourself.

Turn to friends and family members. Now is the time to lean on the people who care about you, even if you take pride in being strong and self-sufficient. Rather than avoiding them, draw friends and loved ones close, spend time together face to face, and accept the assistance that’s offered. Often, people want to help but don’t know how, so tell them what you need—whether it’s a shoulder to cry on, a listening ear, or just someone to hang out with. If you don’t feel you have anyone you can regularly connect with in person, it’s never too late to build new friendships.

Accept that many people feel awkward when trying to comfort someone who’s grieving. Grief can be a confusing, sometimes frightening emotion for many people, especially if they haven’t experienced a similar loss themselves. They may feel unsure about how to comfort you and end up saying or doing the wrong things. But don’t use that as an excuse to retreat into your shell and avoid social contact. If a friend or loved one reaches out to you, it’s because they care.

Draw comfort from your faith. If you follow a religious tradition, embrace the comfort its mourning rituals can provide. Spiritual activities that are meaningful to you—such as praying, meditating, or going to church—can offer solace. If you’re questioning your faith in the wake of the loss, talk to a clergy member or others in your religious community.

Join a support group. Grief can feel very lonely, even when you have loved ones around. Sharing your sorrow with others who have experienced similar losses can help. To find a bereavement support group in your area, contact local hospitals, hospices, funeral homes, and counseling centers, or see the links below.

[Read: Support Groups: Types, Benefits, and What to Expect]

Talk to a therapist or grief counselor. If your grief feels like too much to bear, find a mental health professional with experience in grief counseling. An experienced therapist can help you work through intense emotions and overcome obstacles to your grieving.

Beware how you use social media

Social media can be useful in letting others know about your loss and reaching out for support. However, it can also attract Internet trolls who post inappropriate, insensitive, or even abusive messages. To spare yourself additional pain and heartache at this time, you may want to limit your social media use to closed groups rather than public postings that can be commented on by anyone.

Taking care of yourself as you grieve

When you’re grieving, it’s more important than ever to take care of yourself. The stress of a major loss can quickly deplete your energy and emotional reserves. Looking after your physical and emotional needs will help you get through this difficult time.

Face your feelings. You can try to suppress your grief, but you can’t avoid it forever. In order to heal, you have to acknowledge the pain. Trying to avoid feelings of sadness and loss only prolongs the grieving process. Unresolved grief can also lead to complications such as depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and health problems.

Express your feelings in a tangible or creative way. Even if you’re not able to talk about your loss with others, it can help to write down your thoughts and feelings in a journal, for example. Or you could release your emotions by making a scrapbook or volunteering for a cause related to your loss.

Try to maintain your hobbies and interests. There’s comfort in routine and getting back to the activities that bring you joy and connect you closer to others can help you come to terms with your loss and aid the grieving process.

Don’t let anyone tell you how to feel, and don’t tell yourself how to feel either. Your grief is your own, and no one else can tell you when it’s time to “move on” or “get over it.” Let yourself feel whatever you feel without embarrassment or judgment. It’s okay to be angry, to yell at the heavens, to cry or not to cry. It’s also okay to laugh, to find moments of joy, and to let go when you’re ready.

Look after your physical health. The mind and body are connected. When you feel healthy physically, you’ll be better able to cope emotionally. Combat stress and fatigue by getting enough sleep, eating right, and exercising. Don’t use alcohol or drugs to numb the pain of grief or lift your mood artificially.

[Read: Self-Medicating Depression, Anxiety, and Stress]

Plan ahead for grief “triggers.” Anniversaries, holidays, and important milestones can reawaken painful memories and feelings. Be prepared for an emotional wallop, and know that it’s completely normal. You can plan ahead by making sure that you’re not alone, for example, or by marking your loss in a creative way.

For more help facing up to and managing distressing emotions like grief…

Use HelpGuide’s free Emotional Intelligence Toolkit.

Last updated or reviewed on June 20, 2023

Woe – Koltsov. Full text of the poem – Woe

Literature

Catalog of poems

Alexei Koltsov – poems

Alexei Koltsov

Woe

Oh, grief, grief,
Woe is bitter!
Where are you sown,
Where did you grow?
Is it in the loose
Sands,
Is it in the dense
Forests of Murom?
Who made you drunk,
Who fed you,
Who let you into the world0013 Woe to mykati?
And why are you here
On a visit, honey,
Appearing,
Unwanted
And not invited?
Poison your foot
The whole feast
And you will leave again,
Like a night thief,
Invisible,
And the whole feast is not a feast,
And all life is not a life …
You would be lost,
Bitter grief,
Where was born
Yes, where it grew;

Why should the whole world
Wander around
And be a guest
Unhappy to everyone?

1839

Next verseCherubina de Gabriac – They closed the door to my abode

Previous verse Agnia Barto – Our neighbor Ivan Petrovich

About life

The Golden Age

Poems by Alexei Koltsov – About life

Poems by Alexei Koltsov – The Golden Age

Other verses from this the author

Mower

I won’t understand …

I can’t imagine…

About love

Forest

Dedicated to the memory of A. S. Pushkin

About nature

Nightingale

Pushkin imitation 90 003

Love

Do not make noise, rye

Do not make noise, rye,

Ripe ear!

About love

I was with her

I was with her; she said:

“I love you, my dear friend!”

About love

The plowman’s song

Well! dragging, sivka,

Arable land, tithe,

About nature

How to read

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History of creation, key images and main motives of the drama

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We talk about a large-scale psychological study of the Russian classic

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How to read Bulgakov’s “The White Guard”

Literary tradition, Christian imagery and reflections on the end of the world

Publication

How to read “The Enchanted Wanderer” by Leskov

Why Ivan Flyagin turns out to be a righteous man, despite a far from sinless life

Publication

How to read poetry: the basics of versification for beginners

What is rhythm, how to distinguish iambic from chorea and can poetry be without rhyme

Publication

How to read Shmelev’s “Summer of the Lord”

Why in a work about childhood religious images play an important role

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How to read Blok’s “The Twelve”

What details should be paid attention to in order not to miss the hidden meanings in the poem

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How to read Bunin’s “Dark Alleys”

What to pay attention to in order to understand Ivan Bunin’s famous story

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How to read Kuprin’s “Garnet Bracelet”

What a modern reader should know in order to truly understand the tragedy

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How to read Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago

We talk about the key themes, images and conflicts of Pasternak’s novel

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Fedorino grief – Chukovsky. Full text of the poem – Fedorino grief

1
The sieve gallops through the fields,
A trough through the meadows. A broom behind a shovel

Went along the street. Axes, axes
And they are falling down from the mountain.
The goat got scared,
Widened her eyes:

“What is it? Why?
I won’t understand anything.”

2

But, like a black iron leg,
The poker ran, galloped.

And knives rushed down the street:
“Hey, hold, hold, hold, hold, hold!”

And the pan on the run
Shouted to the iron:
“I’m running, running, running,
I can’t resist!”

Here comes the teapot after the coffee pot,
Chattering, chattering, rattling…
The irons are running, grunting,
Jumping over puddles, over puddles.

And saucers behind them, saucers –
Tink-la-la! Ring-la-la!

Rushing along the street –
Ring-la-la! Ring-la-la!
On the glasses – ding! – stumble,
And the glasses – ding! – are broken.

And the frying pan runs, strums, knocks:
“Where are you going? Where? Where? Where? Where?”

A behind her forks,
Glasses and bottles,
Cups and spoons
Jumping along the path.

A table fell out of the window
And went, went, went, went, went… , save yourself! »

And into the iron pipe:
“Boo-boo-boo! Boo Boo Boo!”

3

And behind them along the fence
Fyodor’s grandmother gallops:
“Oh-oh-oh! Oh oh oh!
Go back home!”

But the trough answered:
“I’m angry at Fedora!”
And the poker said:
“I am not Fedora’s servant!”

A porcelain saucers
They laugh at Fedora:
“We will never, never
Come back here!”

Fedorina’s cats are here
They dressed up their tails,
They ran at full speed.
To return the dishes:

“Hey, you stupid plates,
Why are you jumping like squirrels?
Do you run after the gates
With yellow-mouthed sparrows?

You will fall into a ditch,
You will drown in a swamp.
Don’t go, wait,
Come home!”

But the plates twist and turn,
But Fedora is not given:
“We’d better disappear into the field,
But we won’t go to Fedora!”

4

A chicken ran past
And saw the dishes:
“Where, where! Where-where!
Where are you from and where?!”

And the dishes answered:
“It was bad for us at the woman,
She did not love us,
She beat, she beat us,
Dusty, smoked,
She ruined us!”

“Ko-ko-ko! Ko-ko-ko!
Life was not easy for you!”

“Yes,” said the copper basin, “
Look at us:
We are broken, beaten,
We are doused with slop.
Look into the tub –
And you will see a frog there.
Look in the tub –
Cockroaches are swarming there,
That’s why we ran away from the woman
We ran away like from a toad,
And we walk through the fields,
Through the swamps, through the meadows,
And to the slut-zamarah
let’s go back! »

5

And they ran through the woods,
They galloped over stumps and bumps.
And the poor woman is alone,
She cries and she cries.
The woman would sit at the table,
Yes, the table would leave the gate.
A woman would cook cabbage soup,
Yes, go look for a pan!
And the cups are gone, and the glasses,
Only cockroaches remain.
Oh, woe to Fedora,
Woe!

6

And dishes forward and forward
Through the fields, through the marshes.

And the kettle whispered to the iron:
“I can’t go any further.”

And the saucers wept:
“Wouldn’t it be better to come back?”

And the trough wept:
“Alas, I am broken, broken!”

But the dish said, “Look,
Who’s that back there?”

And they see: behind them from the dark forest
Fedor is walking and hobbled.

But a miracle happened to her:
Fedor became kinder.
Quietly follows them
And sings a quiet song:

“Oh, my poor orphans,
My irons and pans!
You go home, unwashed,
I will wash you with spring water.
I will clean you with sand,
I will douse you with boiling water,
And you will again,
Shine like the sun,
And I’ll bring out the filthy cockroaches,
I’ll sweep the Prussians and spiders!”

And the rolling pin said:
“I feel sorry for Fyodor.”

And the cup said:
“Oh, she’s a poor thing!”

And the saucers said:
“We should come back!”

And the irons said:
“We are not Fedor’s enemies!”

7

Long, long kissed
And she caressed them,
Watered, washed.
She rinsed them.

“I won’t, I won’t
I’ll offend the dishes.
I will, I will cook dishes
And love and respect!”

Pots laughed,
The samovar winked:
“Well, Fedora, so be it,
We are glad to forgive you!”

They flew,
They rang
Yes, straight to Fedora in the oven!
They began to fry, they began to bake, –
Fedora will have pancakes and pies!

But the broom, and the broom is merry –
Danced, played, swept,
She didn’t leave a speck of dust at Fedora’s.