How to grieve without losing your mind

To be clear, though, it’s also fine if you DO lose your mind while grieving. Even if you’re feeling pressure to “hold it together” from loved ones, coworkers, or others, it is totally normal to not be able to live up to your usual obligations.

While it’s totally fine to not “have your life together,” you still deserve to feel supported and grounded as often as possible while you’re grieving. So here are some tips for lightening your burden.

Give yourself permission to feel anything and everything. Grief can bring with it some surprising feelings: relief, anger, and even amusement. That’s completely normal. It’s also normal for some of these feelings to stick around for a long time.

It can be frustrating to make space for unpleasant feelings that won’t seem to leave for a while, but it’s a crucial part of grieving that will allow you to move forward much more quickly. It’s also perfectly okay to feel frustrated with how long or how painful the process is.

If you can, trust that whatever you’re feeling is exactly the right thing you “should” be feeling at any given time. Often the most confusing, annoying, or out-of-place-feeling emotions are those that will be the most healing once you feel them-- even if it takes a while.
Take outstanding care of yourself. While you’re grieving (or really, under any kind of stress), small things like being hungry or not getting enough sleep can have an especially big impact on your wellbeing. Unfortunately, grieving can also make self-care a bit harder than usual.

So, feel free to get creative. Do you have the means to splurge on a meal delivery service? This might be the right time to try that out if meal prep becomes more difficult than usual. Do you have trouble remembering when to take your medications? You may want to set alarms to make sure you don’t forget. Are phone notifications bugging you more than usual? You might want to take long breaks from your technology, and/or keep your phone on silent for most of the day. Having sleep troubles? You might want to set an alarm on your phone to tell you when to start turning the lights lower and start doing some more relaxing activities before bedtime.

But even if you’re taking extraordinarily good care of yourself, you may still experience periods of stress that are unavoidable. For those, feel free to check out our article about how to calm down when everything’s horrible.
Don’t go through this alone. Grieving can be lonely. There will be times in the day when you’re having thoughts or feelings that aren’t appropriate to share with the people you’re around, and that can feel isolating. So, do what you can to be as vulnerable as possible with the people you trust.

It’s unfair that the time when you most need to feel safe and secure is also the time when you might need to stretch your comfort zone in how much you share about your inner life with close people. But if you can muster just a few seconds of courage to share how you’re feeling with someone you trust, it can help you feel an almost mystical quantity of better.

Don’t have people in your life that you feel comfortable sharing anything personal with? That’s totally fine, too. You can check out grief support groups, or organizations like The Dinner Party to give you a community of people who are likelier to understand what you’re going through.

Sometimes, just talking to strangers can help. You can check out our Skip the Small Talk events if you want to talk to strangers about how you’re doing. They’re open to all and as of writing this, some of them are currently online, so anyone from around the world can attend.
Go easy on yourself. This is the one that everyone likes to skip over, thinking that it applies to everyone else but them. Spoiler alert: You do not get a special exemption from this one just because you are “strong.” Yes, I’m talking to you.

You may snap at people you love, you may forget to shower on occasion, and you may shove down your feelings when you’re feeling overwhelmed even if you’ve been in therapy for decades. That’s all completely normal when your brain is putting so much energy every day into processing something difficult. Give yourself grace.

Want some more self-compassion guidance? Here are some specific strategies.
Create space for joy. Often, grief will dampen feelings of joy. You may find that things you used to enjoy may feel hollow or numb or even sad now. But it can still be helpful to find the things you DO still get a little bit of joy from.

So if you think it might be helpful, you can try to ask yourself: What things bring me joy, even if it’s only temporary, and even it’s just a little bit of joy? In as concrete terms as possible, how might I want to build more of those things into my life? This might involve unglamorous things like sending a scheduling text to a friend, or putting a walk in nature into your calendar, or starting a bookmark folder with links to your favorite comedians’ YouTube specials.

While you’re grieving, joy may be a bit harder to come by, it may be a bit more fleeting, and it may come alongside feelings like sadness or anger. So taking the time and effort to make sure that you can create space for even just moments of joy in your life can go a long way in helping you feel more grounded and hopeful in the long-term.

All this said, there is no right way to grieve. You have my full endorsement if you want to chuck all of these tips out the window and just wrap yourself in a blanket burrito until things start feeling better. But if you find that the process is wearing on you and you just feel like you need a break, that might be a good time to start implementing these.

It does get better. But until then, I hope you are able to fill your life with as much love, community, and self-compassion as possible.