Somewhere along the way, many of us absorbed an unspoken rule about grief: that it should move in stages, that it should soften after a certain number of months, that there’s a “right” pace to healing after loss. So when grief doesn’t behave that way — when it resurfaces after we thought we were “past it,” or when it never quite matches what we expected — we start to wonder if we’re doing it wrong.

You’re not doing it wrong. Grief was never meant to follow a straight line.

Where the “stages” idea comes from — and where it breaks down

The stages of grief were originally described to explain the experience of people facing their own terminal diagnosis, not the experience of losing someone else. Somewhere in translation, they became a public expectation for how everyone should grieve, in order, on a schedule.

In the therapy room, grief rarely looks like that. It looks like laughing at a memory one moment and being flattened by a wave of sadness the next. It looks like feeling “fine” for months and then being undone by a song, a smell, an empty chair at a holiday table. It looks like anger showing up before sadness does, or not at all. There is no wrong order, because there was never really an order to begin with.

Grief is not a problem to solve

One of the most tender shifts I see happen in grief work is when someone stops trying to get through their grief and instead learns how to carry it. Grief isn’t a problem with a fix. It’s the natural, ongoing shape that love takes once someone is no longer here to receive it directly. Trying to rush it, schedule it, or reason your way out of it usually just adds a second layer of suffering — the pain of the loss, plus the pain of feeling like you’re failing at healing from it.

Permission changes everything here. Permission to still be grieving a year later. Permission to feel relief alongside sadness. Permission to not be ready to “move on,” because moving on was never really the goal — moving forward, with the loss still folded into who you are, is.

What non-linear grief can actually look like

• Grieving in waves, with long stretches of steadiness interrupted by sudden grief “ambushes”
• Feeling multiple, even contradictory emotions in the same day — guilt and gratitude, anger and love
• Noticing grief change shape over the years rather than disappear — quieter, but never fully gone
• Being surprised by grief around anniversaries, milestones, or moments the person isn’t there to witness

If any of this sounds familiar, it doesn’t mean something is wrong with you or with how you’re grieving. It means you’re grieving like a human being, not a textbook.

Giving yourself permission to grieve at your own pace

If there’s one thing I’d want you to take from this, it’s to stop measuring your grief against a timeline that was never yours to begin with. Let it move the way it moves. Let it be messier, slower, longer, or quieter than you expected. There is no deadline on missing someone.

Healing doesn’t mean the grief disappears. It means you learn to hold it without it holding you under. That takes time — real time, not calendar time — and it deserves patience rather than pressure.

If you’re navigating a loss and would like support along the way, I’d be honored to walk with you. Reach out to schedule a conversation.