The Paradox of Grief, Part one.

We all experience loss. Loss of a loved one. Loss of a career. Loss of a dream. Loss of a relationship. Loss of a marriage. Loss of ourselves.

Grief is a deep sadness — a natural emotional response to loss. When we avoid grief, it adds suffering to an already painful loss and slowly steals our joy.

With my clients — and in my own life — I’ve found that grief is often the most painful emotion, and therefore the most feared and avoided. And that makes sense.

Grandmother’s Presence

Growing up, my grandmother (Ga-Ga) lived across the street. She was a deeply anchoring presence in my early life. When I was sixteen, she passed away after a brief battle with liver cancer.

We shared simple rituals — familiar routines, quiet moments that felt sacred. After bath time, I would sometimes change into one of her nightgowns instead of the pajamas I brought, simply because they carried her scent. I would laugh, be playful, and simply be myself.

She met me exactly as I was. I still keep a handwritten note she once left on my dresser: You are the very best of everything. Her love was steady, uncomplicated, and generous.

For years, she sat in the same spot on her sofa every afternoon, watching television while I was outside rollerblading, skateboarding, riding my bike, and playing with friends. It brought me comfort knowing she was right across the street.

Ga-Ga’s health deteriorated quickly. One afternoon, as I was preparing to leave for sports practice, I stopped by to see her and sensed it might be the last time. I stood in the doorway, torn between staying with her or leaving. I left.

She died that evening, just three months after her diagnosis.

I carried my pain quietly while others grieved around me. I was numb. I sat with my family at her funeral and wondered why I couldn’t shed a single tear.

It left a deep mark on me. Something inside me quietly shut down. In the moment I found out about her passing, I turned my emotions off.

Sadness. Pain. Fear. Anger.

It felt easier to live in denial, disconnect, and bury my grief.

Soon after, guilt settled in, and for years I carried the weight of not having had a final goodbye with her.

I wasn’t able to give my grief a voice, so it didn’t go away. For years, I lost myself.

That carefree, fearless part of me slowly faded. I didn’t allow myself to cry, and over time, I lost access to joy.

My unresolved grief grew as the years passed. I didn’t notice it for almost a decade, but the sadness never left — it was buried and slowly eroded my joy. I became numb.

After my grandmother passed, my family would gather in our living room to watch old videos of Ga-Ga, crying and laughing as they remembered her. I would leave the room immediately before they pressed play.

I moved away from the pain of grief, and therefore didn’t experience God as comforter in the healing journey from sadness back to joy.

I forgave myself for not saying goodbye to Ga-Ga the way I had hoped, trusting that she would want me to be happy, and recognizing it was too scary for my teenage self. Slowly, the guilt subsided.

She would never be forgotten, and I could be forgiven — living my life remembering the power of her love and the lasting mark she left on my soul.

In the waves of grief, there are moments of grace. Allow the waves of sorrow to wash over you, trusting that joy is near and will lift you back up.

How We Learn to Disconnect from Pain

Before we face adult loss, many of us learn early how to step away from emotional pain. This is a natural survival response.

When difficult experiences happen, especially in relationships where we don’t feel fully safe or understood, our nervous system learns to protect us by turning down emotion. Instead of feeling what hurts, we begin to analyze, adapt, or stay busy. Over time, this becomes a familiar way of coping.

This is why grieving present losses matters so much. Current grief often connects us to earlier, unresolved pain — not to overwhelm us, but to invite healing. When we allow ourselves to feel what was once too much, we create space for integration, restoration, and growth.

 

When Grief Goes Unprocessed

When we avoid sadness or don’t allow ourselves to grieve, anxiety and depression often follow.

Unresolved grief also quietly sabotages joy.

We can’t selectively numb our emotions — when we numb pain, we also numb joy.

Joy invites vulnerability, courage, and presence — we have to be willing to feel our sadness in order to heal.

Sometimes, when grief has gone unprocessed, we begin to fear happiness (Cherophobia) itself. Joy can feel fragile — as if it’s only a matter of time before something bad happens again. When we’ve experienced loss, disappointment, or emotional pain, our nervous system learns to stay guarded, even during good moments. Instead of fully receiving joy, we brace for it to be taken away. In this way, unresolved grief doesn’t just live in our sadness — it quietly teaches us to hold back from happiness too.

When grief goes unprocessed, many people live in fear of being hurt again, which leads them to self-protect by closing their hearts to others.

Over time, this self-protection limits their ability to experience deeply rewarding and intimate relationships.

I’ve found in my therapy work with clients that avoiding grief often becomes one of the undercurrents beneath unhealthy relationships, self-sabotaging behaviors, and addictions.

Suppressed pain doesn’t disappear — it grows deeper, and we become more vulnerable to finding unhealthy ways to numb it.

Unprocessed grief may also drive us to perfect, perform, and people-please our way through life.

Our self-esteem and identity often become tied to success, and we begin to feel we have to prove our worth.

This way of living typically becomes a form of self-protection from pain.

Managing an image of perfection often leads to imposter syndrome, never feeling good enough, and disconnection from our true self.

At times, emotional pain shows up physically because it can feel safer or easier to notice physical symptoms than to face deep emotional loss. Neuroscience shows that the same parts of the brain activate during both emotional and physical pain. In other words, your body experiences grief as real pain. A broken heart registers much like a broken bone. Loss leaves a mark not only on our emotions, but on our nervous system and in our body as well.

In my therapy work, I’ve witnessed many ways clients avoid grief, only to have emotional pain later surface as chronic fatigue, migraines, back pain, muscle tension, insomnia, and other unexplained physical symptoms.

When Grief Feels Confusing

Sometimes grief comes unexpectedly, even after positive changes — leaving an unhealthy relationship, moving from a job that no longer brought fulfillment, relocating to a place we’re excited about, or major life transitions like having children or experiencing a loss of independence.

Confusion often follows, because we feel sadness even over something positive or hopeful.

We might ask ourselves: Did I make a mistake? If this was what I wanted, why am I sad? We may even begin to doubt ourselves — or wonder if we misheard God.

We grieve even good losses.

By facing the reality of our loss, we can grieve what has passed and embrace the good that remains.

 

Loss Is Not a One-Time Event

Grief is a process — even though a loss may happen in a single moment, the experience of grief continues over time.

Grief is like an unwelcome visitor that arrives when you least expect it.

It whispers to us in unexpected ways and moments, catching us off guard.

There’s no right or wrong way to grieve, and time doesn’t always heal all wounds.

By avoiding the grief of Ga-Ga’s death, I lost the opportunity for healing, for being comforted, and for experiencing joy again, and was left in a daze of numbness.

By facing our pain rather than fearing it, we can begin to heal.

In my case, decades ago, I began healing by accepting the reality of my pain while also recognizing the life and love that remained.

I forgave myself for not saying goodbye to Ga-Ga the way I had hoped, trusting that she would want me to be happy, and recognizing it was too scary for my teenage self. Slowly, the guilt subsided.

She would never be forgotten, and I could be forgiven — living my life remembering the power of her love and the lasting mark she left on my soul.

In the waves of grief, there are moments of grace. Allow the waves of sorrow to wash over you, trusting that joy is near and will lift you back up.

The photo accompanying this article was sourced from istock and is in the public domain.