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I have a confession to make. I didn’t think about grief much before Dad died. I supported friends and family as best I could but believed the information and messages out there and not much beyond.

Until I lost Dad and felt totally adrift and lost, with epic levels of exhaustion and losing my appetite and drive for life. Grief felt like a pass to a different life, not aware of the rules or how anything worked anymore.

So, I leant on what I knew. The Five Stages of Grief Model was one of them. And as the emotional waves and thoughts and physical sensations washed over and around me, I tried to tie them to what I’d heard.

But it was so confusing. Only after working with a grief counsellor and throwing myself into art did I realise how much of our grief preparation is based on outdated models.

So that’s something I’m looking to change here.

Why the Five Stages fall short

Grief and bereavement have traditionally been viewed through the Five Stages Model. It suggests a linear progression through five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

However, modern insights and scientific understanding reveal a more complex picture of grief as a non-linear and deeply individual process.

While the Five Stages Model provides structure, and much needed certainty, it often oversimplifies the multifaceted nature of grief. And it was created from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ work with people who were dying, not from research on bereaved people.

This is an important context difference, and it’s led to pressure landing on people in unhelpful ways.

Many of us don’t experience grief in a sequential order, leading to confusion and self-blame when our feelings and thoughts deviate from this path.

The expectation to progress neatly through stages crushes those of us already navigating the heavy burden of loss in a complicated or prolonged way.

I sometimes wonder how much of this outdated narrative around grief contributes to us hurting more deeply or for longer than needed.

It’s worth questioning the status quo.

Embracing the Dual Process Model of Grief

The Dual Process Model is a psychological framework created in 1999 by Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut, showing how coping with bereavement isn’t linear but rather oscillates between two coping types:

1. Loss-Oriented Coping Mode: Direct engagement with the loss itself.

2. Restoration-Oriented Coping Mode: Adjusting to the life changes caused by the loss.

Their research suggests healthy bereavement adaptation involves moving back and forth between these two modes. It’s a more accurate picture of how we cope with grief.

I know my initial grief response was very loss focused and disconnected, drifting day to day but not attaching to anything. I felt guilty every day, questioning my thoughts and actions (“Am I bargaining when I wish he hadn’t died?”) and distracted by which stage I was in and why it didn’t quite fit.

Not long after, I looked up the differences between grief and depression because it felt so similar to my lowest depression periods, but also completely new. I was lost.

I also beat myself up when I could only muster a bit of focus on the probate process and dealing with his finances and estate. I delayed and delayed because it felt like I was ignoring his death if I focused on death admin.

It took a lot of effort to move into and stay in restoration or life-focused mode. But if I’d known about this moving back and forth concept being helpful back then, small steps into restoration would have felt like a win with less guilt.

This model recognises the fluid nature of grief, where emotions, feelings and energy fluctuate and coexist. So, by understanding that grief does not follow a linear path, we give ourselves the grace to feel what we feel fully without the constraints of a predetermined framework.

Feeling like we’re doing grief “wrong” layers on suffering when we’re already in pain.

Why your body needs both modes during grief

When Dad died, my body felt it instantly before my mind caught up.

Muscles and joints ached, my tummy was off, and I wanted to sleep all day but couldn’t rest properly. I disconnected, sluggish and couldn’t get going, wanting to shut down and ignore the world and this new reality.

My memory turned to sh*t. I left the gas hobs on for hours a few times. I thought I’d done things when I hadn’t. It was disorienting at best, scary as heck at worst.

I knew grief was stressful. But I didn’t realise it could feel this physical.

When you lose someone you love, your stress systems activate. The hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis (HPA axis) releases cortisol and other hormones to help you respond to threat. That makes sense. Loss is a threat. It destabilises everything.

For many people, those systems stay more activated than usual for a while. Sleep becomes lighter or fragmented. Appetite shifts. Your immune system can dip. Concentration becomes unreliable. You might feel wired and anxious with a racing heart. Or flat and slowed down. Or both, at different times.

This isn’t weakness but a body reeling and trying to adapt to a world that’s fundamentally changed.

This isn’t “just grief.” This is your biology responding to a major disruption.

Here’s why the Dual Process Model works with your biology, not against it

When you’re stuck in loss-oriented mode 24/7, like crying, looking at photos, regretting every “wrong” decision, feeling the full weight of the loss, your stress response doesn’t get a break or a chance to settle.

The body doesn’t register relief and there’s no signal that it’s safe enough to pause.

But when you consciously move into restoration-oriented activities, like dealing with practical tasks, going for a walk, making dinner, sending one probate email, you’re giving yourself permission to shift.

Actions might still be stressful, but doing small, discrete tasks offers a beginning, middle, and end. That completion gives your system a different input.

Not “the loss is gone,” because it isn’t. It signals “I can still function and manage life tasks.” And that matters.

Your body is built for shifts. Periods of activation, followed by partial recovery. Grief throws that rhythm off its axis.

Moving deliberately between loss and life helps realign it.

You’re not avoiding grief. You’re reducing the load on a system that’s already stretched

Focusing on restoration-oriented activities isn’t avoiding grief. It’s making space for it. Because life does keep moving, even if we don’t want it to.

I felt guilty every time I focused on Dad’s finances, sending emails and death notifications to so many organisations. It felt like forcing myself to move away from what he meant to me, when I focused on his estate and admin issues.

But dealing with his estate wasn’t a distraction from grief. It was a way to regulate my stress response and take breaks from feeling the loss at such a raw, emotional level. And it’s not like we don’t still cry when we’re dealing with death admin.

Nostalgic waves wash over us, we get lost in the “what ifs” but we return to a task that moves us forward, even if it’s just an inch.

This is why my coaching work starts with the body: sleep nutrition, movement, hydration. When your HPA axis and body are dysregulated, you don’t always have the energy for deep emotional processing.

And that’s OK because you’re in survival mode. But helping body basics creates the conditions to do that in a healthier, more sustainable way.

The Dual Process Model isn’t just a psychological framework but offers a way to actively manage your stress physiology and function. Oscillating between loss-focus and life-focus isn’t weakness. It’s regulation.

It’s your body’s way of coping with something that otherwise overwhelms your biological systems completely.

The benefits of a non-linear approach

Your body is built for movement, for shifts away from and back toward baseline. That’s how it adapts to change.

The Dual Process Model works because it works with how your stress response functions, not because it follows some therapeutic ideal.

Loss-oriented and restoration-oriented modes aren’t stages to complete. They’re states your nervous system and mind can move between to feel steadier over time.

And if you’ve felt off for a while, you’re not failing and you’re not behind. Your biology is doing what it evolved to do, which is helping you survive loss whilst continuing to function in a world you wish would stop but won’t.

The day I finally filled in one probate form and then went for a short walk without apologising to Dad in my head, that was oscillation.

Not progress through a stage or guilt about doing something. Just movement.

And that’s enough.

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P.S. If you're curious about exploring your grief in a more flexible way, check out my self-guided workshop Navigating Grief With Compassion. I have a section with a fillable template about the Dual Process Model to try yourself.

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I was still groggy from my afternoon nap when the doctor called to say Dad had died.

I shook uncontrollably. The rest of the call was a blur.

I got off the call and the phone slipped from my hand. I collapsed from the sofa onto the floor and released the most inhuman howl from the core of my body.

Pure, raw grief.

But relief didn’t appear then. It appeared later and that’s what surprised the hell out of me.

When relief after loss feels weird

Later that night, my brother and I went to see his body in the ICU red zone. Only two people allowed during COVID, so Mum never got to see him.

Wrapped in layers of PPE, we cautiously walked into the dimly lit and stark room. My tears and snotty nose filled up my mask. I could barely breathe.

I leaned over his body, expecting to see pain etched on his face. With every organ failing, breathing getting harder, body crumbling, I thought the stress would still be there.

He looked peaceful. Like he was asleep.

And I felt that first flush of relief.

Not because he was gone. Because his body was no longer working so hard just to stay alive.

But it was short-lived.

The shame reflex is strong after relief

The judgement flooded in almost immediately.

“What kind of daughter feels relief when her Dad is dead?”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Did you want this? How could you?“

My stomach turned and my damp, clammy cheeks burned up under the layers of all that PPE.

I felt uneasy. Queasy. Unworthy.

Again it was hard to breathe. I turned away from his face, unwilling to share my messed up thoughts and emotions with him.

Ashamed.

But it turns out relief after parent loss is most common after illness, suffering, or uncertainty.

It’s not an emotional preference or a verdict on love. Even though we layer that crap on top afterwards to feel worse than we already do.

No, it’s a nervous system and mindset response once a sustained threat has finally ended.

When someone you love is seriously ill, your brain and body stay in constant vigilance. You're monitoring every change, bracing for worst-case scenarios, living in uncertainty.

This sustained state is metabolically and emotionally expensive.

And when loss happens, the stress load drops even while sadness, longing, and love remain in the mix.

Relief often arrives when there’s clear evidence the suffering has ended. So when I saw Dad’s body at rest, looking peaceful, my brain got concrete information that his struggle was over.

My system was allowed to stand down, even if it was briefly.

So the problem isn’t the relief. It’s the meaning we attach to it and whether we take a compassionate or uncompassionate view about ourselves.

When grief is expected to look only like sadness, relief gets misread as coldness or moral failure. It drives our shame because relief feels wrong in that context.

In reality, love and relief often coexist, and one doesn’t cancel the other.

It means we saw how much the situation cost, and that this part of the story has ended.

What I’d tell you now

I still think back to that moment in the ICU. Dad’s face finally at peace, my own relief crashing into shame.

If I could go back to that sobbing, puffy and lost woman in that moment, I’d tell myself: “This doesn’t make you a monster. It makes you a human, and that’s OK.”

Relief and grief live in the same body, often at the same moment.

Love and exhaustion co-exist. And you don’t have to choose between honouring them and acknowledging the cost of their suffering.

If you’re holding complicated grief right now, the kind that doesn’t fit neatly into what you think you’re supposed to feel, you’re not alone.

Even if you knew it was coming, or it was a shock, don’t be surprised if relief appears.

And you don’t need to wear shame on top of everything else you’ve lost.

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P.S. If you’ve been struggling with your grief, I’ve created a self-guided workshop to help with where you are right now. Learn more and enrol to Navigating Grief With Compassion.

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Two years after my Dad died, I thought I was grieving. Turns out, I was also burning out. And I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

I was in my day job for just over a year by then. It started off positively enough. But a nightmare project and my people-pleasing pattern kicked in: long hours, trying to be all things to everyone. Add toxic colleagues and disrespect, and I found myself fully absorbed in the job.

The second anniversary of Dad’s death was a tough one. It felt different from the first because I put added pressure on myself: “Shouldn’t you be OK with this by now?”

I didn't appreciate how much long-lasting and intense grief impacts every day life: how I was avoiding the pain of grief by throwing myself into work, giving up my health and wellbeing for everyone else.

When we feel shaky inside, it's easy to grasp at external solutions for a sense of importance and value. I ended up in tears talking to a colleague, feeling like there was no way out of the pressure, the bad behaviour, the lack of boundaries.

But I hadn't realised, until I looked back on that time, how much grief was driving my burnout patterns.

Burnout and grief feed into each other

I'd survived a lot of pain in my life by that point, and avoidance always gave me relief.

People-pleasing made me feel useful. Perfectionism made me feel proud. Being a busy bee made me feel important.

These coping strategies started as survival, but they became constant patterns that cost me my sense of self, my health, my emotional wellbeing.

The more I tried to show I was 'back to normal,' the more exhausted I got. And I turned it all inward, being harsher and harsher on myself.

I felt cynical, depleted, frustrated that no one could see how much effort it took just to function.

Work felt meaningless. My life didn't feel like mine anymore. I was a robot, going through the motions, isolating myself because I was 'too busy.'

Shame and guilt kicked in and sat heavy in the background. How had life turned out like this again? Not asserting healthy boundaries. Not putting my health or values first. I’d abandoned myself.

But when I stopped or slowed down, I just really missed my Dad. It still hurt so much.

My burnout pain felt weirdly aligned with my grief. Both felt unbearable, so in a twisted way, it matched how much I was hurting inside.

Now, I notice these patterns in myself and my burnout clients. And how grief drives us into burnout, and how burnout intensifies our grief without us realising.

They feed each other.

If you've felt like this, whether it's months or years after losing a parent, you're not alone, and you're not failing.

What you're experiencing has a name, and understanding it changes everything. So, let’s talk about what the research actually shows, because knowing you’re not alone in this pattern can be super relieving.

Most of us grieve resiliently, but not everyone

I've always wondered how some people deal with obstacles and challenges better than others.

We now know it's a combination of biological, psychological and social inputs, but it doesn't stop us comparing our reactions to everyone else and feeling sh*tty when we struggle to cope.

We often talk about grief as if it follows one predictable path. But the research doesn’t support that.

Longitudinal grief studies show that people don't move through the same experiences at the same pace. Instead, they follow different 'grief trajectories’.

Work led by Resilience expert, George Bonanno, which followed bereaved people for years after a loss, consistently found a small number of broad grief trajectories rather than one “normal” or standard response.

Since his early studies, here's what the research consistently shows:

• Most people (around 60%) grieve resiliently: the loss is painful, but life gradually reorganises and grief integrates

• Some people (around 20–30%) struggle at first, then slowly adapt

• A smaller group (around 10–20%) follow a non-resilient trajectory, where grief remains intense and disruptive over time

People who fall into this non-resilient trajectory often experience what researchers call prolonged grief (or sometimes still known as complicated grief). It’s not a judgment about how much you loved someone or how ‘strong’ you are.

It’s simply a description of a grief pattern where the loss continues to feel intense and disruptive over time, rather than gradually integrating into your life.

What prolonged grief actually looks like

Those of us who fall into this non-resilient trajectory are often functioning on the outside in one way or another. We’re working. We’re showing up. We might even look “back to normal”.

But internally, the loss is still live.

It often looks like:

1. Life narrowing rather than slowly widening again.

   Sometimes we avoid the loss and reminders the person is gone, but other times we bathe ourselves in it.

2. A lingering sense that the world, or the self, has fundamentally changed.

   I felt like I was drifting for months. Untethered. Nothing felt the same again, even years later.

3. Disbelief about the death.

   I still forget Dad has gone and wonder how it all happened. I know it did, but something still feels unreal somehow.

4. Intense waves of emotional pain that continue months or years later.

   This happened listening to a song yesterday. Tears and sadness. It still hits.

5. Difficulty reconnecting with purpose, direction, or a sense of “this is my life”.

   This one has been particularly strong for me, and this Substack is a key part of expressing a different purpose and legacy I want to (need to) build.

6. Finding it hard reintegrating into relationships or activities, perhaps leaning on unhelpful coping strategies like staying constantly busy, overworking, people-pleasing, perfectionism, or distraction.

   My burnout patterns kicked in quickly when I felt that deep emptiness and grief void. They took over and drove me to exhaustion and despondency until I stopped and let myself explore the ongoing impact of losing Dad on my life.

This isn’t about grieving wrong.

It’s about a loss that changed more of our reality than expected, and never fully settled.

The thing is, I didn’t recognise this as prolonged grief at the time.

I thought I was coping. I was working hard, staying productive, holding things together. Looking back, I don’t know how I survived it.

But I didn’t need more time. I needed understanding and self-compassion.

Why do some of us struggle to adapt to losing a parent?

Research suggests that those of us who struggle to adapt after a loss aren’t weaker or less resilient. Our grief tends to touch more fundamental parts of life.

This often happens when the person who died was tied to identity, meaning, or emotional safety. I always felt more connected to my Dad than the rest of my immediate family, so his loss made those family dynamics shift massively. I’m still figuring out what that looks like.

When someone keeps going, takes on responsibility, and stays “functional” rather than being supported, grief can get ‘stuck’.

And when avoidance looks like staying busy or useful or earlier losses or adversity sit quietly in the background, we don’t process the underlying issues or feelings. There’s little space to make sense of what the loss means for who you are now or in the future.

In these situations, grief doesn’t integrate on its own. Not because time failed but because adaptation needs deeper understanding, support, and space, not just endurance.

For many people, grief integrates.

For others, it doesn’t and needs more care and exploration.

Key takeaways

If your grief softened with time, that’s a common and healthy outcome.

If it didn’t, that doesn’t mean you’re broken, weak, or failing at grief. It means time alone wasn’t enough to help your system adapt to what fundamentally changed.

What helps isn't forcing yourself back to normal or comparing your path to other people's. It's understanding how grief works, reducing self-blame, and creating the conditions where the loss can integrate into your life rather than dominate it.

You don't need to avoid the hurt anymore. You can learn to carry it without it carrying you. And you don't have to figure it out alone.

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P.S. If this post resonated, I’m pleased to launch my new self-paced and on-demand online workshop, Navigating Grief With Compassion, to help you find steadiness with your grief without feeling rushed, judged or pressured to '“move on”. Enrol here.

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Many people can’t sleep after losing a parent, but I couldn’t stay awake.

This was weird to me as I’ve had insomnia for most of my life. Either struggling to get to sleep or stay asleep.

But after dad died, and after other losses I’ve had, I can’t seem to stay awake. Day or night.

Like wading through treacle, I couldn’t summon enough energy to get out of first gear for months.

My body heavy and my thoughts slow and clunky. My entire being dragged downward into the sofa or mattress.

Grief wasn’t keeping me awake but pulling me under.

Speaking to others who’d recently lost a parent, I realised they also struggled to sleep.

Racing thoughts. Panic. Worry. Loops of “what ifs” or “if onlys” cycled minute after minute.

And looking at the research, sleep disruption is one of the most common grief symptoms.

However, the research skews towards the insomnia, restless version.

There’s not much on hypersomnia, or oversleep, so I’ve done more digging to work out what’s going on.

Here’s how these sleep disruption patterns show up.

Sleep disruption after loss doesn’t follow one path

There isn’t just one way grief shows up in your sleep.

Some of you might follow a resilient path where sleep is disrupted for a bit and then settles into a normal rhythm again. It’s actually the most common pattern.

Others follow a recovery path, where the nights are rough at first, but gradually improves over months or even years.

And then there are some of you who might have a chronic sleep disruption path, where sleep issues linger for a long time after the acute loss has happened.

This is why one simple “fix” doesn’t work for everyone.

And more recent research shows that sleep disruption doesn’t just reflect grief. It can shape it, increasing both the intensity and how long it lasts.

The “restless, wired” version of sleep in grief (insomnia)

Losing a parent is one of the most stressful life experiences you’ll have.

When it happens, you might find yourself caught in a frustrating loop of deep exhaustion alongside an inability to fall or stay asleep.

My neighbour fell into this camp after she lost her dad at Christmas.

She was in a hyper-aroused state where her nervous system couldn’t stand down or rest.

Maybe it’s the shock of the loss, what was going on beforehand, or even personality traits. Or all these influences how long and intensely you stay in alert state.

Thinking habits like ruminating (so many “what ifs”), loss processing, and desperately trying to make sense of it becomes a problem your brain struggles to solve.

And yet, it keeps trying.

It bounces around trying to find logic in a confusing process. It tries to update maps of someone who was there but is now gone.

If you’ve got this sleeping pattern, you might notice:

• Difficulty falling asleep despite intense exhaustion

• Middle of the night waking up with racing thoughts

• Early morning waking up but unable to get back to sleep

• Rumination thinking loops about the loss and related changes, maybe about you, them, or something else

If you’re struggling with persistent grief, this intense stress response system gets stuck in the “on” position.

Hypervigilance and that “always alert” state, helps you scan for threats to keep you alive. It’s a key survival mechanism of the stress response.

But when you’re still scanning for the person who should be there but can’t find them, your mind and body take a hit.

The connection to your important people works against your ability to rest and recover from intense stress.

And it’s not the only way our sleep gets messed up.

The heavy, “walking-zombie” version of sleep in grief (hypersomnia)

What I discovered nosing around the research is how little there is about this other sleep disruption pattern.

The one I had with overwhelming fatigue and an increased sleep need that never felt satisfied.

I realised it wasn’t laziness or depression (though it might accompany depression if you have both).

And boy did I keep Googling it when I couldn’t focus and got bored of anything outside my weird thoughts.

But just because it’s a lesser-studied physiological response, it doesn’t mean it’s not normal.

If you’ve got this sleeping pattern, you might notice:

• Difficulty staying awake and a constant pull towards sleep

• Feeling exhausted even after long sleep or deep rest

• Never feeling fully alert, even during the day

• Sudden drops in energy meaning you need to lie down or nap right now

There might be a few things going on if you’ve got this exhausted sleep pattern.

From a biological perspective, grief and bereavement is physically expensive.

There’s a huge cognitive and metabolic load when you’re paying out these grief taxes from an overwhelmed body budget.

Making sense of loss and continuing your everyday activities on top of this needs a lot of resources.

And your brain gobbles up any energy it can find to essentially restructure your new world reality after loss.

Other studies have found grief triggers body-wide inflammation and stress responses that present as deep fatigue.

If you’ve had “bereavement fatigue”, you know it isn’t just feeling tired, like after you’ve had a few late nights partying with pals.

It’s a bone-deep exhaustion that covers your whole being as you navigate the physiological impact of loss.

Sleep disruption is a normal response to loss, but it does get better

Many of you will experience one end or the other of sleep disruption. It can happen within the same week or even the same day.

I found I couldn’t sleep for a few days, especially after we buried dad. I kept thinking he’d be cold in the ground, and that I should go check on him, just in case.

But suddenly I couldn’t stay awake for more than a few hours at a stretch.

I wanted to face plant where I was and pass out from exhaustion.

Neither sleep pattern suggests you’re handling grief “wrong.” There’s no right way to grieve, and our minds and bodies do unusual things under extreme stress, sadness, and panic.

Grief and loss are one of the most intense versions of these.

So, these disruption patterns aren’t character flaws or signs of weakness.

It’s your body’s attempt to stabilise itself after a fundamental earthquake has shaken the ground beneath you, your identity, and your daily life.

It’s no small feat to rebuild yourself and keep doing the everyday stuff on top of this.

Whether you’ve got insomnia or hypersomnia, realise it’s a normal, physiological response to loss.

And yeah, it’s bloody annoying and sometimes scary. But your body isn’t betraying you, so sprinkle in some self-compassion if you feel frustration or fear creeping in.

I had to relearn talking to myself as a kind friend would and lean away from self-criticism.

From my personal experience and working with coaching clients, beating up a stressed mind and body with more stress rarely works.

And from the longer-term studies, sleep quality does improve for most bereaved people.

It might take you longer, or maybe you need to put in specific effort, like cognitive behavioural-based practices, but sleep can and does get better.

Don’t lose hope if you aren’t there just yet.

A small and quiet sleep check-in to try tonight

Of course, check with your GP if things are troubling or confusing, but you don’t have to jump straight to sleep aids or fixes to get a sense of what’s going on.

Try this simple reflection as you prepare for bed to understand your sleep pattern right now:

• “Does this feel like my system is wired, or wiped out?”

Noticing is the first step. You don’t need to fix anything right now. Just work out which way your sleep pendulum is swinging tonight.

The goal here isn’t to force normal sleep patterns immediately after loss. That’s often impossible.

It’s to work with your body rather than against it. And recognise these disruptions are part of your grief process rather than a separate problem to solve.

Key takeaways

Grief affects sleep in opposite ways, from stubborn insomnia to overwhelming fatigue. Both patterns are normal physiological responses to loss.

But sleep disruption during grief isn’t a coping failure, but your body attempting to process enormous change. And most of you will recover with better sleep over time.

When you notice whether your system feels “wired” or “wiped out” on any given night, you have a useful data point.

You can choose to work with rather than against your body’s current needs.

It’s one of the most compassionate gifts to give yourself when everything seems bleak.

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P.S. What sleep pattern shows up for you after grief and loss? Let me know in the comments or hit reply.

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It'll be 4 years since my dad died this Thursday.

Every deathiversary feels different. But a constant is some form of guilt or regret about how I didn't appreciate him enough when he was here.

I'm faffing with headphones he gave me and feel sad I’ve left it it so long to charge and try them.

I look at the bay tree finally planted in my garden and feel a guilt pang because he wanted me to take it five years ago.

Regrets are part of life. But guilt and grief are constant companions.

And I’m starting to understand why.

Guilt is baked into “being a good son/daughter”

When my dad died, my guilt wasn’t just about medical decisions. It linked into a bigger story, namely the Was I a good enough daughter? Did I show up enough, appreciate him enough, call enough? one.

Researcher Jie Li defines bereavement guilt as:

“…a remorseful emotional reaction in grieving, with the recognition of having failed to live up to one’s own inner standards and expectations in relationship to the deceased and/or the death.”

Jie Li, 2014

I still feel guilt about that Monday night I’d absentmindedly turned my phone to silent while dad was in hospital. I’d missed the early morning calls from them sharing that he’d slipped into unconsciousness overnight and was now in ICU.

I didn’t realise it was the last time we’d speak on that Monday night when he called early evening. He seemed more coherent than previously, so I remember thinking he was taking a turn for the better.

How wrong I was.

It must have taken so much effort for him to call and share what was on his mind.

Damn.

Research consistently shows that guilt is one of the most common emotional themes in grief, not a personal glitch or character flaw.

It’s a normal emotional response after parent loss especially around the idea of, “I should have done more for them.”

It shows up enough that we even have a Bereavement Guilt Scale to measure different flavours of it, like responsibility, indebtedness, survivor guilt, general guilt.

If you’re in a culture with strong expectations about how you should care for your parents, the guilt ramps up even further. It might not show up as “I killed them,” but more quietly as “I didn’t live up to what a good son/daughter should be.”

Aspects of guilt, such as responsibility guilt, indebtedness guilt and degree of guilt feeling, can predict prolonged grief disorder or depression.

This resonates with my Asian background and my deep need to be a “good daughter”.

Even when my mates tell me I did enough, those ridiculously high inner standards are hard to shift. Guilt slots straight into that void.

Caregiving for a parent: guilt, relief, and the “did I do it right?” loop

If you were or are involved in your parent’s care, the guilt script gets even louder.

Studies with adult children in caregiving roles, and young adults who lost a parent to cancer, all point the same way: the more responsibility and love you felt, the more likely you are to carry thoughts like:

• “I didn’t do enough.”

• “I chose the wrong thing.”

• “If I’d pushed harder, they might still be here.”

This story revisits me regularly when I replay my time as dad’s next of kin, with the hospital decisions, the consultant conversations, the complex shitty options chats over the phone.

Maybe if I’d broken the quarantine rules and parked myself in the ICU waiting room, I could have advocated for him more directly in person. There might have been other tests I wasn’t aware of that could have indicated the multi-organ failure earlier.

I know logically that I did what I could with the information I had and the restrictions in place. But grief doesn’t care about logic.

The research suggests this kind of guilt is strongly linked with more intense grief and depression, not because you actually failed, but because the brain quietly turns:

“I wish it had been different”

into

“Their death proves I failed them.”

It’s not particularly helpful or correct, but a story that fits a wonky self-story we don’t challenge when we’re grieving and exhausted.

And because the outcome (their death) is final, the brain treats it as “proof” that we picked wrong, even when no option would’ve led to a happy or different ending.

Relief and guilt can coexist

There’s another layer people don’t talk about enough: relief.

Depending on our personal grief experiences, caregivers for elderly or very ill parents commonly report feeling relieved the suffering is over, and guilty for that relief.

When the doctor told me dad had passed, my first thought was “Oh god, no. Please no.”

A second thought floated through: “Thank god he’s not suffering anymore.”

My third thought was “What kind of daughter feels relief? I’m terrible.”

It’s a totally normal emotional conflict, and not proof you didn’t love them enough.

It’s actually compassion in action. You didn’t want them to suffer. Of course there’s relief when the pain, confusion or indignity ends.

But then we twist that into a story that we “wished our person away” or “didn’t fight hard enough to keep them here.”

The more you avoid, suppress or obsess over the painful bits, the easier it is for guilt to take over and write the script for you.

Part of bereavement is gently challenging these narratives when they start to harden into facts:

• Is this guilt telling me the truth?

• Or is it just the loudest voice in the room right now?

If we don’t question it, guilt quietly becomes the judge, when really it’s just one witness with a very narrow perspective.

One small thing to notice if guilt is noisy

If guilt is loud right now for you, try this:

Pick one guilt thought that keeps circling or looping (for example, “I should have done more”).

This week, when the headphones guilt kicked in, I tried something different. Instead of spiralling with the “I should have used them sooner,” thought, I reframed it and myself: “What does this guilt show me I cared about?”

I realised it showed me how much I valued his gifts and what a caring, kind dad he was. Whether it was big or small, he thought of something I might like and need.

That’s not failure, but a wistful love looking for somewhere to go.

So, maybe explore what guilt is really trying to tell you.

Key takeaways

Guilt is often baked into how many of us define being a “good son/daughter”, especially if we were carers or decision-makers. It’s common, not a character flaw or moral failing.

The research shows that intense, ongoing guilt, particularly “I failed them” self-blame, is linked with heavier grief and depression, even when you did everything you reasonably could.

Feeling relieved their suffering is over doesn’t mean you loved them less. It usually means you cared deeply and wanted the best for them.

This Thursday, when the guilt shows up, and I know it will, I’m going to try something different. I’m going to ask it what it’s really protecting.

Because underneath “I should have done more” is usually just love that hasn’t found a peaceful place to land yet.

And maybe that’s enough.

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P.S. I’m working on a 60-minute(ish) on-demand workshop to help you Navigate Grief With Compassion. Hit reply or comment below if you want to be one of the beta users to help me build it.

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On a chilly morning, a robin lands on the fence and looks straight at me.

Since dad died, robins feel like his calling card. A tiny, living nudge that he’s still wanders through my days and watches over me.

Early on, I go searching for others reporting the same feeling after loss. And I find them, lots of them. They see animals or other “signs,” also sensing a presence of their missing loved one. I’m not alone.

It’s his deathiversary soon, so I notice robins more. Maybe he’s weighing more on my mind as a result. Or maybe my brain is tuned to him because he mattered.

Both can be true.

What’s actually happening when I see that robin

After a death, many of us feel what researchers call a sensed presence, as if they just walked into the room.

At a family gathering last month, I kept catching dad at the edge of my vision. His walk, his shape. Him.

Others hear a familiar cadence, catch a whiff of their shampoo, dream vivid conversations, or trip over coincidences (songs, numbers, names, animals, car models etc.) that feel too perfect to ignore.

For me, it’s mostly during the day or early evening when we used to chat daily, not so much in sleep or dreams.

Scientists use dry terms for this like “post-bereavement experiences” or “continuing bonds”, but the gist is simple:

The relationship doesn’t vanish at death but changes its form.

Here’s what my brain is doing: It’s running a prediction system that spent years learning “dad = specific cues.”

Those cues, like robins, his walk, the middle aisle at LIDL, the clink of a teacup, are wired deep into my attachment system, the network that says, “This person relates to safety and comfort.”

When he died, the change was instant. But my brain’s prediction model? It lagged behind.

Our brains aren’t cameras capturing what’s there but “prediction machines”, constantly guessing what’s next. It updates those guesses or predictions with incoming data (from inside or outside contexts).

A loved one, especially a parent, becomes a high-precision expectation after years of breakfasts, footsteps in the hallway, or routines lived together.

So, while my brain catches up to its new reality, top-down predictions keep firing as usual for a while. They feel like a presence, a voice, or a sign, especially in places and moments where dad was usually expected.

I’m not making them up or hallucinating. My system is just trying to keep my world coherent under extreme conditions, while it relearns life without ongoing inputs. No wonder it feels so jarring at times.

Attachment keeps nudging my attention

Bowlby described the attachment system as an innate behavioural system we use to get close to a preferred caregiver, particularly under threat, stress, or fatigue. That person acts as a safe haven (to get comfort from) or secure base (to explore from).

We build internal working or psychological models of “who holds me” and “how I’m supported” from early life. It’s a network of well-worn pathways linking cues (songs, smells, routes, birds etc) with meaning, comfort, and safety.

If the bond was jagged or unclear though, the cues are jagged or unclear too. That’s why grief feels so mixed depending on the quality of the relationship.

I feel love, nostalgia, sometimes guilt or relief, all at once, and compare it to what I believe I “should” feel.

Studies show bereaved people automatically pay more attention to reminders of the person lost, and brain scans suggest those cues stay high priority.

In real terms, my brain still expects dad, so anything tagged to him gets neon-highlighted.

When there’s a person-shaped hole, my detection system tunes to anything that might bridge it, whether it’s a robin, a familiar aisle, or something else entirely.

Why I don’t dream of him much (and that’s OK too)

People often report the clearest sensed presence encounters in dreams or in that fuzzy, liminal space between waking and sleep.

I’m the opposite.

Although I usually dream vividly in colour and detail, I’ve only dreamt about dad once or twice. It upsets me sometimes, that I don’t see him that way often.

But that’s normal too, as studies suggest many bereaved people have vivid “visit” dreams, and many don’t. For those who do, they’re often comforting rather than scary.

For me, my strongest signals crop up when I’m awake, which fits the same picture:

The bond is right there in memory while my brain learns a new world.

Why naming this helps

Across cultures, continuing bonds with the dead show up through rituals or personal experiences. These are widespread and often comforting or neutral.

Having shared language for this matters. It helps us feel less shame and isolation so we can explore meaning and peace instead.

You don’t have to believe the same things as your neighbour to recognise it. My neighbour lost her dad a month after mine, and her sensed presence sign was a specific song the family kept hearing on the radio.

We know the experience exists, it’s common, and it says something about love and learning rather than weakness.

Note: Most sensed-presence moments are neutral or supportive. But if experiences are intensely distressing, very frequent, or include frightening/command content that disrupts daily life, it’s worth getting external support. Most of us won’t reach that point, but we don’t need to suffer alone if we do.

Back to the robin looking back at me

In one way, the robin isn’t proof dad watches over me.

My scientist brain says, “This is a beautifully tuned prediction-attachment–attention system doing its best with loss.” Nerd.

But my daughter brain leans into the moment as a reminder of a happy memory with him in the garden, watching the birds feed.

Both are true. And that’s the real point.

Sensed presence after loss isn’t a failure of reason or madness even if it seems like it. It’s a feature of being human, and evidence our brains keep people close while they learn a world we wish they never had to.

Key takeaways

Grief often includes sensed presence or signs, and I’m not alone.

It’s common, usually fine, and aligns with how a predictive, attached, meaning-making brain updates itself after loss.

Leaning into it helps us feel connected and find comfort with what we’ve lost.

And that’s a pretty special thing.

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P.S. What sensed presences or signs do you notice for your lost parent or loved one? Share in the comments and let’s learn from each other.