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Weeks after Dad died, I texted him some pictures of my garden foxes. I knew something was off and then I remembered. Oh, he’s gone.

It was clear I wasn’t OK. I took a few days off work. My voice sounded different. I moved more slowly. My face was puffy from tears and stress.

People knew I was grieving.

I felt held and supported by friends and colleagues. Family was a bit different because we were all reeling. Lost in our own loss.

The messages were lovely. Flower bouquets and cards. Softer tones aware of my closeness to Dad and the depth of my devastation.

No one expected normal.

The shift didn’t happen overnight. It happened gradually.

The quiet recalibration no one notices

I felt the silent judgment when I hadn’t looked for a new job after the last one ended months before.

Gentle nudges about what Dad would want me to do other than hermit myself away from the world.

But over time, I became more functional in a patchy way.

Back to a day job, which had its own stresses. I could hold conversations without tearing up (most of the time). From the outside, it looks like improvement. From the inside, it feels like sheer effort.

And at some point, the checking-in dissipated.

I don’t think it's intentional. We respond to visible distress. When it's less visible, the response adjusts.

We think our mates are doing better. We don't want to keep repeating “how are you feeling?” We don't want to keep picking at the grief scab.

But internally, the adaptation is still happening. Inside, the pain still bounces around, seared into our being.

We question reality itself and the point of going on.

“After the funeral, it went quiet…”

In grief forums, this comes up again and again.

• “Everyone was there at the start.”

• “After the funeral, it went quiet.”

• “They assume I’m fine now.”

Not because people stopped caring, but because the bereaved seem and look more stable and lives keep going on.

Once they're back at work, back in a routine, no longer visibly undone or falling apart, the world reads it as a form of “recovery.”

Sure, still delicate or maybe struggling at times, but they're getting back to life. What they don’t see is how deep down they’re still recalibrating. Still adjusting to who they are without that parent. Still noticing the absence in ordinary, unexpected moments.

At work, I could respond to emails. I could sit through meetings without feeling like I might unravel. But when a memory of Dad popped up because someone mentioned gardening, I craved someone to notice the magnitude of my loss.

But they rarely did.

Years on, I'll tear up in LIDL near the middle aisle of random offers Dad loved exploring, and the wave hits me fast.

Tight chest and throat. Breathing gets harder. Eyes water and sting with hot tears I struggle to hold back. Not collapsing. Just caught for a second by a trigger memory.

From the outside, it looks like hay-fever. Inside, it's like holding back a tsunami.

When “I’m fine” becomes automatic

By this stage, “I’m fine” becomes efficient. A reflexive reply when grief feels odd to bring up.

It keeps conversations smooth. No one wants to hear how you really feel right? It's an easy breezy social contract.

I mean how do you even reply to “I feel like I'm dying inside today. What about you?”

Yep, “I'm fine” avoids awkward pauses. It protects others from having to respond to something complicated or heavy.

Especially if you've always been the steady one. Reliable. “Strong”. The one who doesn't like making a fuss.

The habit isn’t about denying reality but rather greasing social wheels to get through the day. But damn it feels lonely, hiding the real parts of yourself from people in your orbit.

I'm sure your people will offer support if you speak up. But as a highly sensitive person, you try not to be too much for others.

It makes asking for help a bloody nightmare.

Creative expression creates space for what we need to hear

During my Art-Based Coaching Diploma, we started with our art story, because art can be a loaded term. It reminds us of school creativity, and the self-judging “I’m not good at drawing.”

But for myself and my clients, art and creativity helps make sense of what’s going on when words don’t come. It brings structure to the “feeling off” that distracts and makes us feel uneasy.

Visualisation lets unconscious feelings and knowledge surface when we create space for them. A new way to hear what has been painfully silent but intense.

Even if aphantasics, people who don't have mental imagery, tap into this but in a different way. Instead of images in their mind’s eye, they might notice concepts, feelings and physical sensations more. It’s about the process.

Eighteen months after I lost Dad, I ended up in tears after a visualisation exercise. I realised how much of my creativity was linked to him. As I created images on a big piece of paper about my art story, the grief wave arose in ways I hadn’t expected.

I thought I’d found some peace with that loss, but I’d actually crushed it down. That deep black hole and void I was trying to ignore was laid bare.

It unlocked a process that was tough but so vital in helping me move forward after loss in a way that felt meaningful, instead of going through the motions.

A Guided Meditation to figure out what will help

If you’re curious about using art and visualisation, here’s a guided meditation when you know you’re not OK but don’t know where to start.

1. Find a quiet spot, slow down your breathing and bring your attention to the breath coming into your nose, in and out, in and out.

2. Notice any tension in your body and release any tightness in the muscles or joints. I clench and let go to hone in on each area.

3. Close your eyes gently or focus on a point gently.

4. Reflect on where you'd like more support in your life. Try not to censor yourself through this exercise. Let what appears unfold without judgment.

5. Keep this question in mind: where do I need support right now?

6. Now bring to mind a woodland path. Notice the sights, smells, sounds, touch on your skin.

7. Keep walking gently along the path ahead.

8. Then something catches your attention, and you spot a clearing in the woods.

9. You wander over. There's a large log on the ground and on top of it, a medium-sized box.

10. You reach out to the box, take in the scene, and lift the lid.

11. What do you find in the box that helps you identify the support you need?

12. Notice the colours, shapes, sizes, textures. Abstract or real? Static or moving? Any other considerations you spot? Again try not to censor what appears.

13. Bring your focus back to your breath and space you're in. Slowly open your eyes and grab a piece of paper and pen and write down or draw what came up for you.

14. Reflect on what this brings to focus re the support you need. Is it specific people? Groups? Known people or anonymous? Face to face or online.

15. Express and journal until you run out of descriptions, suggestions and ideas.

16. Then pick your top 3.

17. Choose one to act on in this coming week:

    1. What's the first micro-step? A call? An Internet search? A text message?

    2. Write down when you'll do this and what you expect as an outcome. Lean into the benefits of this first and maybe tough step.

Don’t rush through this process. Let your mind and body guide you intuitively, instead of letting bias or what you think you need direct.

Allow yourself to get help because it's likely what you would do if you were asked, right? Give others the opportunity to be that for you.

There's no timeline on grief

The early weeks after parent loss are loud. Hectic. Disorienting.

They're when you spin off your axis and don't know what or where you need to focus.

The months and years after can be quiet and complex.

When everyone thinks they’re fine, maybe it's simply that they’ve learned how to carry grief without broadcasting it.

Or like most things in life, attention fades when we don't talk about it.

But absence doesn’t. Absence remains and it's OK if you still find it hard.

Grief keeps recalibrating in the background long after the room has gone quiet.

But you don't have to stay quiet with it.

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P.S. If you want a personalised live guided meditation to make sense of your grief experience, my 1:1 coaching programme Embracing Life After Loss is for you. Learn more here.

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I was taught grief follows death. There’s a moment. A phone call. A hospital room. A funeral.

Then an after.

But I've realised many of us are grieving someone who's still alive.

• A parent with dementia who recognises your face but not your history.

• A Mum who survived illness but never quite returned to herself.

• A Dad who’s physically present but emotionally unreachable.

• An estranged parent who still occupies far too much mental space.

There’s no clean ending here. You can’t point to a single day and say, “That’s when it changed.”

Or if you can, the change doesn't come with a formal ending we all understand.

Why this kind of grief lingers

I’ve grieved versions of Mum, who's still very much alive. And the hardest part isn't the sadness.

It's the inner conflict.

Sadness finds its level after time. But the situation never quite makes sense so there's a tug-of-war about how things “should” be versus how they “are.”

The constant questioning:

• How can I be grieving if they’re still here?

• Why do I feel like I’ve already lost them?

• Why does every interaction leave me slightly braced?

It's the kind of grief that destabilises because there isn't a real signal. No clear before or after.

It's why no one brings food or cards. No one checks in on the anniversary of a personality or relationship shift. No one marks the day you realised the relationship you hoped for isn’t coming.

My epiphany came in the middle of a therapy session. Tying myself up in knots for being the fixer but still disappointing to Mum, until the therapist said “It might be time to accept your Mum can't be the Mum you want.”

I was floored. “Can't be…the Mum I want.“ Hmmm, how had I never seen it that way before?

I finally had permission to be sad. To realise this was like fitting a square peg in a round hole, and likely always would be.

But it doesn't wrap things up in a nice bow, no matter how much we want that. Trying to explain why you're pulling away when they won't accept your version of reality.

Explaining to mates why you're not going to afternoon tea for Mother's Day because you don't want an argument.

Or trying to stay compassionate when you're exhausted with all their health issues, bad turns, or tough decisions when you're just over it right now.

So you retreat. You carry it quietly. You beat yourself up.

You decide whether you're ready for your next choice and what it means. Bracing yourself because you don't know how it'll go.

You feel relief on some days. Anger on others. Guilt for both.

You have the veneer of a functioning adult, having breakfast, showing up for meetings, managing logistics. Trying to muster energy to move or exercise.

But underneath, it always feels unresolved.

Unsatisfactory. Like an itch you can't scratch no matter how hard you try.

There’s a term for this: anticipatory grief. Or ambiguous loss.

Knowing that helped me realise it’s not just me. Not just in my head.

But labels aren’t the main thing.

The main thing is this:

Your mind doesn’t get a clean “after.”

So it keeps trying to update the relationship in real time, finding solutions, trying to find some meaning or sense to it.

Circling if I do this then that might happen.

There are thousands of possibilities which is why it's so exhausting.

But if you're unsure what you're really grieving, your brain keeps looking for answers in the wrong places.

Name the real loss

When there’s no clear ending, the grief becomes vague. And vague grief lingers like a bad smell.

Even though the penny dropped for me with my therapist, the real loss didn't become clear until later.

Until I started seeing it as loss and something to grieve. And I realised I was grieving the parental role Mum could never be for me.

Not for any nefarious reason in this case. Just the inability to be who the other person needs them to be.

And that I don't have to rise to it. I know she's not going to be who I wished she was. I can let the sadness and disappointment flow for that loss.

Recognise when the yearning for what others have kicks in. The jealousy. The “I wish I had that…” thoughts.

Which is why a practice that helps is deceptively simple.

Name the real loss.

Not the headline version. Not what you think it might be. Or how your mate or partner might describe it.

Not “I’m upset about Mum and how we argue.”

Get real specific.

Mine is “I’m grieving the Mum I needed but didn’t have. And might never have.”

Yours might be:

• “I’m grieving the version of Dad before dementia.”

• “I’m grieving the fantasy that one day we’d finally feel close.”

• “I’m grieving the idea that she would protect me.”

• “I’m grieving the hope that he would change.”

Or some other version of this. That level of precision feels brutal. Maybe disloyal. Because we don't really like airing our dirty family laundry.

It feels so vulnerable to admit, even to ourselves, so silence is safety.

Plus we get influenced by external judgement, because when someone is still alive, it feels wrong to grieve them.

Especially if they’ve suffered or are still suffering. Or others say, “At least they’re still here, or they are your parent, you should have some respect.”

But what you’re grieving isn’t their heartbeat.

You’re grieving a role. A version. A future that quietly dissolved whilst you were looking the other way.

Clarity reduces internal conflict

When the loss stays vague, the mind and body keep searching for something that makes sense.

• Maybe it will get better.

• Maybe I’m being dramatic.

• Maybe I expect too much.

• Maybe I should just be grateful.

You switch between hope and resentment. Between trying harder and pulling away.

But we get clarity when we name the actual loss.

That doesn't make it less painful. Lord no. It might intensify it because we've put a fricking laser beam on it.

But if the real grief is, “I never felt emotionally safe with her,” then you stop waiting for her to suddenly become safe.

If the real grief is, “He will never be the Dad I imagined,” then you stop measuring every interaction against a fantasy version of him.

This isn’t about blame. And it isn’t about cutting people off, necessarily.

It’s about accurate assessment with data that's true for you. And the right information helps us make more helpful decisions.

Acceptance here isn’t approval. It’s recognising what is, rather than what you hoped would be.

There’s a strange relief in that.

When I stopped trying to extract water from a dry well, I had more energy and appreciation for relationships that could nourish me.

To lean into my friendships with mates who accept me for who I am.

That doesn't make me cold. It makes me clear and discerning.

That clarity is kinder than endless hope that keeps pain stuck.

You don’t need a death certificate to grieve

You might have a single grief statement or many. With grief, we're not necessarily grieving just one loss.

So list as many as feel right. If you’re navigating a parent who is fading, changing, distant, or estranged, try this:

Finish the sentence.

“I’m grieving…”

And don’t edit yourself to make it sound generous or socially acceptable.

Write the raw version. Because no one has to see this except you. And if you aren't being honest with yourself, who are you being honest with?

Grief isn’t always about death or bereavement. It’s the loss of the relationship you quietly let go of, or need to.

And you don’t need a funeral to call it grief. You're still processing and adapting to loss, even if you don't realise it.

Sometimes the most stabilising thing you can do is name exactly what you’ve lost.

Not the person. But the version of them you needed them to be. Or the version of you that no longer exists.

It gives your grief your something to hang onto. And it's when you stop waiting for a phone call that'll never come.

So get specific and start building the life that's actually here.

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PS. If you’re carrying anticipatory loss or complicated living-parent dynamics, my self-guided course, Navigating Grief with Compassion helps you unpack the loss you're reeling from and find steadiness at your own pace. Learn more and enrol here.

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I didn't want to cry at Dad's funeral.

I needed to be stoic. To hold everything in because crying in public felt impossible.

My Mum wailed at the cemetery, and I gripped my best pal Shaheena tighter to steady myself.

But still, just quiet sobs I tried to swallow down.

And I kept doing this for years.

The emotions would spike - at my office desk, in the supermarket when I saw the instant noodles he loved - and I'd stuff them deep down. Style out the water leaking from my eyes.

Nothing to see here.

Until one evening when I finally let myself go on the train home from London Bridge.

I sobbed uncontrollably. Tears streaming, snotty nose, gulping breaths. Ugly crying.

And what happened?

Nothing.

No judging stares. No horrified looks. Everyone lost in their own thoughts or planning what they wanted for dinner.

That's when I realised I was making my grief harder than it needed to be.

All because of a fake fear that didn't exist.

We absorb grief rules we never agreed to

There are messages about death and grieving we absorb without realising.

That there's a “right” timeline for bereavement, a “right” way to grieve, a point when you need to be back to “normal”.

There isn't.

And these unconscious or conscious messages seep in, adding pressure to how you cope. Like a harsh Victorian aunt who beats you over the head with:

• “People are going to look at you.”

• “Why are you still upset about this?”

• “Why are you crying when you weren't even that close.“

• “You knew it was coming so why are you so affected?“

You're punished for feeling bad and having a heart.

Add to that cultural norms that being stoic is “strong”, and we've got a recipe for numbing out or looking for distraction.

But does suppressing emotions ultimately help?

For me, it was a very clear no.

Because the intensity came back 10x worse that made it hard to function.

And on the train home, sobbing freely at last, I learnt something: that emotions and feelings don't adjust to external “logic” or norms.

They show up to relay information about what's going on, both inside and how we exist in our environment.

They offer data we can choose to listen to or ignore.

And from my personal and professional experience, the more we suppress our emotions, the more they try to grab our attention.

What to do when grief hits mid-day, mid-sentence, mid-life

One of the hardest things about grief is that it doesn’t always arrive politely.

Nope, that would be way too convenient.

It shows up mid-day. Mid-sentence. Mid-life.

When you're about to join a call or your pal shares happy news which makes you remember your loss.

In those moments, trying to “figure out“ what you’re feeling makes things harder.

And sometimes the work isn’t about sense-making just yet. Sometimes it’s simply staying with what’s there without being overwhelmed or shutting down.

That memory. That wave of missing or yearning. That body-level jolt that knocks the air out of you before your brain catches up.

When this happened to me I'd get stuck trying to do one of two things. Shut it down and push through, or get pulled into analysing what it “means” and into thinking-loop purgatory.

Neither helped.

But I learnt to stay with the spike without amplifying it. To feel what I felt and keep going anyway.

I created the STEER Framework by bringing together grief research, neuroscience, acceptance and commitment psychology, and creative practice into something you can actually use in the moment:

S: Stabilise the moment

Start with the body, not the story.

When a spike or wave hits, your system’s already braced. Before you're able to think or understand, you need some physical steadiness.

On that train journey, I noticed my toes in my shoes and my feet on the floor. A small grounding action.

For you, it might be slowing your out-breath slightly or softening your gaze to narrow visual input.

You’re not trying to relax. You're creating just enough safety to stay present.

T: Touch the sensation

Turn your attention to what you can feel, not what it means.

Grief shows up as sensation first. Some body tightness, a heaviness, a buzzing or restlessness, a racing heart.

On the train, I noticed my chest tighten and it was harder to breathe. I was gulping for air as I sobbed.

I sat with it, observed it. Where it was in my body. How long it lingered or shifted.

No interpretation. Just noticing.

The sensation tends to settle when it’s noticed. Stories and judgement tend to intensify.

E: Externalise the energy

Emotions become overwhelming when they stay trapped inside.

Externalising means giving the feeling somewhere to land outside your head, even briefly.

For me on that train, it was letting the tears fall down my cheeks. Breathing out a little louder.

You might write one honest sentence, doodle lines or shapes, or make small, repetitive movements.

Maybe you'll say something out loud when you’re alone (or under your breath if you're not).

This isn’t about expression or insight just yet. It’s to reduce the internal load so your system isn’t carrying everything at once.

E: Evaluate capacity

Tap into what you have the body budget for.

This is the step most people skip.

Instead of asking “why am I feeling this”, or distracting yourself, ask: “what do I have capacity for right now?”

On that train ride, I had zero space to hide. I felt exposed but couldn't pretend it wasn't happening.

So I didn't.

In other situations, it might look like continuing gently, slowing the pace, taking a short pause, asking for support, or stopping for today without judging yourself.

Grief moves in spikes or waves, so respecting your capacity helps stay present and engaged.

You don't force yourself beyond your limits.

R: Re-orient yourself

Bring helpful direction back in.

You don’t get to choose when grief shows up. But you do get to choose how you steer when it hits.

After crying, sobbing on that train, I knew something shifted. I asked myself: “what matters next?”

I knew I had to look after myself differently.

Walk home safely. Eat a nourishing dinner. Sit with my cats and reflect.

Small but real steps.

Ask yourself: “What's the smallest step I can take that feels true to me right now?”

This is how you feel what you feel and keep driving anyway.

Not by pushing emotion away. Not by letting it take over. Not by beating yourself up for being human.

But by letting it ride alongside you as you feel the spike, surf the wave, and move forward as best you can.

An invitation

That evening train journey taught me more than I realised at the time.

Grief doesn't need permission. But I could let the grief spike, sit with it, and keep moving ahead.

If you're ready to practice staying present with what shows up: the grief, the fear, the waves, the noise, I’m hosting a small, in-person creative workshop next Saturday, 17th January, between 2 - 4pm, at BLEUR GALLERY & STUDIOS in Central London.

It's called: I Keep Driving Anyway.

We’ll explore this idea through a bus metaphor using guided mark-making and sensory creative practice.

No art skills needed. No pressure to share. Just space to practice and stay with what’s present.

I’d love to see you there. Select tickets here.

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I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have issues with sleep. Usually it’s insomnia, but after dad’s death, I couldn’t get enough of it.

Turns out hypersomnia or oversleep isn’t studied as much as lack of sleep in the grief space. Most people struggle with insomnia during bereavement so focus sits there.

And when I’ve coached people with sleep issues, the solution often begins hours before we even get into bed.

Sure sleep hygiene matters, the habits, environment, routines and so on.

But through my years of sleep disruption, I discovered something deeper that most people don't talk about: the connection between grief and safety.

Grief-related sleep increases our need for safety

How we think about sleep has a big influence on how easily it happens.

And during a session with sleep expert Dr. Nerina Ramlakhan, when I was an inpatient at The Priory some years back, I realised how important feeling safe is to getting quality sleep.

Deep grief after loss feels like a physical and mental assault. To our emotions, our body, our sense of who we are.

It changes how we perceive the world at a fundamental level.

Doesn’t sound very safe, does it?

So no wonder we struggle with sleep, either staying asleep, or staying awake when we’re overwhelmed.

My thoughts in deep grief ranged from thinking I might die soon, or how delicate life actually is.

I became scared of life in a way I hadn't expected.

Suddenly, the background hum was a feeling of dread and not knowing what the future would bring.

Of course our ancestors would need to feel safe enough to nap and rest when living in more dangerous environments.

But modern threats tend to come from within, and grief makes us feel fundamentally unsafe in many ways.

Those anxious thoughts, and overthinking loops. I remember being distracted by the ways I'd “let dad down” and didn't make the most of our time together.

That time I'd missed his calls when he came to have lunch near the office. How I took his thoughtful gifts for granted and had a go at him for spending money on me.

Now just thoughts and ideas with no resolution or off switch.

So even though we might be physically safe in our beds, our minds and bodies still register threats after a loss because the world has shifted beyond recognition.

I often turn emotional confusion inwards and blame myself for how I respond.

But self-blame doesn’t help, and ramps up the stress and threats we feel.

Instead, self-compassion, reducing pressure and sleep expectation weirdly improves it over time.

So instead of beating yourself up for having disrupted sleep, get curious instead.

Explore your relationship to sleep, not the sleep

Art and creativity have always helped me make sense of the world. Or helped me express what I couldn't say in words.

And after losing dad, creativity brought me back to life after I'd descended into a dark, lonely pit of grief.

Training as an art-based coach deepened my appreciation for how powerful art and mark-making are in shifting our emotions and world views.

I love how acceptance-based approaches to sleep focus less on forcing rest, and more on changing our relationship with the night.

So when we drop pressure on ourselves and soften the struggle and frustration, sleep often follows.

But that isn’t the actual goal. The goal is entering the night with less fear and more care.

A gentle creative practice for difficult nights

So how do you actually explore that relationship?

For me, art and creativity help, not because I'm trying to 'fix' my sleep, but because it's a way to be with the difficulty differently.

Especially when words don't come.

It’s a way to soften your relationship with the night, for less pressure, less struggle, and a little more room to rest, even if sleep doesn’t come.

Here's how.

And:

Then:

Before you start (2–3 minutes)

• Find a quiet spot where you won’t be interrupted.

• You don’t need to do this at bedtime, earlier in the evening is often better.

• Grab a piece of paper and a pen, pencil, or anything you like to draw with. You don't need fancy cartridge paper. A biro and A4 pad is enough if that's all you have.

There’s no right or wrong way to do this.

You’re not aiming for insight, beauty, a work of art or improvement.

Just expression and noticing.

Step 1: Draw your relationship with sleep

Close your eyes and breathe deeply for a few breaths.

Reflect on your relationship to sleep. Allow an image or sensations to appear.

Open your eyes, and on the page, draw or symbolise your relationship with sleep right now.

Not sleep itself, but what it’s like when you reflect on your connection to sleep.

It might show up as:

• an object

• a figure

• a scene

• something abstract

Let it be rough. Stick figures or random shapes are welcome.

Don't self-censor, just express.

If you can't see a mental image, focus on what you feel in your body and how to represent that as colours, shapes, textures, marks etc.

Step 2: Add the rules and pressures

Around the image, pause, and write any thoughts or rules that tend to appear at night.

For example, things like:

• “I must sleep.”

• “Tomorrow will be ruined.”

• “I should be over this by now.”

• “If I don’t sleep, I won’t cope.”

• “I'm so exhausted, I can't function without it.“

Try not to argue with these or try to change them.

Just let them be seen on the page instead of bouncing around in your head in loops.

Step 3: Shift from sleep to rest

Now gently ask yourself:

• If sleep didn’t come tonight, what might rest still look like?

Rest doesn’t have to mean total unconsciousness either.

It might look like:

• softness

• dimming

• permission

• stillness

• lowering effort

• drifting

Add something to the image that represents rest without trying or forcing.

Step 4: Choose how you want to be with yourself

One final question that leans into self- compassion:

• On hard nights, what kind of person do I want to be with myself?

Write one or two words somewhere on the page.

It could be:

• kind

• patient

• gentle

• steady

• non-judging

No need to act on it.

Just name it. Externalise it.

When you’re done

Take a moment to look at the page.

You don’t need to interpret it or make meaning from it right now, but insights might come over time.

The act of putting this down on paper is enough.

You've represented what might be a challenging experience, to get some distance from it.

Now this practice won’t guarantee sleep. But by reducing pressure and struggle, it can make nights feel less demanding, and not a personal failure.

Those tired-and-wired nights will still creep in here and there. But being gentler takes the edge off when things are already hard. It offers a different focus.

And that matters more than we think.

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P.S. What words, feelings or images come up for you when you reflect on your relationship to sleep? Share in the comments or reply to me directly.

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Poppy, my 16-year-old rescue cat, died quickly last Sunday, just before midnight. It broke me as she slipped away, laying between me and the vet.

Finally at peace.

Of course, that doesn’t stop the guilt and self-blame thoughts and feelings. If only I’d booked her heart scan a few months earlier or pushed back on her dental treatment. Her heart wouldn’t be under so much strain.

Bob is the only cat in the house again. Gazing longingly at the hallway waiting for his buddy/nemesis to pad into the kitchen slowly as he plots to steal her tuna when we aren’t looking.

Mixed into this is a small relief that she’s no longer suffering the twice daily meds, tiredness, and impact on her kidneys.

The sight of her fighting to stand right till the end, even though her back legs were paralysed, is burned into my mind’s eye.

But there’s nothing more I can do. And she’s taught me much over the past few months about how grief seeps into every part of life when you don’t realise.

It was also dad’s 4th deathiversary on Thursday, and new grief ignites old grief like nothing else.

I recall the times Poppy and dad mooch about the house, or how she’d wake up when his car pulls into the driveway to greet him on the pavement.

The pangs of guilt and self-blame creep in, as they quietly do, and I wish they were both still here.

Whilst Bob snoozes and snores quietly behind me, I reflect on the practices I’ve used this week to explore these familiar guilty distractions.

I re-listened to Neuroscientist and Psychologist Mary Frances O’Connor’s excellent book, The Grieving Brain (The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss), and it inspired today’s healing practice.

One section in particular hit me differently whilst in the ceramics studio, trying to turn over-damp pots on the wheel.

I pause next to my storage shelves and decide to use her “accepting” approach to manage the guilt monster when it inevitably arrives.

What’s driving the guilt monster?

When you’re grieving a lost loved one, your predictive brain tries to regain control from the chaos.

Uncertainty causes your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours to bounce around and latch onto anything that brings relief or a sense of order.

Guilty thoughts and self-blame often offer a taste of control, when you imagine “what I could’ve or should’ve done differently,” as if you have absolute power over events, but didn’t use it.

It makes the world slightly less unpredictable. Psychologists call this avenue of thought processes counterfactual thinking.

Even if it’s illogical or means you failed in some of the infinite scenarios and counterfactual thought loops, failure still gives you a sense of control.

O’Connor’s research also suggests the grieving brain struggles with death’s finality. You try to mentally seek or search for the lost person or loved one as your routines and habits skew off their axes without them.

Guilt fuels that search loop to keep you looking for solutions, and a way to bring them back to life somehow. This is why guilt and self-blame persist because they serve a useful purpose.

They give you the illusion you can still change something in your mental simulations i.e., in this one, the ending will be different and they’ll live.

Plus, when you’re a sensitive over-giver, you’re used to being the responsible, capable, and attuned one.

Loss throws that belief structure out the window and removes your agency. Going from the reliable one to the powerless one is an epic shock. Guilt steps in to bridge the gap.

Even though I know I did my best for Poppy and her care, I can’t let go of the thought that I could have and should have done more medically and emotionally. Done better. Kept her alive and safe.

It’s the same with my dad when I look at the plants I’ve bought in his honour over the years.

If only I’d done xyz, he’d still be here instead of the distracting guilt monster.

Accepting as a simple act in the moment

I knew the waves of grief for Poppy and dad would be strong this week, so I wanted to do something positive with the grief energy.

We bought a houseplant for each to nurture and grow, as that’s my way of creating a ritualised memory box to tend over time.

O’Connor describes how she used the process of “accepting,” shared in her book, when the waves of grief about losing her dad and now being an orphan crashed over her.

She makes a point of using the word “accepting” and not “acceptance.” It’s not forgiveness, approval or moving on.

Nor a grand permanent step that ties a weird but neat bow over everything.

It’s a practical, in-the-moment acknowledgement about what already happened and how you view it now.

Guilt tells you the brain is still questioning the past. Accepting allows you to gently step out of the argument and see it from a new perspective.

O’Connor describes it as setting something heavy down, knowing you might want to pick it back up in the future.

And that resonates, because you’re recognising the painful thought, emotion or feeling, or action in the moment when it appears, not avoiding it.

When the thoughts about not doing enough for Poppy arose, I paused, did the accepting practice, and noticed the tension in my chest soften slightly.

I wasn’t healed, but I stopped fighting enough to let the stress ease a little.

The weight lifted briefly, and I could breathe a bit deeper.

A simple accepting practice to lighten guilt when it spikes

When guilt or self-blame appears, it can happen fast. A sharp, niggly little thought that gnaws away at your psyche pretending to be truth when it isn’t.

A tiny “if only I’d…or I should have…” sneaks in to press against your chest and swipes your breath away. Or the urge to sob uncontrollably appears when you’re doing something unrelated.

I’m using a two-sentence accepting ritual when grief spikes out of the blue, like when you’re moving a barely made pot, unloading the dishwasher, or scrolling for a Black Friday offer.

It’s a simple way to quietly stop your brain from rushing to counterfactual thinking land or self-criticism that keeps you stuck in the past.

This is how the practice works when a grief spike hijacks. Take a pause, and say to yourself:

1. “This has already happened, and nothing I do now can change it.”

2. “I notice this wave of grief is here and I know it will eventually pass.”

That’s it. Noticing what appears in the grief spike, whether it’s a thought, an emotion, a sobbing heave, or something else.

No analysing why you feel or think this way.

No trying to problem-solve whether you “should” feel this sad, confused, or upset.

No barrister-level questioning of every decision you made while they were alive.

Just a pause or break to recognise what’s going on. That it’s real. It’s grief and you don’t have to fix it.

After Poppy died, my brain drifts into counterfactual thinking often. Replaying decisions, looking for clues, trying to find the one moment where I could have done something differently.

This little practice doesn’t stop the sadness or other heavy emotions, and it doesn’t stop the tears.

It just stops me piling on a second layer of self-blame over an already difficult experience.

The grief still appears, but when I notice it’s here and don’t get into a wrestling match with it, it doesn’t last as long.

I’ve tried the same practice when grief waves about dad rise this week, and it’s helped to ease the pain slightly in my mind and body.

A tiny relief is still relief.

Key takeaways

Grief waves will arrive, even when you least expect them. But when a memory or pang of guilt catches you off guard, try this quiet reframe:

• Pause.

• Say the two “accepting” sentences, even if you don’t fully believe them yet.

• Let whatever is happening be there without fighting. Be it tears, tight chest, that hollow drop in the stomach, or coulda/woulda/shoulda thinking.

• When it softens, even slightly, gently bring your attention back to whatever you were doing.

Accepting grief in the moment isn’t resigning yourself to a miserable life without them or avoiding they exist.

It’s acknowledging your loved one is gone, and that regrets and unfinished conversations belong to the past.

You’re allowed to keep living without forgetting them, as grief will hover just out of sight.

You just don’t have to turn every wave into a problem to solve or stick to beat yourself with.

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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 create it.

Photo by Moon Moons on Unsplash

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I’m standing at the Chislehurst War Memorial for Remembrance on a bright but cold Sunday morning, shoulder to shoulder with neighbours I've never met or spoken to.

I watch a puppy in the crowd play quietly with a small girl. Some have their eyes closed or heads bowed, but I observe and take it all in.

A leaf blows down in front of me and the smell of pine wafts through the air. The memorial stone looms high above us.

The two minutes’ silence starts and we're all here, quiet, sombre, reflective.

Just the hush, the cold, and a collective breath held together with a soulful murmur.

The silence settles in my chest like a weight but it steadies at the same time. Dad would be observing the scene too, jacket done up tight to stay warm.

I'm here thinking about him whilst we're supposed to be remembering the war dead. I ponder them too, but he keeps drifting into my mind.

I wonder what everyone else reflects on. Sacrifice. The ones who didn’t come home. Maybe the ones known and unknown.

I’m thinking about Dad again.

About how he’d be making a super hot tea if he were still here, and probably complaining about the leaky door in the car. And how we might patch it up to keep it going for another year.

The bugle sounds and the two minutes is gone. Flags gently raise. Everyone shuffles and shifts, coughs, comes back to life.

Standing here, I realise we don't talk about grief enough but these communal rituals give us permission. To stop, reflect, and keep a loved one close without having to “move on” and leave them behind.

Then it hits me. We can recreate this without the crowd or ceremony. Just the two minutes. Give ourselves permission for private moments of silence to remember without getting stuck.

Today’s Two-Minute healing practice

Dad comes to mind when I'm making a coffee and looking out at the garden. At the plants he gave me, slowly growing, and the plans we had for it.

The allotment corner. Changing the deck. Replacing the dodgy shed at the back. I run through the elements during this quiet ritual, and ways to keep his vision alive.

It's this private two-minute silent practice that feels so familiar today.

How It Works: Name – Value – Act

When: Set a daily cue (11:00, bedtime, or while making coffee.)

Where: Anywhere you can pause, even in a queue or on the sofa.

Time: Two minutes.

1. Name (30s)

• Say their name once, out loud or silently: “Dad, I’m thinking of you now.”

• Optional: a hand on chest to mark the moment. This isn't woo-woo but a physical anchor. Your brain marks it as ‘This is different from regular thinking. This is intentional so pay attention.’

2. Value (30s)

• Name one quality or value they lived or you shared (curiosity, warmth, grit, creativity etc.)

• Complete: “Today I’ll carry your [quality/value] by…”

3. Act (60s)

• Do one tiny action in the next hour or so that expresses that quality or value. Maybe reply kindly to one message, take a short walk they’d have loved, play your song whilst you cook, create something they loved.

• As you do it, dedicate it: “For you, and with you.”

Why it helps

Months after losing dad, I resisted focusing on how I felt about him. It hurt too much and I thought I couldn't cope if I gave in to it.

Then one afternoon making a coffee, it burst forward anyway. The intense pain, the grief energy, the sobs and the wail. My legs collapsed and I felt it all right there in the kitchen alone.

Ignoring grief doesn't make it go away, but stores it for later. This practice offers a softer way to embrace the loss without it taking over:

1. Naming it stops the wrestling. Labelling the moment and the feeling(s) gives your predictive brain context so it can focus on what matters.

   Adding a longer exhale helps the distress drop a notch. You switch from ‘flight or fight’ to ‘rest and digest’ mode.

2. Creating a ritual offers control. With a tiny script you shift to “I can do something with this.” Two minutes is deliberate so we touch the loss, then re-enter the day. That oscillation from grief focus then back to daily or restorative activities is the point.

3. Focusing on values makes the bond functional. Living one of their qualities or values turns the memory into behaviour. It keeps them here in a way that supports, not derails.

4. Small beats heroic. Daily(ish) two-minute acts teach your nervous system that change is possible slowly, without needing a grand overhaul. Consistency over intensity.

Gentle guardrails

If this practice ramps your distress (e.g., a grief wave or spike), switch to value-based acts only. Keep it brief.

If the spike hangs around or escalates, reach out to a friend or professional.

Be kind to yourself. Each time is new. And some days will be harder than others. This is normal.

Things ease, so leave judgement at bay.

Key takeaways

Take the two minute’s silence idea with you. My dad was practical. So I plan what we would have done together in the garden if he was still here.

That's how I keep him here. In quiet, gentle ways because a grand gesture or public speech wasn’t him. It was in the small acts that we bonded.

Two minutes. That's all it takes to turn memory into movement.

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P.S. If you try the Name – Value – Act practice this week, hit reply or comment and share what you did. I read every one.

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I drove home in the rain, tears streaming down my face, and missed my exit.

A song had triggered a wave of grief for my dad, who passed away three years ago this week.

Who knew Rhianna would set me off? (‘Stay,’ if you’re wondering.) I’d heard it earlier that day, but the emotional flood hit hours later, catching me completely off guard.

Grief is sneaky like that. Sometimes it’s an immediate gut punch but other times, it’s a slow cascade, building until you’re a blubbing mess with a pop song on repeat.

This anniversary, I thought I’d moved past the worst of it - gah, not again! But grief has a way of reminding us it’s not done with us yet.

Reflecting on that moment in the car, I realised how much both I and my life have changed since dad died. This was driving my grief and sadness.

My default grief-coping strategy has always been to get busy and stay busy, shutting out the pain. Classic Busy Bee and Marching Soldier burnout patterns.

But this year, the song brought something else to light: grief isn’t just emotional. It reshapes your brain, body, and energy, leaving you vulnerable to stress and how you engage with the world.

Understanding how grief impacts you isn’t just helpful - it’s essential. Let’s explore why grief is so exhausting, how it affects your energy and stress, and what you can do to recover and stay connected.

The impact of grief on daily life

In those early grief-stricken days, my daily routines were a mess. Dad and I used to text and chat almost daily.

Losing that routine was especially jarring. Every night around our usual 8pm chat time, something was missing. Like running up to the edge of a river bank but never jumping in - an invisible forcefield held me back.

I expected to talk to the doctors about his treatment too. That wasn't needed anymore, which felt weird. I was numb, confused and devastated. And so, so tired.

I kept texting him for a while after he died. About the cats, things I'd seen in the garden. Random anecdotes. Animal YouTube videos.

I knew I wouldn't get a reply but it was hard to stop the habit. He still seemed to be there.

It made no sense that he wasn't, even after I'd seen his body at the hospital and seen him buried.

This is the paradox of grief - your rational brain knows someone no longer exists on this physical dimension. But they aren’t physically there so where are they?

It was disorientating and around the same time, my day job and coaching project ended. Loss compounded loss and I dropped out of life for a while.

Full-on avoidance mode - bingeing box sets, movies and live online court trials.

I was mentally, emotionally and physically exhausted. I didn't want to connect to anything else.

Fearful of further loss. Isolation was a comfort.

My brain was working overtime to rewire decades of reality. No wonder it was tired, and struggled to find space for anything else.

The neuroscience of grief and why it's so confusing

Grief researcher Mary-Frances O'Connor explores the neuroscience of grief in her book The Grieving Brain.

One of her most fascinating insights is how the brain’s “place cells” explain why grief feels so disorienting. These cells, nestled in the hippocampus, create mental maps that connect environments to relationships, memories, and routines.

They store where our loved ones are in space and time, in addition to the posterior cingulate cortex, which encode how emotionally close we feel to them (“closeness”).

Predictive coding theory adds another layer. It’s how the brain anticipates what should happen based on repetition and probability i.e. over enough time, actions become autopilot habits using less effort/energy.

When a loved one is no longer where and when we expect them to be, this creates a “prediction error” the brain must reconcile. It’s not just about their physical absence but also the emotional closeness we still feel.

The brain struggles to reconcile how someone so central to our sense of self and our world is simply no longer there. They feel so alive in our minds that the rational knowledge they’ve gone doesn’t make sense.

It might be dad’s favourite chair sitting empty, or an 8pm phone call in my sitting room that never comes. That instant when reality didn’t match my expectations - it was like the ground shifted beneath me every time.

It’s a disconnection I’ve felt in countless little moments since (like a pop song reminding you of what’s missing). Your brain has to rebuild its map of space, time, and closeness and adapt to this new reality.

This process is cognitively and emotionally expensive and needs numerous repetitions to undo the existing predictions accumulated over time.

Grief is a relearning how to live process.

The brain’s cognitive overload of grief

This effort to rebuild mental maps doesn’t just feel exhausting - it literally drains your brain’s energy reserves. Neuroplasticity - rewiring the brain’s neural circuits and functions - takes effort and energy.

The hippocampus tries to remap memories, the amygdala amplifies the emotional weight and significance of the loss, and the prefrontal cortex steps in to regulate the flood of signals.

But grief doesn’t stay neatly compartmentalised - it activates networks across the brain, pulling resources from everything else and sending normal functions out of whack.

For me, that meant shutting down. After I lost my dad, I couldn’t stop sleeping or more accurately, passing out. My brain and body shut down because they couldn’t handle the load.

I’d fall asleep on the sofa in the middle of the day and no matter how much I rested, the deep bone-tiredness wouldn’t lift for months.

Even basic tasks like answering an email felt monumental. It was as if my brain had put up a closed for repairs sign, and I had no choice but to wait.

For my neighbour, who lost her dad a month later, it was the opposite. She couldn’t sleep, staying busy during the day but unable to switch off her mind at night.

This isn’t just about feeling sad - it’s about your brain running on fumes. Without intentional rest and recovery, grief leaves you vulnerable to burnout.

If grief is your brain relearning how to exist, it needs a large amount of neuroplasticity to realign predictions to your new reality.

This process needs rest and sleep to happen properly and efficiently. Not just in grief but at any time. No wonder your memory sucks and you can’t learn new habits when you’re burnt out.

Prioritising sleep is important, but particularly if you are trying to change your life, habits or build emotional fitness.

Notice where your energy is going - are you spending it avoiding grief, or on small steps toward healing?

Other brain impacts in grief

And the effects don’t stop there. Grief doesn’t just touch one part of your brain - it’s a whole-brain experience.

The Default Mode Network (DMN), which helps you reflect and imagine, goes into overdrive. It replays memories, runs “what if” scenarios, and imagines alternate realities, like a movie you can’t pause.

After losing my dad, I spent hours stuck in these loops, trying to solve a problem that couldn’t be solved.

• Did I call him often enough?

• Did I say the right things?

• Why was I so mean?

• What if I gave him COVID when I visited and that killed him?

I knew these thoughts weren’t helping, but my brain wouldn’t stop trying to find an answer that didn’t exist.

Then there’s cortisol, the hormone that floods your system under stress, particularly in the early days of grief. It’s there to help you weather the storm, but when cortisol levels stay high, it can suppress memory and impair emotional regulation.

Those first weeks after my dad’s passing are a blur - I barely remember who I spoke to or what I did.

Chronic cortisol release also weakens your immune system, disrupt sleep, and leave you vulnerable to toxic stress or burnout.

This is especially the case if you rely on avoidance or unhealthy coping mechanisms to get through. It might help in the moment, but gets in the way of recovery over time.

Grief asks so much from you because it’s about more than losing someone in space and time - it’s about trying to hold onto the connection you built with them.

It’s hard to reconcile the emotional closeness that shaped your life when they’re gone.

Rest, connection, and small moments of self-compassion aren’t just indulgences - they’re essential. They’re what allow your brain to adapt and rebuild, one step at a time.

Grief, burnout, and unhealthy coping

Grief amplifies predictive errors, forcing the brain to reconcile mismatches between expectation and reality.

Every small reminder of absence - a song, a location or even a familiar scent - triggers a fresh error, consuming cognitive and emotional energy.

This relentless effort leaves us drained, and grief’s impact extends beyond emotion. It disrupts interconnected systems, like the stress response, emotional regulation, and sleep cycles.

In my experience and in working with stressed-out leaders, I’ve seen how grief fuels unhealthy coping strategies.

Avoidance might look like overworking, numbing emotions, or staying constantly busy (like being The Busy Bee or The Marching Soldier burnout patterns).

While these strategies offer short-term relief, they leave unresolved grief stuck in the system, creating a vicious cycle of chronic stress and burnout.

Often we don't connect the dots, which is why coaching and talking to others is so valuable.

Avoidance delays the inevitable and compounds grief, fatigue and the connection with ourselves and others.

Neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barratt says “the body keeps the score, but the brain is the scorecard”. The challenge - and the opportunity - is to face grief and use your energy to heal your mind, brain and body rather than avoid.

Key takeaways

Grief, bereavement and loss are a part of life. It's painful but ultimately unavoidable.

We shouldn't be afraid of difficult emotions though, and managing our energy as well as emotional fitness helps us work through challenges.

Self-awareness is hard when we're grieving and overwhelmed, but managing your physical needs, like energy management, supports your emotional ones.

Stay alert to unhelpful coping strategies so you don't compound grief with chronic stress and burnout patterns.

Here are 5 practical solutions to explore when navigating grief:

1. Grief demands energy so manage it wisely

   1. Grieving isn’t just emotional; it’s mentally and physically exhausting as your brain works to update its mental maps and predictions.

   2. Prioritise rest, set realistic expectations, and practice self-care to preserve your energy for this demanding process.

   3. Remember rest is mandatory for successful neuroplasticity.

2. Engage in rewarding activities

   1. Your brain’s reward system remains tied to the lost relationship, making it harder to move forward.

   2. Introduce new sources of meaning and joy - creative pursuits, hobbies, or meaningful projects - to help your brain form fresh neural pathways for reward and fulfilment.

   3. Creative expression helped me immensely when words failed.

3. Face grief, don’t avoid it forever

   1. Avoidance keeps the brain stuck in unresolved prediction errors, prolonging distress. Sure, protect yourself for a time, but don’t prolong the fear you feel.

   2. Engage with grief intentionally through safe practices like journalling, therapy, or memory rituals, allowing your brain to process and adapt to the loss.

   3. Create a new reality to honour your loss.

4. Seek social connection

   1. Isolation amplifies the emotional toll of grief, while connection with the right people regulates it.

   2. Sharing your experience with trusted individuals or support groups drives oxytocin release, calming your brain and making grief easier to bear.

5. Build forward, not backward

   1. Prolonged grief makes it feel impossible to imagine life beyond loss. Our internal mental maps get stuck and don’t refresh with reality.

   2. Focus on values-based actions and goals that honour your loved one while fostering personal growth and renewal.

   3. This helps your brain adapt and find purpose without erasing the bond you’ve lost.

Grief isn’t just emotional - it’s a cognitive and physiological process that demands energy.

Understanding this helps process grief in a healthier way and prevent inadvertent burnout. It’s a relearning process so don’t remain stuck in the past.

Connect to what matters and a create a legacy for yourself and those you’ve lost.

Check out my latest self-care guide for paid members of Build A Better Brain - it covers energy management and emotional fitness worksheets to use today.

My latest Black Friday offer ends on Sunday 1 December - subscribe or upgrade now to get 20% off annual membership forever using the link below:

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My dad (Baba) died over 2.5 years ago and it broke me.

He got cancer during the pandemic but died of COVID during a second round of preventative chemo he was expected to survive.

I felt cheated twice over. F**k you death.

Baba was the sweetest man. He'd had a difficult life and although we hadn't always seen eye-to-eye, we were always close and in touch every day.

Devastated didn't describe the loss. I was utterly broken.

I understand now when they say you lose a part of yourself when a loved one dies.

My soul felt empty. Into the ether with him. It still does at times.

There were several endings during that period.

My freelance coaching project came to an end, as did my 2-year contracting day job.

Within a month of losing my dad, I was unemployed on two fronts.

Art and grief counselling helped me reconnect to life, and regain a sense of purpose and drive.

As new Father’s Days appear, another reminder of the loss kicks in but the impact is different.

Loss never leaves you but it changes with time.

The fog of complex grief blocks all light

Being the ‘sensible and strong one’ in the family, I had to sort out the funeral, probate and other practicalities.

I pushed through the first few weeks and once my employment ended, I hit a wall.

From what I’ve seen, those in grief either shut down and want to sleep all the time, or get wired and can't switch off.

I was the former. When my system gets overwhelmed, I'm like a robot with flat batteries.

Frankly, I can't remember much of the first 3-4 months of 2022. I don't know what I did with my time. My memories are patchy. I’d ended up with complex or complicated grief.

Complex or complicated grief is when intense, long-lasting symptoms of grief, together with ongoing problems and difficulties in coping with life, go on for more than six months after someone dies

Cruse Bereavement Support

I withdrew from life and vaguely kept in touch with others.

My mum had a knee replacement operation in January and I struggled to support her on top of our collective yet individual grief.

There was nothing left to give. As a people-pleaser and self-sacrificer, this was new territory. I couldn't even muster or feign interest or focus on others.

My mother hated it. Our relationship is still strained and the worst it's ever been for various reasons.

This grieving period was the start of the latest problems - the cracks have widened since. It’s clear that Baba was the glue in our family.

Over the months though, I kept looking at my art materials in the house, longing to create but not feeling able to.

Everything felt like hard work. The colours had drained out of life and it was like a black-and-white film. The days blurred into each other and became joyless.

It felt like it would never end.

Eventually, I reconnected my urge for creativity with the real world. It clicked after watching a YouTube video about poured acrylics artwork.

Baby steps.

This was new to me but looked simple enough to try. It didn’t have to be ‘good’. I just wanted to give it a go and experiment. It worked.

When you feel stuck, reduce friction and the barrier to entry so you take the first step. Done is better than perfect.

Tentative artistic footsteps return

I've always been artistic and creative. Something I got from Baba's side of the family - they were artists and ceramics potters, my grandfather having trained in the 50s in the Staffordshire Potteries before going back to Bangladesh to build his own ceramics factory.

I'd picked this up to as an adult and it weirdly came naturally to me. I never met my grandfather as he died when I was very young - apparently we’re similar and our handwriting is the same. I’ve mistaken his exercise books for mine.

It’s a secret connection to the past.

But since getting busy with the day job and starting a coaching business, art had taken a back seat.

Don't many of our hobbies suffer this fate? It’s sad.

Suddenly, I was inspired by this poured acrylic art process. I had some materials but ordered others from Amazon. I paint on the ground unless it’s a large canvas, which I do on an easel.

The floor was covered in newspaper and foil trays to catch extra poured paint.

I gave it a go and after some initial disasters, I enjoyed it.

A spark reignited.

I felt reconnected again. I got into flow states. I was curious and focused on something tangible in front of me.

All the things I’d lost with the grief slowly woke up.

It took a few weeks of exploration but it helped. I was expressing what occurred in my life, my mind and my soul. It was abstract but I could build on that if I wanted to.

My art has always been layered. At school and during my weekend adult ceramics classes, the teachers always said I never knew when to stop.

Perfectionist, me?

Ha - I just had to keep going until it looked ‘right’. Sometimes that worked, but other times it didn’t. I would ruin works as much as I created them. But I began painting over pieces or adapting them in a new direction.

I explored this layered flexibility more during this grieving period. It was an embodied process - I still had that aspect of ‘knowing’ when it felt right but I didn’t allow myself to get obsessive over things.

I went with the urge to paint over something or change it.

That shift over time has been liberating, even if it still creeps in.

The image below is one of my early experiments with this acrylic pouring technique.

The free-form nature of it makes it easy to start and is forgiving. It doesn’t have to look like anything - it’s about the process and what ‘feels right’.

Take harsh judgment out of the creative process. Creative visual expression is an embodied process - allow expression to come out how it must.

Getting help and integrating art and creativity into living

Since that early pouring experimentation in 2022, I’ve done something artistic or creative most weeks.

Even if it’s small - a doodle, an idea to explore or since December 2023, a weekly watercolour I post on my X/Twitter - it’s a part of life now. Part of the living.

Back in April 2022, I finally felt ready to see a grief counsellor - mainly because I knew I had withdrawn dramatically from life and would have been content to stay like that had my friends and depleting bank balance not nudged me into getting help.

For some reason, being a hermit these days is frowned upon. I’m kinda built for it though.

Talk therapy has always helped, but so has art therapy. I used my artistic efforts in parallel to my counselling sessions and it helped me understand and integrate what we talked about over the next 6 months.

I remember talking to my counsellor about drawing a fish between our early sessions - it had been whole, but it was made up of pieces that were glued together.

Baba was the glue. Since he’d gone, the fish was in pieces. That was how I felt and the impact it had on my identity and life. I had broken into pieces.

It was literal as meaning-making goes, but a shift happens when you see your inner experience outside of you.

You get curious about it but from a safe distance. It’s still you, but not as vulnerable as when you keep it within.

It’s easier to make meaning from it. To extract and extrapolate the unconscious thoughts, emotions, feelings and interpretation that drove you to make those marks.

That logical part of you takes a back seat - you know the one - always jumping to conclusions and categorising stuff so it has an answer.

Our brains do this all the time, even if it’s the wrong answer - it prefers certainty more than not. When you go deeper though, and express those feelings, thoughts, and emotions you can’t yet label, you give that part of you a chance to speak.

Sometimes this deeper processing is instant. Sometimes it takes days and weeks to understand what the creative expression meant. But it triggers an internal process that creates a frameshift in how we see that situation or the world.

That ‘aha’ moment but in a subtle way.

When I’ve been angry and frustrated, getting that onto paper or canvas offers a release that feels healthier than screaming down the phone at someone.

Trust me, screaming down the phone at someone feels good in the moment but there are consequences.

But on paper or other material, you express in a way that’s just for you to know and explore. There are no awkward conversations or experiences to ignore after the fact.

I went through an awful interpersonal experience in my day job last year - it was bullying any which way you look at it.

I didn’t know what to do as I was still raw with grief around the 2-year anniversary mark of losing Baba.

My mood tanked fast towards the end of the year - I felt like I was constantly on shifting sands just trying to get through each day.

Don’t these things just seem to come at once? Life is dumb and annoying sometimes.

Having a creative output saved me though. I had a way to channel those experiences

Find a creative expressive process that works for you - the time, place, frequency, medium, whether alone or with others. Experiment, reflect, find meaning and explore.

The urge to share art and creativity to heal others

Whether it’s serendipity or something I actively searched for, I found an art-based coach who was teaching a Diploma in Art-based Coaching.

Anna Sheather from Art in Coaching created a year-long in person coach training course I had to join, to bring art into my coaching approach with others.

Whilst painting, drawing and being more creative, I found peace over time. I felt more connected to Baba and other parts of me that needed to heal.

We loved the creative process - even though he didn’t paint, he appreciated it from his years as a ceramicist. He could see the effort I put into a piece at a deeper level than ‘oh that’s nice’.

He realised how important it was to me - that was what I lost when he left. Someone who got me and how I saw the world.

At the start of my Diploma, we created a piece about our art story. It was incredibly emotional for me - I realised how intrinsically linked Baba was to it.

Encouraging my creative spirit as a child to right now, after he’d gone. There have been many tears during my study as I’ve developed a creative reflective process and art journalling practice.

There’s resistance often - sometimes you don’t want to go there.

You’re not ready. You know it will be painful, and overwhelming, and snotty and messy. You don’t want to deal with it or the flat, almost dead feeling afterwards.

I’ve realised though that’s often when I need to lean into it. To feel what needs to be expressed so it’s no longer pin-balling around inside my mind and body.

‘Better out than in’ as Shrek says. Who doesn’t get life lessons from animated movies?

I feel lighter afterwards. Not always, but the majority of times. A sense of relief that what needed to be expressed was able to be shared.

We all need to be seen, heard, accepted and to belong. These are innate human desires the world over. If we aren’t comfortable expressing these to ourselves, how do we have a chance of communicating our needs to others?

Art, visual expression and a creative reflective practice give us the tools and the space to do this. Humans have been doing this from cave walls to canvas for over 50,000 years - that’s no small thing.

During my art-based coaching sessions, I see the frameshifts and insights people get at a profound level, for example:

• How clients recognise the words of others are dangerous

• How they fill the void of a lost parent by over-eating and ignoring self-care

• That their work-related irritation and burnout distracts them from feeling the pain of grief

Emotional pain is physical pain when we ignore it, and don’t understand the lessons to take forward in life. Otherwise, we repeat the same mistakes until we do learn.

No one wants to do this - why should we feel pain at all?

Well, pain and pleasure are at opposite ends of the same spectrum - it’s hard to have one without the other.

Lean into discomfort. To get to the sunny side of the valley, you often have to wade through a river of sh*t. You get better at doing it the more you practise.

Key takeaways

I was going to share the neuroscience of grief and neuroaesthetics in this post but it ended up a personal expression of my story.

I’ll go into those topics another time as they are fascinating and the research grows. There’s much to learn and explore as it gets more funding and focus.

More importantly, I want to remind you that grief is a normal part of life and we don’t have to remain a prisoner to it. It takes as long as it takes.

These are earth-shattering experiences, cause us to question our identity and purpose in life, leave us alone or lonely, and much more besides.

From my observations though, the more we ignore the reality of grief, the harder it is to make sense of what’s happening.

The body remembers and it comes out in other ways over the years, whether physical or in your relationship to yourself or others.

Here is the TL;DR list of key takeaways for how art and creativity helps navigate grief:

1. Loss never leaves you but it changes with time.

2. When you feel stuck, reduce friction and the barrier to entry so you take the first step. Done is better than perfect.

3. Take harsh judgment out of the creative process. Creative visual expression is an embodied process - allow expression to come out how it must.

4. Find a creative expressive process that works for you - the time, place, frequency, medium, whether alone or with others. Experiment, reflect, find meaning and explore.

5. Lean into discomfort. To get to the sunny side of the valley, you often have to wade through a river of sh*t. You get better at doing it the more you practise.

There’s no one way to navigate grief.

Art, creativity and creative expression give you tools and methods to support you along that difficult process.

Start simple and experiment with what works for you - things will get better and you’ll create a legacy to the love you’ve lost. 🚀

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‘Don't believe everything you think’ is the most important takeaway from being a psych inpatient in my 30s.

Many people don't realise thoughts aren't facts, and we can choose how we deal with them.

It's often the most common issue I work on with my coaching clients.

Unhelpful thinking or mindset loops negatively impact your wellbeing and life progress. You're stuck in old patterns that no longer serve you.

With practice though, you'll shift how your mindset defines and frames your inner and outer worlds.

Cultivate a choice in how you respond, rather than give in to mental impulses that aren't helpful.

These tools offer different ways to relate to your thoughts - from restructuring, detaching or enabling subconscious ones to be expressed and more.

Try one or all of them and see what works best for you in the situation. This gives you flexibility in the moment.

Tool #1: Cognitive restructuring

I struggled A LOT with anxiety and depressive rumination, to the point of insomnia and worse for years.

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is an evidence-based approach to change and healing, using structured tools and techniques that restructure thoughts and influence your behaviour.

I've used this myself and am trained to use it (and the approaches below) in my coaching.

It offers a great entry point to mindset shifting as the structured approach helps you deconstruct your thought processes if this concept is new to you.

Use the ABCDE thought record process (see image below) and list what appears after an activating event.

By working through the steps, you explore how thoughts impact your emotions and behaviours.

You also look for the ‘hot thought’ - the one that has the most impact on how you think, feel and act.

Then you weigh up evidence for and against that thought. Eventually, you restructure the initial unhelpful thought into something more realistic and helpful to give a balanced view.

The goal is to reduce unhelpful consequences of how you think or act in response to certain events, so you get unstuck, create effective action, and reduce discomfort.

Here's a worked example of the ABCDE thought record process I've created for a (very real!) event: Need to write and publish article on blog but can't.

Tool #2: Cognitive defusion

A different psychological style focuses more on the behavioural side of the equation. Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) is related to CBT but doesn't focus on cognitive restructuring.

The goal is to develop psychological flexibility, so you create a ‘choice point’ during an event and take action based on your values or long-term goals.

Instead of restructuring unhelpful thoughts, ACT takes a mindfulness-based approach to step back and observe thoughts as passing mental events rather than truths.

This is Cognitive Defusion - you notice the thoughts and accept them without getting attached, letting them occur and moving on regardless. It’s like having a radio channel in the background but you don’t sing along with the tunes.

I love ACT but it can take time to adopt. It helped me reduce my overthinking and incessant worry once the new way of treating my thoughts kicked in.

ACT suggests we accept there's always some discomfort in life. So instead of battling with painful thoughts, you let them wash over you.

‘Thanking my brain’ was a helpful technique I used to break thinking loops. I recognised my brain was trying to protect me, and telling it to shut the f**k up with self-criticism added fuel to the fire.

Instead, thanking my brain for trying to get my attention was a kinder style of self-talk that didn't ramp up stress.

Over time it didn't need to warn me of threats and fearful thinking as much. I began to defuse from my thoughts and they have less power over me and my behaviour.

When you notice an unhelpful thought, try this and see how discomfort changes:

1. Initial thought: I’m so lazy for not starting this article earlier.

2. Thought: Thanks brain, I'm having the thought that I'm so lazy for not starting this article earlier.

3. Thought: Hey brain, that’s an interesting thought, but what action do I take instead to move forward?

4. Thought: Turn your laptop on to start writing the article you've not started yet.

5. Action: Turns on laptop and open MS Word. Writes one sentence on blank page.

What also helps with this tool is saying a thought out loud repeatedly until it loses its meaning. For those 80s kids reading this, just remember ‘Bueller, Bueller, Bueller’…. :)

ACT tools have been shown to reduce the power of negative thoughts and improve psychological flexibility in several studies.

Tool #3: Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR)

MBSR promotes mindfulness and present-moment awareness as a way to reduce mindset-related issues, such as anxiety, depression and stress.

Our mind influences how we feel in our bodies and vice-versa, through a process called interoception.

This is the sense of the internal state of the body, or how we perceive our physical sensations from within e.g. hunger, thirst, heartbeat, pain etc.

Our brains predict emotional state based on the context we’re in, and related internal signals. Interoception gives us a clue about what might be going on, how we feel about it, and actions to take.

My personal challenges with chronic pain and trauma-related health conditions influenced my interest in MBSR techniques.

I know first-hand that being more attuned to our bodies leads to better physical and mental health.

The Body Scan Meditation is a fundamental MBSR practice - it enhances bodily awareness and promotes relaxation.

When you systematically focus on different parts of the body, from the toes to the head, you observe sensations without judgment.

What to do:

1. Find a quiet, comfortable space e.g., lying on the floor, sitting in a comfy chair.

2. Do a Body Scan Meditation for 10 - 45 minutes - flow your attention across your body parts from your toes to your head, pausing gently as you go to each part.

3. Relax your joints and muscles as your attention moves to that part.

4. If you get distracted, come back to the body or breath.

5. There are useful guided meditations YouTube but these are optional.

As you notice sensations, tension, or discomfort in your body, it distances you from mental overwhelm, and provides an alternative focus point from your thoughts.

When you learn to acknowledge other physical sensations with compassionate awareness, you get unstuck as you gain clarity and reduce stress.

But what if it’s the middle of the day and you can’t go and lie on the floor? MBSR adapts to any situation.

If I’m stressed and overwhelmed at my desk, I’ll ask myself ‘Where are your toes?’. Then I wiggle them on the floor or in my shoes.

This small shift in focus and attention breaks my overwhelm so I refocus on the next, best action.

When practiced consistently, MBSR improves focus, enhances emotional regulation, and reduces the impact of distracting or negative thoughts.

To break negative thinking loops and foster a more flexible and positive mindset, cultivate a more accepting and non-judgmental attitude towards your experiences.

Tool #4: Art-based self-compassion mandala

An art journalling practice for self-compassion combines the therapeutic benefits of creative expression with self-compassion principles.

This tool encourages you to explore and express emotions through art, fostering a deeper sense of self-understanding and kindness.

Psychologist Carl Jung explored the use of mandalas when researching eastern spiritual practices in the 1930s. The mandala is a circular pattern, traditionally used in spiritual practice, often with geometric elements.

He encouraged his patients to create mandala circular drawings, patterns and symbols in the moment to help them get back to their emotional centre.

Visual creation using a mandala offers ‘the construction of a central point to which everything is created’, according to Jung.

By developing your visual expressive language you gain insights and make meaning from your experiences.

This visual expressive language is personal to you, with its own meaning and connections. The colours, textures, media, location, shape, depth, materials and energy used etc to create tells us something about our inner world.

Were you hesitant and tentative with what appeared in your mind, or was there an urgency to get it down on paper or in digital form? Many such questions arise.

I've run art-based sessions in person and online, and with people who find it easy to mentally visualise versus those who don't - everyone has a visual expressive language.

Unfortunately, many of us stop exploring and experimenting with artistic expression at school. We get self conscious, start comparing, and stop playing.

But often we only find answers when this inner world is created externally to us. That distance, new perspective and tangible item (the art) supports curiosity and offers answers where they were hidden in our unconscious mind.

The image below is my self-compassion focused mandala art-journalling piece, exploring the topics of self-kindness and self-compassion.

I enjoyed creating it and realised how I've taken my mind and body for granted whilst recovering from a long-lasting illness.

I went into a lovely, relaxing flow state too during the creation process.

Research into self-compassion is shown to reduce self-criticism and promote a more positive and resilient mindset.

Studies highlight the benefits of self-compassion for better mental health and emotional resilience.

Tool #5: Gratitude journalling

Similar to art-journalling, creating time and space to express our inner world though writing brings clarity and calm.

This is needed more than ever in our hectic and interwoven lives. We barely get time to consider what we think about what’s going on, jumping from reflex response to reflex response.

When you're stuck in survival mode, it's easy to forget what's going well or what you're grateful for in life.

Regularly writing these down shifts your focus from the negative to positive aspects of your life.

It is a counterbalance to our innate negativity bias - we need at least 3-5 positive experiences to every negative one. Notice the good stuff and you'll make this shift automatically.

Some people enjoy writing morning pages early in the day. It can set you up nicely for a focused and productive day.

Don’t overcomplicate writing or journalling - find a quiet spot, and start writing. I still like analog writing in note books, but some people do this directly on a device.

Pick what works for you and write until you’ve run out of things you’re grateful for. Persist if you can’t think of anything. No matter how small, it still counts.

With my coaching clients, it’s a useful tool at end the day. This is especially helpful if you struggle with sleep.

To reduce stress before sleeping, sitting down for 5-10 minutes and listing the things you’re grateful for is a wonderful way for calmer entry into sleep.

Feeling safe is key to good sleep - how can you switch your mind and body off if you feel under threat, right? If that’s you, try this approach at the end of the day to take the edge off the day.

Studies have also demonstrated gratitude journalling improves mood, reduces stress, and increases overall wellbeing by fostering a more positive outlook.

Key takeaways

I hope sharing these 5 powerful tools to shift your mindset gives you some inspiration to try them out.

I’ve used all of these approaches myself, and use these with my clients where they make the most sense for the coaching focus.

It’s such a wonderful feeling when we find practical ways to get unstuck from the mental cages we end up in.

If you take anything away from this article, it’s that you CAN shift your mindset, and don’t have to remain trapped in unhelpful thinking loops or fear/anxiety etc.

Here’s a summary of the 5 mindset-shifting tools if you need a cheat sheet:

1. Tool #1: Cognitive restructuring:

   1. This describes changing negative or unhelpful thoughts into more positive, helpful and realistic ones.

2. Tool #2: Cognitive defusion:

   1. This describes separating yourself from your thoughts, so they have less power over you.

3. Tool #3: Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR):

   1. This describes using mindfulness techniques to reduce stress and improve wellbeing to enhance mindset and thinking.

4. Tool #4: Art-based self-compassion mandala:

   1. This describes creating self-compassion focused art, in this case mandalas, to express feelings and thoughts, promoting relaxation and emotional healing.

5. Tool #5: Gratitude journalling:

   1. This describes regularly writing down things you’re thankful for, creating a positive mindset and better emotional wellbeing.

The great thing is you can use one or all of these on your own. Start small, experiment, and adjust for the next time.

With practise, these powerful tools give you new ways to transform your mindset and elevate your thinking for more meaningful topics and goals. 🚀

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Which powerful mindset tool appeals to you and why? What will you experiment with first?

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