Holding Grief

Grief can be incredibly disorienting. And while we know that everyone grieves differently, knowing more about the grieving process helps us understand our experience and help hold the space for those we love who are suffering from loss. Read on to learn more about grief and considerations contributing to grief suffering.

If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide and don't know where to turn, you can call 988 in Pennsylvania and receive free help now.

Scientifically Diverse

In 2025 a group of Danish researchers studied the impact of grief on a cross section of the Danish population. They sought to understand dynamics around the intensity of grief as well as the length. Here is a list of how they grouped the individuals (Here I use the language of symptoms where in the study, scientists used the word “trajectory.”):

1. High grief symptoms

2. Low grief symptoms

3. High, but decreasing symptoms

4. Moderate decreasing grief symptoms

5. Late grief symptoms

People in the “high grief symptom” group sustained intense symptoms over a long period of time, up to 10 years. People in the “low grief symptom” group experienced low intensity of symptoms. “High but decreasing” symptoms means just that, starting intense but decreasing in number and frequency, with “moderate decreasing” meaning the symptoms never hit the same fever pitch of intensity as that of the “high grief” group but are decreasing in number and frequency. The "late grief symptom" group seemed to not experience any symptoms until months after the loss. What a spectrum of responses!

What Does This Tell Us?

This tells us that there are so many ways people experience grief and there is absolutely no “one size fits all” solution to navigating the pain of loss. For some, the loss of a loved one hits so deeply that they actually experience death themselves. This “broken heart” syndrome comes from a sudden onset of severe stress that makes individuals 20 times more likely to have a cardiac event within the first 24 hours after a loss. Furthermore, there is a biological progression of stress hormones that flood the body during a sudden loss that can make blood take on a sticky property, believed to contribute to cardiac events surrounding sudden loss.

Symptoms & Stages

There are five stages of grief. Denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and acceptance. While each is experienced as a person works through their loss journey, there is no “right order” to experience them. And they can occur concurrently, or together. These feelings can swell within a person several times a day or arrive months later. Someone grieving loss may experience several waves of emotion a day, have difficulty concentrating, withdrawal from friends and loved ones, exist in a state of exhaustion, and even physical symptoms affecting cardiovascular, respiratory, and digestive systems.

Contributing Considerations

Ultimately, grief is continuum, a spectrum, with no simple path. And the kind of death experienced can impact the grieving process. Was the death sudden and traumatic? Expected? Of what quality was the relationship with the individual when the loved one was lost? Was the death anticipated for a long period of time?

And while the way a person dies can impact loved ones grieving process, the culture around us can help or hinder our progress toward coming to peaceful terms with loss. Some cultures celebrate loved ones annually, like the Day of the Dead in Mexico. Some cultures have an expectation that grieving should be confined to a window, if any at all, and acceptance achieved on a schedule. Sometimes life is simply too busy to afford a deep exploration of grief, such as when a widow(er) is helping children grieve the loss of their parent. Consequently the timeframe of grief may be extended.

Another observation is how easily a person embraces the challenging emotions associated with grief. Someone looking to avoid the emotions may be more likely to struggle long-term with waves of unwelcome feelings than someone who is willing to “ride the wave” until the emotional tsunamis over time become gentle laps on the shoreline. While some medications are very helpful, some medications serve to “blunt” or numb emotions, which delays the brain’s efforts to work through the feelings toward acceptance.

What if the death was expected? Were there opportunities to say goodbye or work through unresolved conflict? In the study, those who participated in caregiving process tended to score lower. One theory is that they feel they had time with their loved one, don’t feel like they’ve missed out, and received the closure they felt they needed. Unfortunately, not everyone is able to either participate with caregiving or have the foresight of oncoming loss. This makes resolution and closure more challenging.

Beyond the household, friends and loved ones also share in the loss. Is group grieving encouraged or even allowed? Every group has a different threshold of what it defines as balancing emotional containment vs group exploration.

What is the legacy left behind? For the family? The community? Group grieving helps to distill a lifetime, to give voice to the legacy of loved ones and shape the story we retell ourselves about them. Their legacy is their memory told.

Application

These stages, symptoms, and considerations hopefully bring us to wrestle with cultural norms that contribute to successful grieving and factors that undermine the journey to acceptance. Because ultimately, grief is painful and many feel mishandled and misunderstood during the grieving process. Grief brings heartache to the forefront of our lives and interrupts hope. When we make space for someone’s grief, we give the gift of freedom to feel and explore instead of numb and hide. When we make space we communicate safety to be open, to be seen, to be held. We “bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ,” Galatians 6:2. And to be safe, seen, and held, hope is found, restored.

However painful it may be, grief is not wasted. Working through the grieving process to arrive at acceptance ultimately liberates us to discover how God worked in and through a person, works in our pain to discover Him in unexpected ways, and works outwardly in our story to help and hold others facing similar challenges.

If you feel like you are stuck in grief, please feel free to reach out via email at amanda.doyle@mountainstoplains.com or schedule some one-on-one time here.