Understanding Your Grief

The “five stages of grief” might be the most famous and most misunderstood concept in psychology. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s original model was about how people face their OWN dying — not about how survivors grieve. It was never meant as a roadmap. Real grief is messier, less predictable, and more individual than any model suggests.

How Grief Actually Works

The Dual Process Model

The most current grief research uses the Dual Process Model: you oscillate between two orientations.

You move between these naturally and unpredictably. Some days are loss-focused. Some are restoration-focused. Some hours swing between both. This isn’t inconsistency — it’s how humans process overwhelming emotion in survivable doses.

Types of Grief

Help me understand my grief experience:

My loss: [brief description — who/what, when, circumstances]
What I'm feeling: [list emotions, even contradictory ones]
What concerns me: [what seems "abnormal" or worries you]
What surprises me: [unexpected reactions or feelings]

Help me:
1. Identify which type(s) of grief I might be experiencing
2. Normalize what I'm feeling (what's common for this type of loss)
3. Flag anything that might warrant professional support
4. Suggest what the Dual Process Model would predict for my situation
5. Provide 2-3 gentle questions for reflection

✅ Quick Check: You feel intense anger at the person who died. Is this a normal grief response? (Answer: Yes. Anger is one of the most common and least discussed grief responses. You might feel angry at: the person for dying, doctors for not saving them, yourself for things unsaid, God or the universe for allowing it, or other people for not understanding. Anger in grief is often displaced sadness or helplessness. Acknowledging it — “I’m angry because I’m helpless” — is a first step in processing it.)

Physical Effects of Grief

Grief isn’t just emotional — it has real physical effects that many people don’t expect.

Take physical symptoms seriously. Grief weakens the immune system and can exacerbate existing health conditions. Basic self-care — eating something, drinking water, sleeping when you can — isn’t optional during grief; it’s survival.

Practice Exercise

1. Use the grief understanding prompt to map your own experience — does naming what you’re feeling reduce its intensity at all?
2. Notice your oscillation pattern over the next few days: when are you loss-focused? When are you restoration-focused? There’s no right answer — just notice
3. Check in on basic physical needs: are you eating, drinking water, sleeping?

Key Takeaways

• The “five stages” are a myth as a grief roadmap — real grief oscillates unpredictably between loss-focused and restoration-focused states
• Mixed emotions (sadness + relief, love + anger) are normal and healthy — grief rarely shows up as a single, consistent feeling
• Grief has physical effects: fatigue, sleep disruption, immune suppression, and difficulty concentrating are all expected
• Continuing to think about and miss someone months or years later is love, not disorder — clinical concern arises only when functioning is significantly impaired for 12+ months
• “Disenfranchised” grief (pet loss, miscarriage, estrangement) is real grief — it doesn’t require social validation to be valid
• Understanding your grief pattern doesn’t eliminate the pain, but it can reduce the fear that something is wrong with you

Up Next

In the next lesson, you’ll get practical guidance for the first days and weeks after a loss — the immediate decisions, the flood of communications, and how to survive when everything feels impossible.