Are You Grieving the Right Way?

A new way to understand your grieving path–and find what you need.

Imagine carrying grief for years. You’ve tried to make sense of it, talked about it, perhaps sought professional help, and found ways to live with it. But the pain is still there.

I’ve met many people through my work at Doing Grief who carry stories like this.

One person who comes to mind is a military veteran who joined one of our Healing Circles after years of living with the grief, depression, and pain connected to combat experiences. They had spent years trying to find ways to live with what had happened.

They doubted that the Healing Circle would make any difference for them. And yet, they kept showing up.

Month after month, they came to the Circle, listening more than talking at first and finding their own way of being with others who understood something about carrying loss. After a few months, something gradually began to shift. The heavy weight they had been carrying for decades lifted to make room for humor, hope, and joy–even as we sat together with our grief.

I’ve often thought about what it means to keep showing up when life has given us so much to carry.

We don’t always know what will help. Sometimes we don’t even know what we need. And sometimes the things we thought were supposed to help, don’t.

Maybe We’ve Been Asking the Wrong Question

We’re often left wondering: Am I grieving the right way?

So much of what we’ve been taught about grieving suggests there’s a right way to do it. But what if our own experience looks nothing like what we’ve been told?

What if the question that matters most isn’t whether we’re grieving the right way, but what we need to ease our pain, live with it, and find ways to heal?

The Compass of Adaptive Grieving, a research-informed model I developed, grew out of this understanding: when we become more attentive to our own grieving, we can discover what we need and what might help us in the moment.

I’ve created a brochure to introduce my Compass, with two ways to explore it: an online version and a printable tri-fold version. I hope you’ll take a look and discover what possibilities it might open for you.

And please share this with someone you care about. Grief will touch every one of our lives, again and again, in ways we can’t always anticipate. Learning how to grieve in ways that help us heal matters.

[Explore the Digital Brochure: The Compass of Adaptive Grieving]

[Download the Printable Tri-Fold Brochure (PDF)]

Visit DoingGrief.org to learn more about our community and Healing Circles.

Uplifting people with a new approach to grieve and heal in their own way.