What Grief is Teaching Me About Staying Present 💙

Since losing my brother, the most significant loss I’ve faced since qualifying as a counsellor, I’ve been discovering what it truly means to sit with grief rather than turn away from it. Before his death, I had spent two years working as a grief counsellor and practising meditation and mindfulness for more than 16 years.  While everyone's grief is unique, I'm sharing what's helping me in case it offers comfort or direction to others walking a similar path.

There's no map for this territory, only small, intentional practices that help me stay connected to him, to myself, and to life as it continues to unfold.

Journalling: Making Space for What's Here

I've been writing a lot lately, making a mental note of anything that's been bothering me during the day and unpacking it later on the page. Sometimes it's pages of memories; other times, it feels like a conversation with myself or with him. Each time, I notice I feel a little lighter, not because the grief has gone, but because I've given it somewhere to exist outside of my mind.

Research shows that expressive writing can reduce intrusive thoughts, improve immune function, and help people process emotional experiences and find meaning in them (Pennebaker & Smyth, 2016). The act of translating our inner experience into words on a page allows us to create distance from overwhelming emotions whilst simultaneously honouring them. For me, it's not about fixing anything or finding closure, but about making space for what's already here, the love, the loss, the memories, and the ongoing relationship I have with my brother.

Metta Bhavana: Loving-Kindness Meditation

I've also been practising Metta Bhavana, or loving-kindness meditation, most mornings, even for just ten minutes. The practice involves sending compassion first to myself (often the hardest part), then outward to others, including my brother. It's become a quiet, sacred way of staying connected to him and softening the sharp edges of grief.

Scientific studies suggest that compassion-based meditations can increase emotional resilience and promote healing during times of loss (Hofmann, Grossman & Hinton, 2011). Fredrickson et al. (2017) found that loving-kindness meditation can help to increase positive emotions, something I've found vital during the grieving process. It doesn't erase the pain, but it creates space alongside it for warmth, connection, and moments of peace.

The practice reminds me that I can hold both grief and gratitude, sorrow and love, all at once. It's not about bypassing the difficult emotions but about cultivating the inner resources to stay with them.

Turning Toward Grief, Not Away From It

What I keep reminding myself, and what my training and research support, is the importance of feeling grief rather than avoiding it, and cultivating positive emotions even amidst the pain. There are moments when the sadness feels unbearable, when it rises up suddenly and without warning. Yet I've found that turning toward it, letting it wash through me rather than pushing it away, somehow helps.

Allowing ourselves to experience grief fully is a way of honouring the depth of our love and the meaning of our loss (Neimeyer, 2012). The contemporary understanding of grief has moved away from stage models and toward recognising grief as an ongoing, non-linear process of meaning-making. When we turn away from grief, we also turn away from the love that generated it. When we turn toward it, we acknowledge that our grief is a reflection of how much this person mattered.

Keeping His Presence Alive: Continuing Bonds

Talking about my brother helps too. I mention him often, in conversations with friends and family, in reflections during sessions with clients who are grieving, sometimes just in passing. Sharing stories keeps his presence alive in my life and in the lives of those who knew him. It's not about being "stuck in the past" but about integrating his memory into my ongoing life.

Maintaining a continuing bond with those we've lost is well-recognised in contemporary grief research (Klass, Silverman & Nickman, 1996). The older model of grief suggested we needed to "let go" and "move on," but we now understand that healthy grieving often involves finding new ways to remain connected to the person we've lost. For me, this brings comfort and connection. My brother isn't gone from my life; our relationship has simply changed form.

The Compassion of Others: We Don't Grieve Alone

And then there's the compassion of others, friends checking in, bringing food or flowers, sending messages, or simply sitting in silence when words fall short. Those gestures have meant more than I can say. In moments when I've felt most alone in my grief, these acts of kindness have reminded me that I'm held by a community of care.

Compassion isn't just something we practise on the meditation cushion; it's something we live, through small acts of kindness that remind us we're not alone (Gilbert, 2017). Gilbert's research on compassion-focused therapy emphasises that humans are fundamentally social beings who heal in connection with others. The meals dropped at the door, the texts saying "thinking of you," the friends who let me cry without trying to fix it, this is compassion in action, and it's been essential to my healing.

What I've Learned So Far

Grief has no timeline, no neat stages, no finish line. It's messy, non-linear, and deeply personal. But what I'm learning is that we don't have to navigate it alone, and we don't have to navigate it without tools.

The practices I've shared, journalling, loving-kindness meditation, turning toward difficult emotions, maintaining connection with my brother, and accepting compassion from others, aren't about "getting over" grief. They're about learning to live alongside it, to honour it, and to let it transform me rather than break me.

To Anyone Walking This Path

If you're grieving right now, please be gentle with yourself. Write, even if it's just a few lines. Breathe through the hard moments, knowing that the intensity won't last forever but that it's okay to feel it fully right now. Talk about the person you've lost, say their name, share their story, keep them woven into your life. Let others care for you, even when it feels vulnerable.

Let compassion, for yourself and others, be the thread that carries you through.

You're not alone in this.

References

Fredrickson, B. L., Cohn, M. A., Coffey, K. A., Pek, J. and Finkel, S. M. (2017) 'Positive emotion correlates of meditation practice: A comparison of mindfulness meditation and loving-kindness meditation', Mindfulness, 8(6), pp. 1623–1630.

Gilbert, P. (2017) The Compassionate Mind. London: Constable.

Hofmann, S. G., Grossman, P. and Hinton, D. E. (2011) 'Loving-kindness and compassion meditation: Potential for psychological interventions', Clinical Psychology Review, 31(7), pp. 1126–1132.

Klass, D., Silverman, P. R. and Nickman, S. L. (1996) Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief. Philadelphia: Taylor & Francis.

Neimeyer, R. A. (2012) Techniques of Grief Therapy: Creative Practices for Counseling the Bereaved. New York: Routledge.

Pennebaker, J. W. and Smyth, J. M. (2016) Opening Up by Writing It Down: How Expressive Writing Improves Health and Eases Emotional Pain. 3rd edn. New York: Guilford Press.