Grief
Grief can enter life in many ways. Sometimes through death, but also through other losses — a relationship ending, leaving home, losing a sense of safety, or a future you once expected to have. It can come through the loss of an ideology you once believed in, or through the gradual realisation that an ecosystem, a place, or a way of living is changing or disappearing.
Many people carry grief quietly for a long time. It doesn’t always announce itself clearly. It can show up as tiredness that doesn’t lift, a heaviness in the body, restlessness, or a sense of being slightly out of step with everything around you.
Some people aren’t sure whether what they’re carrying even counts as grief. They tell themselves they should be coping better by now, or that others have it worse. So the feeling gets pushed aside and life continues on the surface, while something underneath is still asking for space and attention.
Grief isn’t something to fix or resolve. It tends to surface when it needs attention. What helps is making space for it — through recognition, through small rituals, through moments of stillness where it can be felt without being pushed away. It doesn’t really have a neat sense of closure, but it can soften over time when it is allowed to be present.
When grief has had nowhere to go
Sometimes grief cannot be fully felt because the body is still responding to what happened around the loss.
This can happen when the period leading up to the loss was overwhelming in itself. Long illness, repeated hospital visits, sudden events, displacement, war, or the collapse of a relationship can all create layers of shock and stress. By the time the loss occurs, the body has already been through so much that it remains in a state of protection rather than mourning.
In these situations, grief can feel unfinished or suspended. Part of you may still feel caught in the time before or during the loss, rather than able to be with it in the present. This is often what people mean when they speak about complex grief. It is not that grief is absent. It is that the system has not yet had enough steadiness to process what has happened.
When trauma surrounds a loss, the body may stay alert, numb, or overwhelmed. Until some of that activation begins to settle, there is often very little space to feel the loss itself. The work then involves creating enough safety and stability for the body to recognise that the loss is no longer actively unfolding, and that it can begin to be held in the present.
From there, grief can begin to soften. Not quickly, and not toward neat closure, but toward something that can be felt without the system becoming overwhelmed.
When there has been no space to grieve
When life demands survival, responsibility, or strength, grief is often postponed. Not because it isn’t there, but because there has been no safe place for it to be felt. It settles quietly and waits.
I came to understand this in a very personal way.
The night before I left my home in Senegal to travel to the UK for a summer project, I became unexpectedly upset. I was preparing to be away from my husband, my neighbours, my daily life — the people and rhythms that held me.
I had a small cry. Nothing dramatic. Just the body recognising separation.
The response around me was immediate. I was gently reassured, encouraged not to cry, moved inside, asked to stop. My tears felt unsettling to the people who loved me.
Sitting on the bed, I remember thinking very simply:
Where can I go to cry?
I went outside and let the feeling move through quietly on my own, because there was no space for it where I was.
It was just grief needing a moment.
Experiences like this are common. Grief is often not denied deliberately — there is simply nowhere for it to land. When there is finally a place where it can be acknowledged without being hurried or softened, something begins to shift. The body no longer has to hold it alone.
How I work with grief
Grief does not need to be analysed or rushed. It needs a place where it can be felt at a pace that does not overwhelm the body.
In our work together, the focus is on creating enough steadiness for grief to be present without it becoming too much. Sometimes that means speaking. Sometimes it means sitting quietly. Sometimes it means allowing what is there to be acknowledged without needing to explain or justify it.
There is no pressure to move through stages or to reach closure. The work is not about letting go of what was lost. It is about finding a way to live alongside that loss without carrying it alone.
When the body begins to feel more settled, grief often shifts. Not by disappearing, but by becoming something that can be held with less strain. Over time, it becomes possible to feel both the loss and the life that continues around it.
This is careful, paced work. We move slowly enough for your system to stay present.
Working together
I offer one-to-one online sessions for people who want a steady, private place to bring what they’re carrying. Some come specifically for grief; others notice that grief sits alongside trauma, loss of identity, or major life change. We begin wherever you are, and move at a pace that feels manageable for your body as well as your mind.
For some, it helps to have this work held alongside time away from daily demands. In those cases, grief work can also be supported within the small-group retreat setting. There is no expectation to attend a retreat — it is simply another option for those who feel it would be helpful.
If you’re unsure where to begin, you’re welcome to arrange a short discovery call. It’s a chance to ask questions and see whether this way of working feels like a good fit.