10 Steps to Mindfully Manage Grief and Loss

The emotions that come with change and loss can feel unmanageable and unpredictable. Mindfulness can help you accept and navigate what you feel with kindness toward yourself.

Losing my father could possibly be the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through. So many things remind me of him — at all the worst possible times.

When I’m in a statistics lecture, I think of cheering on our favorite team at a baseball game, where we scream our heads off whenever they score a home run.

When I’m shopping at the mall trying to find the right outfit for a job interview, I remember sitting at the counter of a diner with Dad every Sunday, eating bacon and blueberry pancakes.

He’s everywhere and all the time.

I also have to deal with a different kind of ever-present grief that comes from coping with chronic health conditions. This can look like missed opportunities and experiences or not being able to accomplish all my goals.

I can’t escape grief, but one thing I can do is meet it mindfully.

Meeting grief with mindfulness

Licensed clinical psychologist Jennifer Panning, PsyD, says that mindfulness can help people who are coping with grief, whether from the loss of a loved one or the loss that comes with chronic illness.

Dealing with grief can be a “very messy, raw, complex experience,” she says.

Mindfulness allows people to stay in the present moment and be aware of what they’re experiencing without judgment rather than pushing it away or grasping for another experience.

“Most suffering tends to come from either ruminating over the past or catastrophizing the future,” says Jenny Drake, LCPC.

On the other hand, when we stay in the present moment without judging it or pushing it away, we are being “mindful.”

Importantly, mindfulness is not a way to avoid feeling your emotions or get rid of difficult psychological experiences. It’s also not a way to control what you’re feeling.

Instead, mindfulness can help you allow whatever you’re experiencing nonjudgmentally, from happy memories to a sense of loss.

Below are 10 steps to practice mindfulness in the wake of grief, whether from loss or chronic illness.

1. Welcome whatever you’re feeling

Being present doesn’t mean you never think about the past or future. In fact, you likely can’t control when thoughts like this come up.

Instead, you can practice emotional acceptance toward whatever’s coming up. Acceptance is the act of recognizing and embracing things as they are without judgment, resistance, or the need to fix them.

Drake notes that people who are grieving tend to be hard on themselves. This is certainly true for me. Many times, I get mad at myself for crying about my dad or spending hours thinking about my loss.

This also happens when I’m dealing with the grief of loss from chronic health conditions like migraine and depression. For example, when I was in college, I had to take medical withdrawals several times and watched all my friends move on ahead of me.

Instead of being hard on myself, I can choose to be present with these emotions without judging myself for having them. I don’t have to feel guilty or try to fix them. Instead, I become aware of what I’m feeling and accept it.

2. Acknowledge that grief comes in waves

I’ve noticed that my grief comes in waves. There are times when I can laugh about my dad and something funny he did: how he would draw funny pictures on the placemats when we went out to eat, or how he dressed up for Halloween.

“Grief is a lifelong journey,” says Drake. “Moments such as birthdays, anniversaries, other significant life events, or even a song on the radio can trigger a response of grief’s intensity.”

Grief can also be unpredictable.

It made me sob in my hospital bed when I was in the psych ward coping with a depressive episode. I needed a nurse to sit on the edge of my hospital bed and talk me down from my meltdown. My path looked a lot different than that of my peers — and that was often hard to accept.

In addition to the depression, I started having migraine attacks that prevented me from achieving all the things I wanted to. It seemed like my health was always holding me back, and I wasn’t sure I could cope with that.

Well-known professor and meditation expert Jon Kabat-Zinn says, “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn how to surf.”

There are times when I can cope with these losses and times when I’m stuck on the fact that they’re simply unfair. Allowing and accepting that is part of mindfulness, too.

3. Create mindful rituals to honor your grief

Sometimes, I want to think about my dad, so I’ll play the music he liked. I’ll remember sitting beside him in the passenger seat, listening to Nirvana or Pearl Jam raging on his Corvette’s radio.

However, it’s also important not to overfocus on your grief. The American Psychological Association notes that focusing too much on grief can be harmful, potentially leading to prolonged grief disorder.

Rituals can be helpful, but it’s also important to access social support and focus on activities that are self-defining as opposed to being defined by your loss.

Instead, you can find a balance. Try honoring your grief on an important day or a few times throughout the year rather than intentionally invoking it in daily life.

Cori Dixon-Fyle, psychotherapist and Founder of Thriving Path Counseling and Coaching, also suggests rituals of mindfulness.

4. Develop emotional regulation

Emotional regulation is the ability to respond to a situation with intention and forethought rather than reacting impulsively.

“Mindfulness enhances emotional regulation by teaching you to observe your emotions without being overwhelmed by them,” Dixon-Fyle says.

That’s a skill I definitely need to master. Sometimes, thoughts of my dad bombard me so strongly that I feel like I can’t even breathe.

One simple way to practice emotional regulation is to imagine hitting the “pause” button whenever you feel something intensely. Instead of responding outwardly, get curious about how you’re feeling internally in that moment.

That small pause can give you the time you need to choose how you’d like to respond.

5. Get in touch with your body

Another way to strengthen the muscle of emotional regulation is to practice becoming familiar with the sensations in your body in times of relative calm rather than moments of upset. This can help you cope with difficult feelings when they do come up.

This is especially relevant when I’m dealing with the pain that comes with frequent migraine flares. The better I know my body, the easier it is to cope with my migraine symptoms.

When working with her clients, Dixon-Fyle suggests that they lie down and mentally scan through their bodies. Then they tense and release each muscle going from their toes to their heads.

When doing this, it’s important to acknowledge the tension you feel without trying to change it. Just observe it and let go of judgments or labels the mind may come up with.

With my migraine attacks, I observe the pain from the outside instead of rating how much pain I’m in. This small tweak brings the practice from a mental exercise to a sensation-based one.

6. Practice brief moments of quiet

Practicing quiet through meditation or a simple calmness exercise can help.

Panning encourages clients dealing with grief to set a timer for 5 minutes, close their eyes, and sit in silence. She reports that they experience awareness and feel more grounded and calm.

For some, meditation may also help with pain management.

However, if you find that periods of silence evoke too many thoughts or memories about your grief, a more active approach may be best.

For instance, you can focus on noticing bodily sensations — which are happening in the here and now. This can help bring you into the present moment.

Another option is progressive muscle relaxation, which involves tensing and relaxing the muscles throughout the entire body to release stress.

7. Try diaphragmatic breathing

Drake suggests diaphragmatic breathing, a kind of slow, deep breathing, to stay in the present moment.

According to a 2022 review, slow deep breathing was associated with significantly lower pain scores compared with a control group, especially for those with burn-related pain. The results were varied across different types of pain.

This practice involves sitting or lying down and breathing deeply into the abdomen, expanding radially through the stomach, sides of the waist, and even the lower back while the chest remains mostly still. When exhaling, let the air out completely, contracting the stomach gently.

You can also try other breathing exercises, like box breathing.

8. Practice self-compassion

Another essential part of mindfulness is practicing self-compassion.

Drake tells her clients not to judge their thoughts or feelings, but to accept anything that arises.

There’s no need to be hard on myself because I can’t seem to get my father out of my head. I can accept and appreciate that he played a major role in my life, so he will likely play a major role in my thoughts and memories too.

Same thing with the grief I’ve experienced from dealing with chronic illness. I have to love myself no matter what I have been able to accomplish. Whether I am experiencing grief from losing my father or my chronic illness, self-compassion will help me get closer to where I want to be.

There’s no way to predict how I’ll feel, but mindfulness will help me stay in the present and not judge the thoughts I’m having about my father or my health.

9. Acknowledge the loss and let go

Drake suggests that people “acknowledge the loss.”

This involves recognizing the major impact that death has — on everything. When an important person, relationship, role model, and family member is no longer there, it’s no small matter.

The loss continues to be felt forever. Trying to sweep it under the rug does nothing but make coping more difficult.

It’s also important not to hold onto your grief as much as possible, which can lead to feeling “stuck” in your grief. When it comes up, let it come, pass, and move on.

10. Accept the ups and downs

Like Panning, Dixon-Fyle says that “grief can be intense, messy, and unpredictable.”

A lot of big feelings come up on October 6 when Dad’s birthday comes around, and he’s not beside me eating cake.

Sometimes I can deal with thoughts and reminders of him head-on. Sometimes I seek out these memories as if I’m desperate to think of him. Other times, I feel anxious and tearful and can’t bear to look at pictures of him or ask my mom about their courtship.

This is where “learning to surf” comes in.

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Takeaway

I will never get to walk down in my slippers and see Dad eating pancakes at our kitchen table again. I will never get to fight with him about which college football team is better, the University of Michigan or Ohio State University.

I’ll never get to go back in time and graduate alongside all my friends in college. And I may never be able to get rid of migraine attacks or depression. I will have to keep working with them.

Mindfulness provides me with the tools to be OK with these realities. It gives me the patience I need to accept myself and my emotions as they are.