Navigating Grief: Understanding the Stages Without Judging Yourself

Grief is a universal human experience, an intimate and often overwhelming journey through loss. Whether it is the death of a loved one, the end of a significant relationship, the loss of a job, a dream or even a part of oneself, grief confronts us with our own vulnerability. As a CBT practitioner, my role is to support you in understanding this process, in welcoming your emotions and thoughts without judgement, and in finding a path back towards serenity.

In the article that follows, I explore emotional regulation. If you recognise yourself in this theme, I designed an emotional regulation test that helps you take stock of how you experience and regulate your emotions. It comes with a guide to extend your reflection beyond the results. I also wrote a book on this subject, Your Thoughts Don’t Have to Run Your Life, if you would like to go further.

The aim of this article is to demystify grief, to offer you points of reference drawn from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and personal development, and to equip you with concrete tools to move through this ordeal with more awareness and more kindness towards yourself.

Understanding Grief: A Unique and Complex Process

Grief is not an illness, but a natural and necessary reaction to a loss. It is as unique as each individual who lives through it. Although models such as that of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross popularised the idea of the "five stages of grief" (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance), it is crucial to understand that these stages are neither linear nor obligatory. One can move from one to another, skip some, or even experience them simultaneously. What matters is not to feel "abnormal" if you do not follow a predefined path.

The CBT perspective on grief emphasises the way in which our thoughts, our emotions and our behaviours influence one another in the face of loss. It is not about "getting over" grief, but about learning to live with the loss, to integrate this new reality and to rebuild one's life around it. The psychologist Aaron Beck, a pioneer of CBT, highlighted how our thought patterns can exacerbate suffering. In grief, persistent negative thoughts can hinder the process of adaptation.

The Emotions of Grief: A Whirlwind to Tame

Loss triggers a spectrum of intense and sometimes contradictory emotions: * Deep sadness: Often the most obvious, it can be overwhelming. * Anger: At the person who has gone, at oneself, at fate, at others. * Guilt: Thoughts such as "I should have done this or that", "It's my fault if...", are very common. * Anxiety and fear: Fear of the future, of loneliness, of forgetting. * Shock and disbelief: Especially at the beginning, the world seems unreal. * Relief: Sometimes, after a long illness or a difficult relationship, this emotion can arise and become a source of additional guilt.

Welcoming these emotions without judgement is the first step. CBT invites us to observe our emotions, to name them, without seeking to suppress them or to over-analyse them in the moment. The aim is not to make them disappear, but to understand their message and to develop coping strategies.

Practical exercise: The journal of emotions and thoughts Take a few minutes each day to write freely about what you are feeling. Do not censor yourself. Note the emotions that run through you and the thoughts that accompany them. For example: "I feel immense sadness when I think of [name of the person/situation]. I tell myself that I will never find happiness again." This exercise, inspired by the work of Albert Ellis on Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT), helps you take a step back and identify patterns.

The Thoughts of Grief: Outwitting the Cognitive Traps

Our thoughts play a central role in the way we experience grief. Cognitive distortions, those thinking "bugs" identified by Beck, can take hold and amplify suffering. * Personalisation: Feeling responsible for the loss, even when one is not. Example: "If I had been there, it would not have happened." * Catastrophising: Imagining the worst-case scenario for the future. Example: "I will always be alone, I will never get through this." * All-or-nothing thinking: Seeing things in black or white. Example: "My life is over, there is nothing good left."

These thoughts, although natural in the context of grief, can become major obstacles. A common clinical example is that of a person who, after the death of a parent, blames themselves for not having spent "enough time" with them, ignoring years of devotion and love. These self-critical thoughts can reactivate old emotional wounds and early maladaptive schemas, according to Jeffrey Young's Schema Therapy. Identifying these schemas is a key step towards defusing them.

If these thoughts overwhelm you and you feel that you are going through a genuine difficulty that goes beyond a simple bad day, it may be time to consider some support. To find out whether you are in this situation, you can read our article on the 10 signs that you are going through a genuine difficulty (not just a bad day).

Practical exercise: Simple cognitive restructuring When a painful thought appears, ask yourself these questions:

What is the evidence for this thought? Are there concrete facts that support it?

What is the evidence against it? Are there other facts or perspectives?

Is there another way of seeing the situation? A more nuanced, more compassionate interpretation?

If a friend were going through the same situation, what would I say to them?

This exercise helps you take a step back and adopt a more balanced perspective.

The Impact of Grief on Behaviour: Regaining a Balance

Grief can profoundly alter our behaviours and our lifestyle habits. One may feel a loss of interest in activities once enjoyed, social withdrawal, disturbances in sleep or appetite, or difficulty concentrating. This passivity can sometimes lead to depressive symptoms, because inactivity maintains a vicious circle of negative thoughts and painful emotions.

Take the test: Depression Test (Self-Assessment) → — When the sadness of grief settles in over the long term and is compounded by withdrawal and a loss of interest, this self-assessment helps to distinguish normal sorrow from a slide into depression.

CBT offers behavioural activation strategies to break this circle. The idea is to gradually reintroduce pleasant or necessary activities, even if the desire is not there at the start. The simple act of doing something can generate positive emotions and a sense of accomplishment, contradicting negative thoughts about the pointlessness of the effort.

Practical exercise: Planning small victories Make a list of 3 to 5 small activities that you could carry out over the coming day or week, even if they seem insignificant to you. This could be: taking a shower, going for a short walk, calling a friend, reading a few pages of a book. Choose activities that are both easy to accomplish and that will bring you a minimum of pleasure or a sense of usefulness. Tick them off once done. This approach is detailed in our article on behavioural activation: 7 exercises to overcome depression.

Cultivating Resilience and Acceptance: The CBT Path

Grief is a path towards resilience, that capacity to bounce back in the face of adversity. It is not about forgetting the person or the situation that has been lost, but about learning to live with their absence, to find renewed meaning and to reinvest in life.

Acceptance in CBT, inspired in particular by approaches such as the mindfulness of Jon Kabat-Zinn, does not mean approving of the loss. It consists of ceasing to fight a reality that has already happened, in order to reinvest the energy thereby freed into what remains alive.

When Grief Becomes Stuck

Certain signs warrant support: pain that has not eased at all after several months, a persistent inability to resume everyday activities, total avoidance of anything that recalls the person, or dark thoughts. Complicated grief can be treated, and recognising it takes nothing away from the love that was felt.

To go further: Grief after a breakup follows a mechanic close to the one described here, with its own phases and its own relationship to time — I detail it, including the neuroscience of broken attachment, in Survivre à la rupture. Read an excerpt

Conclusion

There is no timetable for grief, and its stages are not crossed in order. Some days you will step back: that is not a relapse, it is the very shape of the path. What changes with time is not the intensity of the loss, but the place it occupies.

For personalised support, visit psychologieetserenite.com.

Gildas Garrec, CBT practitioner

Recommended reading:

• Self-Compassion — Kristin Neff
• Survivre à la rupture — Gildas Garrec