Coaching practices for Positive Emotion in Grief

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Positive Emotion in Grief, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • It’s been long enough that I can quietly admit something in me has shifted since they died
  • Everyone keeps telling me to move on and get over the loss, but the grief is huge and it won’t go
  • I’m in the middle of something genuinely hard, and when a small good moment shows up I push it away as if letting myself feel it would be disrespecting how heavy this all is.
  • The missing them comes in waves that physically knock the wind out of me, and when one crests I just need to get through the next few minutes without drowning
  • I laughed at something today and immediately felt like a traitor

Practices that may help

  1. Look honestly for what has grown or changed for the better
    Without minimising the loss, notice any growth, change, or perspective that has emerged from it.
    Meaning Reconstruction in Grief, Made Practical
  2. Treating grief as a form of gratitude
    When something ends and you feel grief, recognise that the grief is proportional to the love — and let it be both.
    Mono no Aware: The Pathos of Things
  3. Access positive emotion during adversity, not after
    In the midst of stress and difficulty, finding even small genuine positive moments is a resilience mechanism, not a betrayal of the difficulty.
    Broaden-and-Build, Made Practical
  4. Havening to soften acute grief activation
    Use gentle touch and brief distraction to lower the physiological intensity of grief surges.
    Self-Havening: Calming the Nervous System Through Touch
  5. Deliberately take time off from grief
    Give yourself genuine permission to engage with ordinary life — this is restoration orientation, not avoidance.
    The Dual Process Model of Grief, Made Practical
  6. Identify your natural grieving style and adjust for it
    Know whether you tend toward more loss or more restoration orientation — and compensate accordingly.
    The Dual Process Model of Grief, Made Practical
  7. Holding joy and sadness simultaneously
    When you notice a joyful experience that also carries loss, resist the urge to choose one emotion over the other.
    Mono no Aware: The Pathos of Things
  8. Task 2: Work through the pain of grief
    Allow and process the emotional and physical pain of loss rather than bypassing it.
    Worden’s Tasks of Mourning, Made Practical
  9. Deliberately engage loss-oriented work
    Set aside dedicated time to directly face the grief — the emotions, the absence, the meaning of the loss.
    The Dual Process Model of Grief, Made Practical
  10. Oscillate between grief and sense-making
    Allow periods of pure grief alongside periods of meaning construction — both are necessary.
    Meaning Reconstruction in Grief, Made Practical

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