Coaching practices for Stuck in Grief

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

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

  • I’ve been stuck in one gear for weeks
  • Everyone keeps telling me to move on and get over the loss, but the grief is huge and it won’t go
  • The grief ambushes me at the worst times
  • I’ve been keeping it together by staying busy and not letting myself fall apart, but the grief I keep shoving down isn’t shrinking
  • I keep my head down and stay busy so I never actually feel the loss, and now it ambushes me at random and won’t metabolize

Practices that may help

  1. Regulate the oscillation consciously
    If you are spending too long in one orientation, deliberately shift to the other.
    The Dual Process Model of 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. Create a deliberate grief window
    Schedule bounded time to grieve, protecting both the grief process and the rest of life.
    Worden’s Tasks of Mourning, Made Practical
  4. 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
  5. 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
  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. 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
  8. Task 4: Find an enduring connection with the deceased
    Relocate the relationship from physical presence to an internal, meaningful connection.
    Worden’s Tasks of Mourning, Made Practical
  9. Share the continuing bond in community
    Talk about the person with others who knew and loved them, keeping the relationship alive in shared memory.
    Continuing Bonds in Grief, Made Practical
  10. Task 1: Accept the full reality of the loss
    Move from intellectual acknowledgement to full emotional acceptance that the person is gone.
    Worden’s Tasks of Mourning, Made Practical

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