3 Steps to Move Through Grief and Loss 

“Everyone keeps telling me to ‘get over it’, but I don’t want to get over losing my mum. I don’t want to move on if it means leaving her behind.”

That heartbreaking statement from my client Ananya reveals one of the biggest misunderstandings around grief: the belief that healing means forgetting. That we should stop feeling once someone we love is gone.

But what if grief isn’t a problem to be fixed? What if it’s love that has nowhere else to go?

In this blog, I’ll show you a different approach – one that honours your love, supports your body, and helps you live fully while still carrying your loss.

Step 1: Let Your Body Grieve in Its Own Way

What most people try: Forcing themselves to carry on, pushing through the exhaustion, ignoring the pain.

What actually helps: Honouring how your unique body processes grief and allowing space to heal.

Grief alters your biology:

• Sleep becomes disrupted
• Your immune system lowers
• Appetite may disappear or spike
• Pain, tension, or digestive issues increase
• Emotional waves come in cycles, not stages

If you have slower DAO variants, histamine builds up more easily, leading to inflammation. This explains why some people feel physically worse during grief than others.

What your body needs:

• Rest, without guilt
• Hydrating and anti-inflammatory foods
• Gentle movement (not forced exercise)
• Emotional space, without performance pressure

Ananya had intense stomach cramps and migraines after her mother’s death. Understanding her genetic blueprint helped her realise why certain foods and stressors worsened her symptoms. Adjusting her diet and slowing down brought physical relief and emotional steadiness.

Step 2: Create Containers for Continuing Connection

What most people try: Avoiding all reminders to escape the pain or clinging so tightly to memories they can’t live in the present.

What actually helps: Creating rituals and spaces where your love still has somewhere to go.

Your relationship didn’t end. It changed form. You can still talk to them, remember them, honour them – in ways that give structure, rather than overwhelm.

Try grief containers like:

• Morning tea or coffee with their photo
• Weekly rituals, like cooking their favourite dish
• Visiting a place they loved each season
• Talking to them when you need guidance

These rituals aren’t about keeping you stuck, they help your nervous system make sense of the loss – offering predictability, emotional processing, and moments of presence.

Ananya found peace in her morning tea ritual with her mum’s photo, and their weekly visits to the garden centre lived on. Instead of avoiding reminders, she restructured them into sacred connection points.

Step 3: Let Sorrow and Joy Coexist

What most people try: Suppressing joy because it feels like betrayal. Or waiting until grief is “done” to feel happiness again.

What actually helps: Understanding your heart is big enough to hold both pain and joy. They’re not opposites. They’re partners.

One of grief’s cruelest tricks is convincing you that if you smile, you must not have loved enough. But joy doesn’t dishonour your grief, it gives it meaning. The depth of your sorrow only exists because of the depth of your love.

Here’s what’s also true:

• You can laugh while still missing them
• You can build new memories while carrying old ones
• You can feel joy without guilt
• You can grieve with your whole body and still live a vibrant life

Grief asks us to live in paradox: to hold sorrow and gratitude, absence and presence, memory and movement, all at once.

Ananya’s breakthrough came unexpectedly: “The first time I laughed really hard after Mum died, I felt awful. Then I realised, she would have loved that I was laughing again.”