Love Sorrow: What Grief Can Teach Us About Healing
Grief does not always need to be fixed or left behind. Sometimes healing means learning how to make room for what hurts. Grief therapy can offer a place to understand what you are feeling, how it is showing up in your body, and what you need as you move through it.
By Michaela Kozlik, LCPC · Licensed therapist specializing in perimenopause, anxiety & trauma | Illinois
Mary Oliver once wrote in her poem Love Sorrow:
“Love sorrow. She is yours now, and you must take care of what has been given. Brush her hair, help her into her little coat, hold her hand, especially when crossing a street.”
I keep coming back to these words because most of us don’t know what to do with sorrow.
We try to get through it, get over it, distract ourselves from it. Understand it enough that maybe it will finally stop hurting.
And then Mary Oliver suggests something completely different. Take care of it and hold its hand when you cross the street.
This is also something we explore in grief and trauma therapy:
What changes when we stop fighting the feeling and begin learning how to be with ourselves while it is here?
What Does It Mean to Process Grief?
Processing grief does not necessarily mean getting over a loss or reaching a point where it no longer hurts.
It means gradually being able to experience what happened, and what it means to you, without becoming completely overwhelmed by it or having to push it away.
Grief can follow the death of someone we love, but that is not the only kind of loss we grieve.
We can grieve a relationship, marriage, friendship, childhood we wish had been different, or a parent who was never able to be the parent we needed. Changes in our health or body, our kids growing up, our future, or even earlier versions of ourselves.
Sometimes we know exactly what we are grieving, and sometimes we just know something hurts.
What If You Don’t Need to “Get Over” Grief?
Many people come to therapy because they want something to stop. Their anxiety, grief, heaviness, memories, loneliness.
And of course we want relief. But sometimes we have spent so long trying not to feel something that the struggle against the feeling becomes its own kind of suffering.
We tell ourselves we should be over this, or we need to stop being so sensitive…
And now there are two things hurting: the original sorrow and the way we treat ourselves for having it.
Therapy can offer another possibility.
Instead of immediately asking: How do I make this go away?
We might begin with: What happens if I stay with myself here?
Why Can Grief Feel So Physical?
Grief is emotional, but it can also be deeply physical. Sometimes you don’t have words for what is happening. You only know that your body reacts before your mind has figured out why.
What we feel emotionally shows up in our bodies too. Grief can feel like a heavy chest, a tight throat, exhaustion, restlessness, or that feeling of being on edge without really knowing why.
That is why I often slow things down in therapy instead of immediately trying to figure everything out.
We might just notice what is happening. Where do you feel it? What happens if you stay with it for a moment?
Does your body want to move, take a deeper breath, pull away, or just be still?
We don’t push past what feels like too much. There is no prize for going deeper or faster than you are ready for.
What Does Somatic Therapy for Grief Actually Look Like?
Somatic therapy sounds much more complicated than it needs to. It simply means we include the body in what we are paying attention to.
So if we are talking about a loss and suddenly your chest tightens, we notice that.
If your breathing changes when you mention your mother, we might slow down there.
If part of you wants to keep talking while another part feels like it wants to disappear, we get curious about both.
Sometimes we ground, sometimes we notice sensations.
Sometimes we move between something difficult and something that feels more settled.
And sometimes we just stop talking for a minute.
The point is not to force your body to release something or make yourself relive painful experiences, but learning how to listen to what is already happening inside you.
Grief Does Not Always Look Like Sadness
Sometimes grief looks like crying, but sometimes it looks like being irritated with everyone.
Being tired all the time or feeling anxious for no obvious reason.
Not being able to concentrate. Wanting people around and then wanting everyone to leave you alone.
Feeling numb. Getting through your day perfectly well and then falling apart over something seemingly insignificant.
This can be confusing, especially when the loss happened a long time ago or when you have never thought of what happened as something you were allowed to grieve.
Sometimes people come to therapy thinking anxiety is the problem and eventually discover grief sitting underneath some of it.
Other times grief and anxiety get tangled together. Human beings rarely fit into neat categories.
Sorrow Is There Because Something Mattered
Sorrow often lives very close to love. We grieve because something mattered. We miss because we were attached. We hurt because we hoped. Sometimes the size of the grief tells us something about what was lost.
That doesn’t mean we need to romanticize pain, or that we should be grateful for something terrible that happened. And it certainly does not mean everything happens for a reason.
It just means there are things in this life that matter so much that they really hurt when we lose them.
Midlife Comes With Its Own Kind of Grief
I think we underestimate how much grief can show up for women in midlife. Not necessarily one enormous loss, but dozens of smaller ones happening at the same time.
Your children need you differently and your parents are getting older.
Friendships change, marriages change or end. Your body changes. Your tolerance for certain relationships, expectations and ways of living changes.
Perimenopause can make all of this feel even more immediate and intense.
Maybe you grieve the body you knew, your energy, or time passing. Choices you made years ago, and choices that you did not make. And sometimes things from much earlier in life start coming back.
When You Know Something Has to Change
Loving sorrow doesn’t mean you have to love what happened or how much it hurts. Maybe it just means not leaving yourself alone in it.
A lot of women get really good at putting their own pain aside. There is always something that needs to get done, someone who needs something, or a reason to deal with it later.
Until one day you realize that you can’t keep doing this the same way.
Sometimes therapy starts there. You stop pushing it aside and finally give yourself a chance to pay attention to what has been there all along.
When Might Grief Therapy Help?
You do not need therapy simply because you are grieving. Grief is part of loving, losing, and being human.
But sometimes grief becomes hard to be with on your own. Maybe it feels overwhelming, or you keep pushing it away because you are afraid of what will happen if you really let yourself feel it. Or maybe something happening now is bringing up pain from much earlier in your life.
Sometimes you just need a place where you don’t have to make your grief smaller or easier for someone else to be around.
Therapy can give you room to understand what is happening, notice how grief is showing up in your life, and slowly find a way to be with what hurts without having to push it away.
Learning to Sit With Grief
There is something about Mary Oliver’s image that I love. She does not ask us to fix sorrow or figure it out. She just asks us to take care of it.
Maybe therapy needs more of that too.
Not everything we feel needs to be analyzed or turned into something we need to change. Some things just need time. Some things need a place where we can finally let them be there without pushing them away.
Maybe sorrow is one of those things.
Online Grief and Trauma Therapy for Women in Illinois
I offer online therapy for women throughout Illinois who are dealing with grief, anxiety, trauma, burnout, perimenopause and the complicated changes that can come with midlife.
My approach includes somatic therapy, parts work, attachment-based therapy and connection-focused work. We do not have to rush toward an answer or turn everything you feel into something that needs to be fixed.
Sometimes we start with what is here and give it enough space to be heard.
If you are looking for an online therapist in Illinois, you can schedule a free consultation to see if working together feels like a good fit.
Schedule a free consultation here
📞 773-343-5005 🌐 inpsychotherapy.com. 📧 Michaela@inpsychotherapy.com
Perimenopause Therapy — Illinois
Trauma Therapy & Complex PTSD — Illinois
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Michaela Kozlik, LCPC — Licensed therapist in Illinois specializing in perimenopause, anxiety, trauma, and nervous system regulation for women. Offering individual therapy and therapy intensives virtually throughout Illinois.
📞 773-343-5005🌐 inpsychotherapy.com📧 Michaela@inpsychotherapy.com
Serving women virtually across Illinois — Chicago, Evanston, Oak Park, Naperville, Wilmette, Hinsdale, Downers Grove, Schaumburg, Glenview, Libertyville, Rockford, Peoria, Springfield, Champaign, Aurora, Joliet, Elgin, Waukegan, Wheaton, Barrington, Lake Forest, Highland Park, Winnetka, Glencoe, Northbrook, Palatine, Arlington Heights, Skokie, Elmhurst, Lombard, Lisle, Bolingbrook, Orland Park, Tinley Park, Oak Lawn, Homewood and beyond.