The Pain of Loss and Grief

Pain, in this sense, may be the strange and difficult gift of grief. Many grieving people have spoken about the unexpected meaning that pain can carry. One powerful idea is that grief is the price we pay for love a phrase coined by psychiatrist Colin Murray Parkes.

When we have loved and love deeply – it makes sense that we feel pain and grief when we are separated from our loved one by loss and death. If our love continues, therefore it makes sense perhaps that the pain of grief is also with us.

So how do we learn to make sense of or live with the pain of grief?

Grief is often described as a dark tunnel, or an unfathomable abyss. One of the most meaningful things we can do—both for ourselves and others—is to acknowledge that pain. Perhaps the best way to support someone is to walk with them to the abyss and learn about their experience of loss. Rather than trying to fix or avoid it, we might simply choose to accept the pain of grief.  In her book Things in Nature Merely Grow, which explores the heartbreaking loss of her two teenage sons to suicide, writer Yiyun Li says: "Most important of all, for me: radical acceptance… If an abyss is where I shall be for the rest of my life, the abyss is my habitat. One should not waste energy fighting one’s habitat."

Rather than “getting over” grief, some have suggested that healing looks more like growing around your grief. Another perspective that can help is the idea that grief can coexist with other emotions. It’s not a matter of either grieving or living—it’s both/and. We may feel both deep sorrow and moments of joy. Both the ache of loss and the warmth of connection. Grief is not a single, linear experience—it moves with us, and we move with it.

The Dual Process Model of Grief supports this idea. It suggests that we oscillate between focusing on our loss and engaging with life. This theory gives us permission to understand the fluctuating waves of coping and loss, understanding that it is all still about learning to live with grief alongside life. Medical practitioner and therapist Russ Harris, writing about Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), puts it another way: we can learn to live a rich, full, and meaningful life while accepting the pain that comes with it.

Pain and grief are often held alongside our day-to-day connection with our loved ones. Many people express that they want to remember their loved one, to think and talk about them, to have them as an ongoing presence in their life. As Li writes in her book:

"I don’t want an endpoint to my sorrow…The death of a child is not a heatwave or a snowstorm, nor an obstacle race to rush through and win, nor an acute or chronic illness to recover from… Thinking about my children is like air, like time. Thinking about them will only end when I reach the end of my life."— Things in Nature Merely Grow

Holding both the pain of grief and the demands of life can be hard, please know that support is available. If you're struggling to make room for grief alongside your daily life, please know you don’t have to face it alone. You can reach out to Jane or Colleen for an appointment.

You can also contact Lifeline 13 11 14 for 24/7 support.

Jane Mowll