Unresolved Grief and Its Impact on You

Disclaimer: Views and opinions expressed in Bob’s Blog are solely those of the author and do not purport to reflect the views and opinions of the Office on Aging or its staff. Posted 07-23-2025

Each of us has experienced one or more losses during our lives. Normally grief accompanies that loss or those losses. Sadly, we may not have dealt with that grief. It stays with us. Every time there is another loss, we unconsciously add more grief to what we already have.

Without realizing it, carrying grief becomes a burden for us – It keeps us back from becoming the person we were designed to be and living the life we could have.

What is Grief?

Gemini AI defines it as:

A multifaceted and deeply personal response to loss, most commonly associated with the death of a loved one. However, it can also be experienced in response to other significant losses, such as the end of a relationship, job loss, diminished health, or major life changes.

According to Google, Grief Counselors define it as:

The natural emotional, cognitive, and behavioral response to a significant loss, most commonly the death of a loved one, but also encompassing other losses like relationship endings, job loss, or significant life changes.

Joy Gaertner, a local Grief Recovery Specialist, defines it as

A conflicting feeling of the end or change in a familiar pattern of behavior – The normal and natural response to death, loss, or any lifestyle change.

As you can see, the definition ranges from a very technical one from Gemini AI to a far simpler one from Joy Gaertner. Joy’s is much easier to understand.

Another insight from Joy is that grief is an underlying emotion. It will be expressed in different ways. Most frequently it’s through anger, anxiety, fear or depression.

My Erroneous View of Grief

I consider myself your typical man. My concept of grief and what it entailed has been totally wrong. I thought I only grieved when someone in my family died – my dad, my mom, or my wife.

My dad died when I was 10. I don’t recall dealing with his loss or the challenges I had growing up without a father in the years after that.

My mom died at 91. However, she had senile dementia for the last 14 years of her life. I grieved her loss on my own, cried in private, and never showed my feelings in public.

My wife died of bladder cancer at 63. She had suffered with this for 10 months. Here again, I never dealt with my grief around her loss. I grieved when she first was diagnosed. Then I grieved again when after surgery to remove her bladder, the surgeon told me her cancer was far more advanced than I had believed it was. When she died, I grieved in private. Sadly, I never worked through the pain I felt.

I never thought there were other times when I might grieve.

In January of 2025, I sat in on a presentation on grief Joy Gaertner gave to the Council on Aging in Knox County. She mentioned there are over 40 different sources of grief and asked the attendees what some were that they experienced. The responses were:

Death, Divorce, Job Loss, Inability to have children, Loss of home, Death of a pet, Empty Nest Syndrome, Retirement, Moving, Dreams Squashed, Disability

I never thought about someone grieving over dreams being squashed, moving, job loss or, especially, retirement.

When a person retires, they are supposed to be thrilled about getting the chance to live the life they wanted. I didn’t think they would be sad about leaving the job or their coworkers behind.

Personally, I have moved seven times thus far in my life. For the first few, I left friends behind. This was painful. Any time I moved afterwards, I got in the habit of not making many new friends. That way I would not be hurt by leaving many behind.

I had not dealt with the grief caused by these moves and I have been carrying it with me. There are also many other instances in my life where I buried grief rather than dealing with it.

Help Working Through Grief

Different resources are available to help people work through the grief they experience.

Here are two:

They can work with a Grief Counselor. This is a mental health professional who specializes in helping a person deal with the emotional and psychological effects of a loss. The counselor guides them through discussing their loss, exploring their feelings, and developing coping strategies. Sessions are tailored to each person’s needs.

They can also work with a Grief Recovery Specialist like Joy. This is a person trained by the Grief Recovery Institute to create a safe environment for a grieving person to discover and release the emotional pain associated with a loss they have experienced in their life. Here they work with others who are also grieving. There is a structured approach to help them go through the process.

Since I was unfamiliar with the Grief Recovery Institute and the work Joy did, I met with her to learn more about the Grief Recovery process she uses. I am focusing on that in this post.

Myths and Misconceptions about Grief

In 1969 Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross published a book,” On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families.” In this book she made famous five stages of grief:

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

This book has become a classic. Most people believe that people go through each step in order as they are dealing with their own grief. They don’t realize that Dr. Kubler-Ross indicated the terminally ill follow these stages in order.

Others experiencing grief bounce all over between these stages at various times. They get to depression and bounce back to anger or they feel they’re finally at acceptance and go back to bargaining. Everyone is different. They work through their grief on their own schedule. Grievers can share experiences but everyone does not experience all the stages.

We often tell people things which we hope will help them get through the grief they are feeling. Many times, this actually hurts them. Here are the six identified by the Grief Recovery Institute:

1. Don’t Feel Bad.
When we tell someone this, we imply they are not normal if they are feeling sad.

2. Replace the loss.
The best example here is when a pet dies that the person was attached to. We are telling them to get another pet quickly. It will help them get over the loss. That doesn’t work. They have to grieve the loss of the pet before they’re healthy enough to build a relationship with a new one.

3. Grieve alone. We expect people to grieve by themselves. If they grieve with us, we won’t know how to handle it and we may tell them something which makes it worse.

4. Just give it time.
Time will heal their wounds. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen.

5. Be strong for others.
We are telling them to conceal their grief so their children, relatives, and others won’t react.

6. Keep busy.
This doesn’t eliminate the grief. It just gets them to take their mind off of it. The grief they experience may actually be worse when they’re not busy.

I am going to add another one here. I am sure the Grief Recovery Institute probably was aware of it. However, they just didn’t mention it because it only is appropriate when there is death.

7. The person is in a better place.
Normally this is said when a person in much pain from a serious illness dies. What the person saying this doesn’t realize is the grieving person hasn’t accepted the death.

Every loss a person has or anticipates can cause grief. With it comes pain. Pain is pain regardless of the cause. It’s a natural reaction for most to run from it and not want to deal with it. In those cases, it can linger on and on.

Ways A Person Can Start to Deal with Grief

Grief is an emotion. A person cannot resolve it by dealing with it analytically. This has to be done at the emotional level.

A person cannot do the work themselves. When they try to, they isolate. Isolation is not a friend. Community is essential.

Here are some steps they can take:

· Be gentle with themselves.

· Lean into it.

· Give themselves space and time to grieve.

· Look at what is causing it.

· Deal with any unfinished business.

· Practice Mindfulness (meditation).

· Attend a group or class which helps them process the grief.

· Celebrate moments of joy and peace.

Most of the time, they need the help of a Grief Recovery Specialist or counselor trained in this work.

Whenever possible, Joy teams them up with a small group of 3 or 4 who are also working through their own grief in a grief recovery workshop.

• This workshop meets for 2 hours weekly for 8 weeks.

• Each session starts with teaching and discussion.

• The participants then break into their small groups where they discuss the homework they have done from the reading assigned at the prior session.

At their first meeting, they get to know each other. They talk about the more than 40 different sources of grief and what it looks like for them. Here are the most common –anger, anxiety, depression, guilt, and stress.

They also make commitments to each other.

1. They will be honest with themselves about their feelings.
2. Whatever each one says in a meeting will be held in the strictest confidence.
3. They commit to each other’s uniqueness and the individuality of each other’s recovery.

At the second meeting, they discuss the myths they have learned about grief and the impact these have had on them.

At the third meeting, they discuss with each other short-term energy relief behaviors they learned and use to cover up their own grief. Here are some of the most common ones:

· Food, Alcohol, or Drugs – These will make them feel better.
· Anger
· Exercise
· Movies, TV or Books
· Isolation
· Sex
· Shopping
· Workaholism

Prior to the fourth meeting, each person looks at the losses they have experienced in their lives and when they occurred. They look at how they responded to each.

· Did they allow themselves to grieve each one and heal from it?

· Did they avoid dealing with it and is this a grief with which they need to do more work to resolve?

In the fourth meeting, they share a timeline of losses in their lives.

After this meeting, each person selects one loss to focus on to learn the Grief Recovery Method. They look at their relationship with that loss and plot out the highs and lows of it. With each low, they may realize there may have been unspoken and unresolved things.

· They may have omitted saying something.

· They may need to apologize and ask for forgiveness.

At the fifth meeting, each person shares what they learned the work they did.

Between the fifth and sixth meeting, each person takes some time to look back at what they learned prior to and during the fifth meeting. They then categorize their responses into one of 3 categories – Apologies, Forgiveness or Significant Emotional Statements.

With apologies, they do not judge themselves for what they did or said. They apologize for any harm they did which they are ready to accept responsibility for. They don’t apologize for something they didn’t do.

• Most people misunderstand the meaning of forgiveness. They believe it means they are no longer hurt by the person who did it or what they did.

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines to forgive as to cease to feel resentment against the offender.

In some instances, people may have been victimized. Their anger may be focused on the one who harmed them or they could be angry no one prevented it from happening.

They may just need to forgive the perpetrator. They are not saying the harmful act was right. Nor are they saying it wasn’t important.

They are forgiving to set themself free from the connection to the harm which is causing the pain.

They are forgiving to release the hurt they still hold inside.

They are giving up their resentment for what happened and they will no longer let it hold them back.

· A significant emotional statement is not an apology or a forgiveness. It is expressing an emotion a person has which they didn’t have the opportunity to verbalize and which is keeping them from eliminating the pain in their relationship. Here are some examples:

➢ I loved the way you cared for me.

➢ I hated you when you didn’t stand up for me.

➢ I was so happy when you got your degree.

➢ I appreciated the private time we had together.

➢ I really liked it when you came to my games, sacrificed to send me to college and stood by me when dad was angry with me.

At the sixth meeting, each person shares their apologies, forgiveness and significant emotional statements with their small group.

After completing all of this work, there is one last step for the person to do. That is

The Grief Recovery Completion Letter©

They have in front of them all of the work they have done throughout the process. They write a letter on this one loss they have been working on.

In the Completion Letter, they briefly list each item they have apologized and are forgiving others for. They also list their significant emotional statements.

Most times they conclude the letter with a brief statement expressing their love and appreciation for the person and say goodbye.

Sometimes, it may not be possible to end with love and appreciation. In that case, it’s ok for them just to say something like “I have to go now. I have to let go of the pain.”

Where Are You?

As you have read through this post, you may be like me and realize there is still a lot of grief you are carrying with you. You may realize you may need the help of another to work through it.

Please reach out to a Grief Counselor or a Grief Recovery Specialist like Joy. Just imagine the peace you will have when you have finally freed yourself of all your grief.

You can get a list of Grief Counselors in Knox County by doing a google search.

If you want to get in touch with Joy, you can reach her at 865-963-9221.

She also has her own website, Walking with Joy. You can check it out by clicking here.

Joy regularly gives talks and workshops on Grief. While there is a charge for the Grief Recovery Workshops, scholarships are available through the Mynatt Funeral Home and Walking with Joy.

For information on upcoming talks or workshops, please call Joy at 865-963-9221.

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If you have any comments on what you have read in this post, please email them to me. Also – if you have any ideas about subjects you would like to see discussed in future posts, please send me an email and let me know. My email address is bob.ooablog@gmail.com.