December has a way of turning the volume up on everything we feel. The days are shorter, the nights drag on, and we end up spending more time inside, stuck with our thoughts, our memories, and the people we care about (or the ones we miss most). Holiday gatherings, familiar songs, and old traditions can stir up grief in unexpected ways. Sometimes it’s sadness. Sometimes it’s this heavy, unnamed ache that hangs around.
Grief isn’t only about losing someone you love. It’s the reminder of the family members you don’t talk to anymore, the way your identity shifts after illness, divorce, or becoming a parent. Sometimes, it’s the quiet grief for the future you pictured but never got. And yet, this time of year often comes with silent pressure to “be okay,” and to move on. You’re supposed to grieve the “right” way.
Many people turn to the stages of grief to try to figure out what’s going on inside. These frameworks can be comforting, but they can also be misleading when your feelings don’t line up in a tidy order. Grief doesn’t always move forward. Sometimes it loops back. Sometimes it crashes in, all at once. At Lotus Therapy, we understand that grief is not linear. Healing doesn’t work like a checklist. Most of the time, coping with loss is messier, slower, and way more personal than any model lets on.
This article offers a more compassionate, realistic view of the grief healing process, explores emotional stages of grief without rigid expectations, and looks at how therapy can gently support healing, especially during the hardest season of the year.
Where the 7 Stages of Grief Came From and Where They Fall Short
The stages of grief framework is one of the most well-known ways people try to make sense of loss. They give us words when we’re struggling and can make the whole experience feel less lonely. But the model was never meant to tell us how grief “should” go.
The concept originates with psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, whose early work in the late 1960s focused on individuals facing terminal illness. Her original model included five emotional stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
Over time, grief researchers expanded this framework, and many people now refer to the 7 stages of grief. This expanded model reflects a broader range of emotional responses that can come with loss.
What are the 7 Stages of Grief?
While not universal or prescriptive, the 7 Stages of Grief include:
- Shock and denial: You feel numb, maybe in disbelief, especially early on, as the reality of the loss feels overwhelming.
- Pain and guilt: The pain deepens. Sometimes there’s guilt about what you didn’t say or do, or about needing help from others.
- Anger and bargaining: You get angry at others, at yourself, at the whole situation. You might find yourself wishing you could somehow reverse what happened.
- Depression and loneliness: The loss really sinks in. There’s sadness, maybe you pull away from others, and you might feel completely alone.
- The upward turn: Things start to soften a little. Daily life gets easier, and it seems more manageable.
- Reconstruction and working through: Life starts to take shape again. You build new routines, maybe find new meaning.
- Acceptance and hope: The loss becomes integrated into your story. There’s space for hope again, and you start to move forward, even though you carry what you lost with you.
What’s important to understand is that the grieving process is not set in stone. You don’t go through these stages in order. Sometimes they overlap or repeat. Sometimes you skip one, or return to a stage years later, especially around anniversaries, holidays, or big changes.
When we treat the 7 stages like a set of rules, it can make us feel discouraged or ashamed that our experience doesn’t “match” the model. In therapy, many clients worry they aren’t grieving properly. It helps to see both the comfort and the limits of these grief stages. Healing is complicated, unpredictable, and different for everyone. That’s not a flaw. That’s just how grief works.
Grief Is Not Linear: What Healing Actually Looks Like
Grief doesn’t follow a neat path or a predictable timeline. Instead, it’s messier than most people expect. You might feel steady for a while, then out of nowhere , a memory, a familiar song, or even just the change in seasons knocks you off your feet again. It comes in waves, or maybe circles back on itself, never quite the same each time.
Many people are surprised and even unsettled by their complicated mix of emotions. You can feel sad and relieved, grateful and angry, even joyful and longing at the same time. These experiences don’t mean one feeling cancels out another. They are signs that your body and heart are trying to figure out how to live in this new reality. Learning how to move through grief often begins with giving them space to exist side by side, rather than trying to resolve them.
Grief also has a way of resurfacing without warning. Anniversaries, holidays, family get-togethers, or even just a certain smell can bring everything rushing back. December, especially, has a way of making grief feel heavier. The days get shorter, everyone expects you to be cheerful, and honestly, most people are just worn out by the end of the year. If you find yourself struggling more around this time, it doesn’t mean you’re sliding backward. It means your grief is responding to what’s happening around you, and that’s normal.
Integration of Grief
Rather than helping clients “get over” their loss, many therapists now practice integration or reconciliation of grief. Grief doesn’t just vanish. It changes. The sharp pain might fade and show up less often, but you still carry the loss with you. Healing means figuring out how to live with all of it, love, memory, and absence, woven together in your life.
Healing comes from letting it out. Coping with grief means allowing it to be felt and expressed, rather than avoiding, ignoring or pushing it away, for instance, talking it out, writing it out, crying, moving, and creating. When people let themselves feel and express their grief, they often start to notice small changes: a laugh that feels real, being able to look ahead, even finding some meaning along with the sadness. There’s no big finish line. Healing is slow and quiet, like grass growing, noticed only in hindsight.
You might gently check in with yourself:
- When does grief feel loudest for me?
- What still feels unfinished or unsaid?
These aren’t questions you need to answer right away. They’re more about listening to what your grief has to say. That kind of listening is what helps real healing take root.
When Grief Becomes Complicated or Traumatic
For many people, the pain gradually softens with time, even though it never fully goes away. But for some, grief starts to feel heavier, consuming, or frozen in place. This experience is often referred to as complicated grief.
Complicated grief feels different. Instead of slowly easing up, it remains intense and disruptive, long after the early months following a loss. You might feel numb, unable to imagine a future, or constantly caught up in memories of what happened. Signs of complicated grief can look like:
- Feeling frozen or unable to move forward
- Intense guilt or blaming yourself for the loss
- A sense of numbness, despair or emptiness that won’t lift
- Avoiding reminders or, sometimes, clinging to them
- Struggling to accept that the loss is real
None of this means you’re doing anything wrong. It just shows how deeply the loss has affected you, right down to your nerves and your sense of safety in the world.
Trauma and Grief
Trauma and grief often show up hand in hand. Traumatic grief often follows sudden, unexpected, or violent losses, such as accidents, medical crises, or the death of a child. Even long, drawn-out losses or early childhood pain can leave people stuck, especially if they grew up in families where love felt complicated, fights never really ended, or no one knew how to talk about feelings.
When grief is layered with trauma, your body can stay in survival mode. Suddenly, you’re dealing with racing thoughts, numbness, anxiety, or just wanting to avoid anything that reminds you of the pain.
December can intensify these symptoms. Your body remembers, even if your mind tries to move forward. Family gatherings, old traditions, and expectations about how things “should” feel can rip open old wounds. Shorter days and the pressure to be social can be a lot for an already overwhelmed nervous system, making grief feel louder and harder to contain.
If you’re finding that grief is interfering with your sleep, your appetite, your relationships, or even your ability to get through the day, we encourage you to reach out for professional support. It often reflects the depth of the relationship and the magnitude of what was lost. Grief counselling gives you the space to unravel what’s complicated or traumatic about your grief. You can work through both the loss itself and the ways your body keeps hanging on to the pain.
Support won’t erase grief. It just makes it more bearable. It lets healing happen at your own pace and honours your story rather than rushing it.
Coping With Grief: A More Compassionate Approach
Instead of viewing their grief healing process as stages, many people find it helpful to think of grief as a set of ongoing emotional tasks you work through over time, sometimes in a messy, back-and-forth way. These aren’t boxes to check off. They’re experiences you may move in and out of, revisit repeatedly, skip around, or stay in for a while.
One big task is making sense of what happened. That’s not about finding a reason or explanation that makes everything feel normal. It’s more about slowly understanding how the loss has changed your life, your roles, your future, and the way you see yourself. For a parent facing the holidays after a loss, maybe it means noticing that traditions feel empty now, and letting that feeling be what it is without forcing yourself to pretend to be okay.
Express Your Emotions
Coping with grief involves letting yourself feel, without judging what comes up. Grief is messy: sadness, anger, relief, numbness, little flashes of peace or gratitude. These feelings often coexist rather than replace one another. Letting yourself cry, rest when you’re tired, or notice a moment of joy without guilt is part of healing. Pushing emotions down or staying busy just to avoid feeling them usually makes things harder. Writing, moving, making things, or talking to someone helps lighten the load.
Over time, a lot of people learn to let joy and grief live side by side. At first, it can feel strange, even wrong. Laughing at dinner or enjoying a quiet morning doesn’t mean you’ve forgotten. It just means your heart is learning to hold more than one truth at once.
Grief also asks you to keep the connection going, even while you adapt to loss. You don’t have to “let go” of love. Lots of people feel comfort remembering their person, talking to them in their thoughts, celebrating anniversaries, telling stories or living out shared values. And if you’re grieving a relationship or a future that didn’t happen, it’s okay to mourn what never was, while still holding onto the part of yourself shaped by the experience.
Maintain a Routine
Another important piece is coming back to daily life and meaning. Grief can throw routines and motivation out the window. It can make you feel like you’ve lost your sense of identity. Slowly getting back to basics, such as going to bed at the same time, eating regular meals, and moving your body, can help you feel more grounded. This isn’t about being productive. It’s about giving yourself a little structure so the emotions don’t swallow you whole.
There’s no schedule for any of this. You may revisit them many times, especially around holidays or anniversaries. Grief finds its own rhythm, and the work is not to rush it. Meet yourself with patience and care and let healing happen the way it needs to, in your own time.
How Grief Counselling Supports Healing (Especially During the Holidays)
Grief can feel heavier during the holidays. Expectations pile up, emotions run high, and everyone seems busy, even when you want to hide away. There’s little space to slow down. Grief counselling gives a place where your experience is welcomed, not rushed or “fixed.” You don’t have to pretend. You get to show up with whatever you’re carrying, including sadness, relief, anger, confusion, or numbness.
At Lotus Therapy and Counselling Centre, we understand that everyone’s experience of grief is different. Our trauma-informed therapists bring a lot of experience, and they can help you move through grief without feeling overwhelmed.
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) helps explore the relationship between thoughts, emotions, and behaviours in the context of loss. Grief can often bring unhelpful beliefs , such as self-blame, guilt, or “I should be further along by now.” CBT supports you in gently identifying these patterns and learning more balanced ways of thinking, which can reduce distress and create greater emotional stability.
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) focuses on helping you make room for painful thoughts and feelings without being overwhelmed by them. Rather than trying to “get rid of” grief, ACT supports acceptance of what cannot be changed while helping you reconnect with your values. This approach can be especially helpful in grief, where learning to carry pain alongside meaning, purpose, and choice is often central to healing.
- Mindfulness-based approaches invite you to develop a compassionate awareness of the present moment. By tuning into your thoughts, emotions, and body sensations with curiosity instead of judgment, mindfulness can support emotional regulation, reduce rumination, and create moments of calm amidst the intensity of grief.
- Narrative Therapy offers a way to explore the stories you hold about your loss and yourself. Grief can sometimes narrow our sense of identity or future. Narrative therapy helps you honour what has been lost while also reclaiming meaning, resilience, and control over how your story continues to unfold.
Grief doesn’t just change you. It can shift the way you connect with friends, family, and everyone around you. Grief therapy can help you make sense of those changes and find your footing again. We offer practical tools during this time. For instance, emotional regulation during gatherings, boundary-setting when questions feel intrusive, and ways to make space for both grief and rest.
Sometimes talking isn’t enough. When words fall short, grief counselling turns to creative ways, such as art or movement, whatever helps you express what you’re feeling. These approaches can open up new paths for healing. Grief lives in the body, not just the mind. Somatic therapy focuses on the nervous system, helping you notice and gently release grief held in the body.
If you’re moving through loss and want support, our trauma-informed therapists at Lotus Therapy & Counselling Centre are here for you. We offer grief therapy in Vancouver, Coquitlam, and online grief counselling across BC. Schedule your appointment or get matched with a therapist today. You don’t have to do this alone.
References
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Smith, M., Robinson, L., & Segal, J. (2025, March 13). Coping with Grief and Loss: Stages of Grief and How to Heal. HelpGuide.org. https://www.helpguide.org/mental-health/grief/coping-with-grief-and-loss
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