When Healing Triggers Grief

“Is it weird that I feel better and worse at the same time?”

“Huh?” I didn’t expect to hear that from my client, a 62-year-old man with whom I’d been working as a personal trainer.

“Physically, I feel like a million bucks. I’m stronger, and not as cranky.” He paused, holding the medicine ball I’d just handed him. “Then I think about how I should’ve started exercising when I was younger, and I get so mad. And sad. My life could’ve been so much better.” 

I was a trainer, not a therapist, and I never knew how to handle these revelations. So, I did what I knew best. “Well, you’re here now, right? Come on, slam that medicine ball with everything you got, and don’t forget to engage your core.”

He shook his head. “You’re relentless, kid.”

How can someone feel better and worse at the same time? I remember thinking. Years later, as I began working as a therapist, I realized my client was likely experiencing something common on the path from unwell to well: a grief process that blindsides us because we don’t often recognize that healing, too, involves loss.

From Denial to Awareness

The path to healing looks different for everyone. It may include self-help books, journaling, a religious or spiritual practice, yoga, meditation, podcasts, therapy, or any combination of these.

Regardless of the path, we don’t always have the awareness and insight to articulate what, exactly, is wrong and why. What we may know is that we’re tired of not feeling good, and we want to feel better. For those who seek healing through therapy, the beginning often involves moving from denial (something is there, but I can't see it) to awareness (wow, now I see it).

This stage can feel exciting, eye-opening. Clients become more aware of their thoughts, behaviors, reactions. They realize they’re afraid of discomfort, and that they work very hard to avoid it.

Developing awareness is essential, but it’s not always enough to bring about change. We then start to peel back the layers, to explore the past with curiosity. Where do you suppose you learned that? What happened when you expressed emotions? What messages did you receive about your worth?

They start connecting the dots between the present and the past, between what they do and where they learned to do it. Awareness gives way to insight, and they move from wow, now I see it to now I understand why it's happening.

And while that insight may bring relief, it often leaves them looking back through a new lens, bringing more things into focus, and suddenly, unexpected emotions show up on the journey, blindsiding them in ways they never saw coming.

Anger

Exploring the past is not about blaming others for who we are, but rather about understanding who we became in light of others.

Problem is, when clients start to make sense of their story, they begin to process what their story cost them, and they find themselves feeling anger and resentment towards parents, family members, anyone they believe hurt them.

It’s not uncommon for clients to feel conflicted at this point, especially when the anger is directed at people they still love. Many worry it means they no longer care about the person, that they’re ungrateful, or that they’re betraying the relationship. As a result, they struggle to name it, let alone let themselves tfeel it.

So we work on learning to make room for it rather than judge it or push it away. The tricky part is that once they finally let themselves feel it, they want to take action. Suddenly, they want to have the conversation, confront the person, get everything off their chest.

We shift our focus to learning to be with it without letting it dictate what happens, because acting in anger will keep wounds wide open. For many clients, this is incredibly hard. Not doing anything with their anger almost feels counterintuitive and unfair.   

For many, viewing anger as part of the grief process that comes with healing can be incredibly helpful. Once they understand that anger is protecting them from the hurt underneath, they become less focused on getting rid of it and more willing to let it be. And as the anger loosens its grip, sadness emerges.

Sadness

Rarely do people move from anger to sadness overnight. More often, they experience both at the same time. This can be frustrating, especially for those who thought they had already "worked through" their anger.

But over time, they come to a tough realization: no amount of anger changes anything. The past remains the past, the loss is still the loss. And as that reality begins to settle in, sadness takes up all the space on the journey.

The source of sadness is unique to each person's story. Some grieve the parent they needed but didn't have. Others grieve years spent carrying responsibilities they didn't choose. Some grieve opportunities missed, dreams abandoned, or the life they imagined they would have.

But sometimes the sadness runs even deeper. Clients realize healing means letting go of an identity, of long held beliefs, of all the ways they’ve been protecting themselves. Others start to see not only how they were wounded, but also how they have wounded others.

At times, clients can't pinpoint the source, but spending too much time trying to figure out the source can pull them away from the emotion itself, and this can prevent the wounds from healing. So we continue to work on letting themselves just feel it.

Acceptance

One of the questions clients ask me most often is, "How will I know when I'm healed?" It's a fair question.

Healing is not about never feeling sad, angry, or hurt again. It’s not about forgetting what happened or pretending it didn't matter. Healing looks like being able to look back at your story without being pulled under by it. It’s when the past remains the same but it no longer emotionally hijacks you.

It’s also the point at which you stop waiting for someone to change, for someone to finally understand; you stop waiting for the apology, the acknowledgment, or the closure you may never receive.

And perhaps most importantly, it’s when you begin to see the humanity in everyone involved, including your own. You recognize people made choices that likely stemmed from their own wounds, their own limitations. And even though those choices caused pain, you realize you’re more than what happened to you.