The Eight Pillars of Grieving

1. Engage with Grief, Don’t Fight It

Recognize that you cannot fight grief, but you can support yourself by allowing space for all feelings and finding ways to express them, which gives you more agency in the process.

2. Seek Support from Others

Prioritize external relationships and surround yourself with people who care about you and that you trust, as their love and support are the single most important predictor of healing outcomes in grief.

3. Honor Relationship with Deceased

Face the reality of death while recognizing that love for the person never dies; maintain a relationship with the deceased by allowing their love to continue within you, rather than expending energy to suppress it.

4. Know Your Coping & Self-Compassion

Recognize your natural default coping mechanisms (e.g., shutting down, freezing) and understand their utility, but also create ways to allow yourself to feel pain by turning inward, knowing yourself, and asking what you need.

5. Identify and Express Emotions

Gain clarity on the different hues of your emotions, even by using a collage or naming them (e.g., blue for sadness, red for rage), to allow them in and free them to express themselves, which supports incremental adjustment to loss.

6. Allow Sufficient Time for Grief

Reject social or cultural timeframes for grief and instead allow yourself ‘kairos time’ – the felt, right time for you – without pushing yourself to fit a calendar, as this supports better healing.

7. Avoid Comparing Your Grief

Do not compare your grieving process or recovery time to others, as this can lead to misery and feelings of inadequacy; instead, support yourself in your own ‘kairos time’ for better outcomes.

8. Integrate Mind and Body Awareness

Recognize the close connection between your mind and body, allowing both to have a voice and be expressed, which leads to a clearer sense of calm and helps you feel safe.

9. Prioritize Balance and Safety

Be mindful of all your daily activities (who you see, what you watch, eat, drink, physical movement, social media use) and choose those that balance you and help you feel safe in your mind, body, and home, to build robustness against grief’s storms.

10. Use Exercise to Calm Body

Engage in exercise to signal to your body that it has ‘flown’ from threat, which lowers cortisol, increases dopamine, and improves calmness, thinking capacity, decision-making, and feelings of safety during grief.

11. Practice 7/11 Breathing

When overwhelmed by grief, use a breathing technique of breathing in for seven counts and out for eleven counts, allowing the emotion to break through and release itself.

12. Set Limits, Practice Saying No

Recognize that grief consumes most of your energy, so give yourself permission to have limits and accept your reduced capacity; practice saying ’no’ by deferring responses (e.g., ‘Let me get back to you’) and avoid self-criticism for doing so, which makes your ‘yes’ more meaningful.

13. Establish Daily Routines

Create daily structure and routines (e.g., exercise before breakfast, specific tasks) to provide emotional containment and reduce decision fatigue, as good habits support your physiology and build a more stable life during grief.

14. Limit Choices for Agency

Reduce choice overload by pre-deciding activities (e.g., choosing a movie at 5 pm to watch at 7 pm), which provides a sense of agency, satisfaction, and completion, especially when bandwidth is low due to grief.

15. Forgive Yourself for Bad Days

If you have a ‘bad day’ and deviate from your planned routine, forgive yourself instead of catastrophizing or using it to self-criticize; acknowledge it as a new day and start again.

16. Practice Focusing and Mindfulness

Dedicate time to focusing, whether through spiritual contemplation, listening to your body’s wisdom, or 10 minutes of mindful breathing and allowing whatever emerges without fighting or squashing it, which provides incredible balance and support.

17. Cook Deceased’s Favorite Recipes

On difficult days or anniversaries, cook a favorite recipe of the deceased loved one to honor their memory and feel a bittersweet connection to them.

18. Communicate Openly in Family

Engage in honest communication with family members about how each person is grieving, acknowledging that everyone expresses grief differently without right or wrong ways, to recalibrate the family system and build stronger bonds of understanding and compassion.

19. Process Emotions Through Activity

When experiencing difficult emotions like fury or powerlessness, engage in physical activities like kickboxing to process them and maintain balance.

20. Pick Yourself Up, Start Again

If you get ‘hijacked’ by life and deviate from your supportive habits, don’t dwell on it; instead, pick yourself up the next day and start again.

21. Use Julia Samuel’s Grief App

Utilize Julia Samuel’s 28-day course app, which includes sleep meditations, visualizations, exercise apps (yoga, HIT), and other resources, as a comprehensive tool to support you when you’re grieving and may struggle with memory.