Match the tool to the state.
The steps
- Allow the grief. Suppression doesn't resolve it — it accumulates and surfaces elsewhere.
- Do not be alone unless you need to be. Social support is the strongest predictor of healthy grief outcomes.
- Maintain the basics sleep, food, water. The body needs the floor to stay under grief.
- Distinguish grief from depression grief fluctuates. Depression is more pervasive and persistent.
- Find the continuing bond healthy grief transforms the relationship. It does not sever it.
Where it comes from
- Session 15 — the full handout
- Session 15 — Shutdown, Panic, Anger, Grief, and Shame
Prefer it one step at a time? The same protocol as a guided runner in the app, which also keeps a private record if you want one.
This is one of the tools a seventeen-session series teaches, ninety minutes at a time, in a room of six to twelve people. It is peer-facilitated and free to host.
Check what stayed 3 questions
Answer in your own words, out loud or on paper. Nothing is scored, nothing is marked, and nothing is stored — this is for noticing what you have, not for anybody to grade.
What is the instruction about the grief itself, rather than about managing it?
What the material says
Loss and sustained sadness. Allow it rather than suppress it.
What does the protocol say about being alone, and what does it give as the reason?
What the material says
Do not be alone unless you need to be. Social support is the strongest predictor of healthy grief
What is the distinction the protocol asks you to keep making, and on what basis?
What the material says
Distinguish grief from depression grief fluctuates. Depression is more pervasive and persistent.