Grief: Our Soul’s Immune System
Written by Kelley Oldham, LCPC
My therapist once told me that Sadness from Inside Out should have been drawn as a princess, not a slumped, gloomy little character dragging herself across the floor. I think he was onto something.
Grief gets a bad reputation. But grief is actually a gift. It's how our souls metabolize the overwhelm of being alive, and the losses every one of us will face at some point. Losing a person, a relationship, a dream, a version of ourselves: grief is how we digest it and keep living.
So why does something so useful feel so awful?
We hate feeling grief (even therapists)
Most of us hate to feel grief. We hate to cry. I'm a therapist, and honestly? I hate it too.
But here's what I notice again and again, in my own life and in the therapy room: after the tears, there's release. Something loosens. And that's especially true when grief is witnessed.
I can't fully explain it, but grief cuts in half when it's shared with another person. Pain doubles when we carry it alone. It just does. That's a big part of why talking with a therapist or people who love and listen well helps us.
The sneaky ways we avoid grief
Because grief hurts, we get creative about not feeling it. Some of the most common detours:
Getting angry instead of sad
Feeling anxious or keyed up
Sinking into shame ("What's wrong with me?")
Dissociating or going numb
Scrolling on our phones
Smoking weed, drinking, or zoning out in front of the TV
None of these make you a bad person. They're very human ways of coping. The catch is that they don't make grief go away. They just push it down.
And pushing emotion down takes a lot of energy. Expressing emotion takes energy too, but there's a difference: when we let grief be felt, it gets metabolized. It moves us. It softens us and builds compassion, for ourselves and for others. Suppressed grief just sits there, waiting.
"Does my therapist just want me to cry?"
Well... yes, sometimes.
Not because crying is the goal, and not because we enjoy watching people hurt. It's because a lot of what brings people to therapy is grief that never got its turn. Old losses get packed away, and years later they show up as anxiety, irritability, numbness, or feeling stuck.
Part of good therapy is gently helping people move toward that avoided grief, at a pace that feels safe, with someone right there beside them. When it finally gets felt, people often describe feeling lighter, clearer, and more like themselves.
Grief vs. a "woe is me" mindset
Here's an important distinction: not every tear is grief.
Sometimes sadness on the outside is really a victim mindset underneath, the "woe is me" loop where we're looking for pity or rescue rather than actually feeling the loss. Both can produce tears. But they're not the same thing.
Grief faces the loss. It hurts, it moves through, and it tends to leave us softer and more connected.
A victim stance circles the loss. It tends to keep us stuck, and it often leaves us (and the people around us) feeling drained.
If you recognize yourself in the second one, that's okay. It usually means real grief is hiding underneath, and that's exactly what a therapist can help you reach.
A helpful map: the Change Triangle
One of my favorite tools for understanding all of this comes from psychotherapist Hilary Jacobs Hendel, LCSW, author of It's Not Always Depression. She calls it the Change Triangle, and it shows how we move from feeling stuck to feeling like ourselves again.
Defenses (top left corner): the things we do so we don't have to feel. Think numbing out, scrolling, staying busy, joking it off, or getting irritable.
Inhibitory emotions (top right corner): anxiety, shame, and guilt. These show up to block our deeper feelings, often because we learned early on that those feelings weren't safe or welcome.
Core emotions (bottom of the triangle): sadness (including grief), anger, fear, joy, excitement, disgust, and sexual excitement. These are wired into us and built to help us.
When we can safely move past our defenses and anxiety and actually feel a core emotion like grief, we land in what Hendel calls the openhearted state: calm, curious, connected, compassionate, confident, courageous, and clear.
That's the whole point. We don't feel grief just to hurt. We feel it so we can come back to ourselves.
You don't have to grieve alone
If you've been carrying a loss, or you suspect there's old grief sitting underneath your anxiety, anger, or numbness, you don't have to sort through it by yourself. Remember: pain is doubled alone, and grief is cut in half when it's shared.
At Cultivate Counseling Group, our Chicago therapists are clinicians who truly understand emotions, including the hard ones. We work with individuals, couples, families, and kids, and we'll meet you where you are.
In person at our North Center office
In person at our new Avondale location
Telehealth sessions available across Illinois
Ready to talk? Reach out to Cultivate Counseling Group to get matched with a therapist.
Written by Kelley Oldham. Kelley is the founder of Cultivate and has been a therapist for almost 20 years. She specializes with adults who deal with anxiety and depression. She loves her job and considers it sacred (even if you think that’s corny).
Cultivate Counseling Group is a therapy practice in Lincoln Square/North Center Chicago (and virtually all over Illinois, Florida and Wisconsin). If you’re looking to have your or your child work with a therapist, contact us to ask questions, inquire about availability, or schedule an appointment. You can also reach out directly to hello@cultivatecounselinggroup.com.