(What it often feels like inside the person) Denial — “This isn’t really happening.” Denial in divorce often appears as logistical focus: paperwork, schedules, assets, dates. Emotion is postponed under the belief that practicality equals strength. Staying emotionally married after legal separation Imagining reconciliation despite clear finality Minimizing harm: “We’re adults, we’ll be fine.” Continuing rituals that belong to the marriage, not the individual Denial here is not

The wound of leaving, and the wound of being left Community desertion is a grief that lives between people. It is not only the ache of separation but the rupture of meaning, identity, and belonging. Whether someone leaves by choice, necessity, banishment, or quiet drift, the loss reverberates on all sides—within the one who departs, among those who remain, and in the community body itself. 1. The Grief of the One Who Leaves For the person who deserts—or is forced out—the grie

Here is a deep, structured, emotionally attuned framework applying Alan Wolfelt’s Six Needs of Mourning specifically to the end of romantic relationships, with two pathways: Sudden endings (unexpected breakup, betrayal, abandonment) Mutual decisions (chosen, intentional, compassionate separation) This is designed to help you understand the different emotional landscapes of each path and what the psyche needs to heal. Two Pathways: Sudden Ending vs. Mutual Decision 1. ACKNOWLE

Two Pathways: Sudden Ending vs. Mutual Decision The ending of a long-term relationship can feel like a Divorce. 1. DENIAL Sudden Ending Experience:  The mind tries to protect itself from shock. Manifestations: Not fully registering that the relationship is over. Re-reading texts, revisiting memories, waiting for “the real explanation.” Feeling numb or strangely functional. Telling yourself they’ll come back once they “cool off." Key Needs / Movement: Gentle grounding in reali

Family Coping with Illness and Death Holidays are built on rhythm—shared meals, familiar music, traditions that return us to ourselves. A hospital interrupts that rhythm completely. Time there does not move by calendar days or festive markers, but by vitals, rounds, alarms, and waiting. When illness or death enters the holidays, celebration becomes suspended, replaced by a quieter, heavier kind of presence. The Collision of Worlds Outside the hospital walls, the season insist

The Core of Veteran Grief: Loss Without a Funeral Veteran grief is often disenfranchised grief—loss that is not publicly recognized or socially validated. Veterans grieve: The person they were before service The future they imagined for themselves The body that once worked without pain or limitation The moral clarity they may have once held The comrades who understood them in ways civilians cannot This grief is rarely named as grief. Instead, it is mislabeled as anger, withdr

Grief This grief is real—even when responsibility is denied. They may grieve: Loss of access Loss of role Loss of imagined future Loss of social standing However, grief becomes frozen when it cannot move toward accountability. Rage Disguised as Hurt Anger often hides beneath the victim narrative: Anger at loss of control Anger at boundaries Anger at no longer being centred This anger may surface as: Moral outrage Smear campaigns Passive aggression Public displays of suffering

For some estranged individuals, the story becomes: “They left me.”-“I was discarded.”-“I did nothing to deserve this.” This narrative may feel absolutely true to them—even when the estrangement followed years of conflict, boundary violations, or unresolved harm. Why This Mindset Forms: Loss Without Agency Being estranged from—especially by a child, sibling, or long-term attachment—can feel like annihilation of role and identity. Parent without a child Sibling without shared h

Trigger warning — this message discusses suicide and its aftermath. If anything I say brings up immediate danger for you or someone else, please call your local emergency number now or a crisis line (in the U.S. or Canada, dial 988). When a loved one completes suicide, grief does not arrive as a single emotion. It arrives as a rupture—an event that fractures time, meaning, memory, and identity for those left behind. This form of grief is often called complicated  or traumatic

Trigger warning — this message discusses suicide and its aftermath. If anything I say brings up immediate danger for you or someone else, please call your local emergency number now or a crisis line (in the U.S. or Canada, dial 988). When a service member dies by suicide, the shock is physical — a unit that shared food, watch, jokes, and missions now has an absence that feels like a hole in the formation. The loss lands differently than other deaths. It carries operational, p

A narrative exploration of grief as it is lived by those in active service—and by the families who love them—without relying on stage-based models. This grief is not an event. It is a climate. It settles into daily life and reshapes it. The Grief of Active Service There is a quiet grief that begins long before anything is lost. It begins the first time duty is chosen over dinner, over bedtime, over a promised weekend. It is not a dramatic decision. It rarely feels like a choi

Careers aren’t just jobs—they are identities, stories, futures we imagine into being. So when something in our career begins to die—a dream, a role, a plan, a version of who we thought we were—the emotional terrain mirrors grief. A career transition can feel like walking through the same rooms that the dying or the grieving pass through. Each room asks something of us. None are wrong. All are human. Here is how those stages often unfold on the path of work. Denial — “This can

Losing a career isn’t just losing a job. It is losing a rhythm, a role, a way you introduced yourself at parties, a structure around your days, a source of pride, and—sometimes—your sense of self. Like any major loss, it leaves a deep vacancy that requires mourning. The Six Needs of Mourning offer a way to understand that inner terrain. Below is how each need shows up when the loss you’re grieving is your career . Acknowledge the Reality of the Loss This is the moment when th

The Whole House of Mourning (using the House of Wonder Framework) The six rooms aren’t a sequence. They’re not a maze. They’re a home—one you inhabit for as long as grief insists. The doors don’t lock. The rooms don’t disappear. You move through them in spirals, in loops, in unexpected patterns. Grief is not a journey with a finish line; it is a home you learn to live in. And over time, the house doesn’t get smaller— you grow big enough to live in all its rooms without fear.

An Exploration of the 5 Stages of Death and Dying through the House of Wonder framework Grief is supposed to be a journey, but sometimes it becomes a house—one you never meant to move into. Its five rooms were never meant to be lived in permanently, only walked through. Yet many people find themselves in one corner or another, long after the loss should have softened enough to set them free. The Room of Denial At first glance, it’s peaceful here. Everything looks just as it u

A framework for acknowledging, processing, and integrating the end of a once-anchoring friendship. Accept the Reality of the Friendship’s Ending What this means in Friendships: Friendship endings rarely come with ceremony or clarity. They often fade, fracture slowly, or collapse abruptly. Accepting the ending does not mean approving of it. It means acknowledging that the friendship no longer functions as it once did. Processes that support this need: Naming the loss: “We aren

Denial — “No… this must be a misunderstanding.” Sudden endings trigger acute disbelief . Where slow endings erode, sudden endings rupture. Denial here shows up as: Trying to rationalize the abruptness: They’re overwhelmed… they’ll text back.” Reading and re-reading the last message, searching for clues you missed. Replaying the final interaction as if it will reveal a hidden hinge. Expecting them to return any moment because things were “fine” yesterday. Sudden loss disorient

Denial — “Maybe we’re just busy.” In a mutual ending, denial is shared and gentle. Neither person wants to admit the drift, so both keep explaining it away. It looks like: Long gaps in communication that both people try to brush off. Plans that keep getting postponed, but no one pushes hard to reschedule. A belief that “we’ll reconnect when life calms down,” even though life never does. Both people are sensing the shift but not wanting to name it. This stage is protective. It

In my work, the lines between cultural and evidence-based modalities are blurring and fusing. The work itself feels more dynamic, allowing me to engage in multiple spheres of consciousness and address the relationship between lived and imagined experiences. Both areas are important, as they provide insights into different aspects of life. The story lives in both worlds, playing out chapters, plots, and characters that serve a purpose. Integrating the evidence-based modalities

By: Brandon Robbins Since beginning this path in the field of mental health, I would never have thought I would make connections that would join me to my culture of origin and the medicinal practices that come with that way of life. My understanding of what medicine is shifts the more I choose to open up. The more I choose to understand and embrace, the more I grow. Hearing a call, I felt a pull to dive deeper—not only to connect with the culture of medicinal practices that a