Grief has a strange way of sneaking up on us. It doesn’t follow schedules. It doesn’t care about how strong we think we are or how much we try to keep it together. It simply shows up—sudden, sharp, disorienting. And for a while, everything stops.
But as Dr. Steven C. Hayes, a clinical psychologist and the creator of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, reminds us in his essay From Loss to Love, there’s something important tucked inside that pain. Something sacred. Because when we grieve deeply, it means we loved deeply too.
A lot of us have been taught—sometimes without even realizing it—that it’s better to “stay positive,” to move on quickly, or to not “dwell” on sadness. But grief isn’t something we can tidy up or sweep away. It demands to be felt.
Dr. Hayes writes about how avoiding our pain doesn’t actually protect us—it isolates us. Over time, the grief we push down can start to affect everything: our mental health, our relationships, even our sense of meaning in the world. “Memory has no delete button,” he says. If we don’t face our losses, they don’t go away—they just get buried, and eventually, they rise back up.
It’s a message echoed in a blog post by Peaceful Death, where healthcare professionals shared heartbreaking stories of how personal grief caught them off guard. A nurse collapsed in the middle of a hospital shift after hearing her mother had died. Another struggled with guilt for pushing painful treatments on her father during his final days. These are people who face death every day—and yet, when it became personal, their grief was raw and unbearable. It reminds us that no one is immune to loss.
It’s easy to feel like grief is something to be ashamed of, especially when the world seems to expect us to bounce back quickly. But Dr. Hayes offers a radical reframe: grief is not weakness. It’s not dysfunction. It’s love with nowhere to go.
And when we sit with that pain instead of trying to push it away, we start to notice something unexpected: underneath all the sorrow is a fierce, enduring connection to the person we lost. That bond doesn’t disappear. It changes form. And it can even guide us.
One of the most powerful things Dr. Hayes encourages us to do is ask ourselves: What is this pain trying to show me? Often, the answers are connected to what we value most. If we’re grieving a parent, maybe it’s the safety they gave us. If we’re mourning a partner, maybe it’s the laughter, the shared rituals, the feeling of being seen.
One woman shared how, after losing her sister to addiction, she kept that pain locked up for years. It wasn’t until she let herself grieve—really grieve—that she realized what mattered wasn’t just the loss, but the love they shared. Her sister had been wildly creative, full of passion, and fiercely loyal. So she decided to live her life carrying those qualities forward. It didn’t erase the sadness, but it gave her direction.
Dr. Hayes calls this psychological flexibility: the ability to stay present with our pain while still moving toward what matters.
Grief doesn’t get smaller. But with time, and with care, our lives can grow around it.
That growth doesn’t come from rushing to “get over it.” It comes from making space for all of it—the pain, the memories, the love, the longing. Dr. Hayes puts it this way: “If you are open to pain, you are also open to joy.” In other words, the same heart that breaks is also the one that can heal.
Grief is not an interruption of life—it’s part of it. And if we let it, it can open us to deeper compassion, softer hearts, and a more honest way of living.
We don’t need to fix grief. We just need to make room for it. Let people cry. Let them tell their stories, even if they repeat them. Let them be quiet. Let them remember.
Because every grief holds the echo of a love that mattered—and still does.
By Marketing and Communications, Burnaby Hospice Society
Reference:
From Loss to Love, Steven C. Hayes Ph.D., www.psychologytoday.comPsychological flexibility: How love turns pain into purpose, Steven C.Hayes Ph.D.,TedTalk
