Grief as an act of love
And what happens when we don’t let it in
Grief is often treated as a problem to be solved. A stage to pass through. A season to endure. We measure it in steps, as though it can be neatly categorised into phases, each bringing us closer to resolution. But grief is not a process we complete. It is not something we heal from once and for all. It is something we must learn to carry, something we must become skilled at holding—not just for ourselves, but for each other.
This piece is part of The Grief We Don’t See series, exploring the ways grief operates beyond what we recognise. This particular piece has been inspired by the work of Francis Weller and
, building on their frameworks to consider how grief might even be a form of care.
Grief is often treated as something to get through, a temporary state we must endure before returning to normal. In therapy, I see this impulse constantly—the need to move past pain, to resolve it, to work through the stages and come out the other side. There is an expectation that if we do it right, grief will loosen its grip, that it will be something we finish.
But grief is not a task. It is not an inconvenience. It is something we must learn to carry. It is a skill, yes—but one that is communal, not just personal. One that when we do it right, connects us to the world, not just to our own suffering.
Francis Weller, in The Wild Edge of Sorrow, describes grief as something we return to over and over, something cyclical rather than linear. His framework of the Six Gates of Grief offers a way to understand sorrow not as a single event, but as something layered, interconnected, and woven through both personal and collective experience. In therapy, I see people struggle most with the grief that is not obvious—the losses that are not death, but still leave an absence. The life that didn’t unfold as expected. The futures that never arrived. The quiet losses that have no rituals, no clear acknowledgment, and so are carried in silence.
But grief is not just an individual experience. Many Indigenous traditions, as well as historical mourning practices, remind us that grief has always been communal, that sorrow was never meant to be carried alone. In many cultures, grief is shared—through ritual, through song, through the physical presence of others. It is not something to be processed privately, in a therapist’s office, or in moments of solitude; it is something to be witnessed. Many Indigenous Australian communities practice collective grieving, recognising that sorrow belongs not just to the individual but to the group. In certain West African traditions, grief is expressed through lamentation ceremonies, through wailing and movement, giving it a form beyond words.
Yet, in Western society, we have made grief something private, something contained. We have isolated it, reducing it to something to be managed. And in doing so, I think we have inadvertently made it harder to bear.
The Six Gates of Grief can help us reimagine the role of grief—not just as something to endure, but as something that shapes us, something that connects us, something that expands our capacity for love.
Gate 1. Everything we love, we will lose
The first gate is the grief of everything we love - and will therefore lose. This is the most recognised form of grief—the loss of a person, a relationship, a home, a way of life. It is the kind of grief that has rituals, that is expected. Even so, we are often rushed through it. Funerals are brief. Maternity or bereavement leave for pregnancy loss is minimal. The world moves on before grief has even begun to settle. But this kind of grief does not operate on a schedule. It continues in small, piercing moments—hearing a song, smelling someone’s old perfume, instinctively reaching for the phone before remembering there is no one on the other end.
Gate 2. The parts of us that have not known love
Then, there is the grief of the parts of us that have not known love. This is the grief of what was never given, of the spaces in our lives where care should have been but wasn’t. This is the grief of the mother who was never nurturing, the father who was never safe, the childhood that never felt secure. It is the grief of unmet longing. It is also the grief of exclusion, of being outside of the expected path.
This kind of grief is often the work of therapy. This is grief without ritual, grief that is rarely acknowledged, grief that is often met with discomfort or minimisation, but that ultimately helps us to understand ourselves and our needs - even if they were never met.
Gate 3. The sorrows of the world
The third is the grief of the world. It is the sorrow of witnessing suffering that is larger than us—the destruction of the environment, the harm done to others, the weight of injustice. It is the grief of seeing history repeat itself, of knowing that suffering continues, of feeling powerless to stop it.
In modern life, this grief is often numbed rather than processed. It is easier to scroll past an image of disaster, to push away the discomfort of knowing how much is beyond our control. But in many traditions, grief for the world is acknowledged communally—through ceremony, through gathering, through shared mourning. There is something profoundly different about grieving together. In many Indigenous cultures, when a member of the community dies, the mourning process is not just for the family, but for the entire community. Grief is seen as something that belongs to all, something that must be held collectively, something that changes the group, not just the individual.
Gate 4. What we expected and did not receive
The fourth gate is the grief of what we expected and did not receive. This is the grief of lost dreams, of futures that never arrived. It is the grief of the life that didn’t unfold as planned, the milestones that were expected but never reached. It is the grief of never marrying, of never having children, of never feeling at home in the roles assigned to us. It is also the grief of realising that what we were promised was never guaranteed.
Many women who arrive at midlife without the family they once expected struggle to name this grief, to give it language. There is an assumption that if there is no single event of loss, then there is nothing to mourn. But this grief accumulates. It is carried in birthday candles that mark another year of waiting. It is held in the awkward pauses when asked, Do you have kids? It is the quiet mourning of a self that never had the chance to exist.
Gate 5. Ancestral grief
The fifth gate is ancestral grief. It is the sorrow we inherit, the losses that ripple through generations. It is the trauma that is passed down, the stories that live in our bones before we even hear them spoken aloud. It is the grief of displacement, of lost language, of histories erased. For some, this is the grief of being the end of a lineage—the knowledge that a family line will not continue, that the stories passed down will stop with them. In therapy, I see this grief surface in unexpected ways—a sense of responsibility to carry on traditions, a longing for something that cannot be reclaimed.
Gate 6. The harms we have done
And the final gate: the grief of the harm we have caused. This is the grief of regret, of realising we have hurt others, of seeing the ways we have been complicit in harm. It is the sorrow of knowing we have fallen short—not just in our personal relationships, but in our responsibility to the world. This grief is particularly difficult because it does not ask for resolution—it asks for accountability. It asks for us to hold the discomfort of knowing that we cannot go back, that some wounds remain open, that our own grief does not erase the grief we have caused.
If we do not acknowledge grief, it does not disappear. It lingers, unexpressed, pressing against the edges of our lives. It manifests in exhaustion, in anxiety, in the feeling of being untethered from ourselves. It isolates us. But when we recognise grief as something that binds us together rather than something we must endure alone, we begin to move differently. We begin to grieve with each other, rather than in isolation.
Grief is not just about what we have lost. It is about what we have loved. And in that love, in that sorrow, there is something sacred. There is something worth holding onto.
We do not grieve because we are broken. We grieve because we have dared to care. Because we have allowed ourselves to love deeply, to hope fully, to be human in the messiest and most beautiful way possible. And if we have loved at all, then grief will come. The only question is whether we will let it in.