Speaker 1: Welcome to grief. Let's make sense of this shit. I'm Dylan,
Speaker 1: and I am glad you are here with me right now.
Speaker 1: Many listeners reach out after a loss and notice relief
Speaker 1: sitting right next to sadness. That mix can feel surprising,
Speaker 1: yet it arrives often when the relationship carried both love
Speaker 1: and strain. Today we turn to the working title Grief
Speaker 1: Complicated Bond, Love and Pain. After a hard relationship, the
Speaker 1: focus stays on bonds that were never simple. You are
Speaker 1: welcome to stay for the full conversation, even when the
Speaker 1: emotions feel tangled together. However, some days the relief brings
Speaker 1: its own guilt, while the sadness refuses to line up neatly. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the truth is that grief does not require the relationship
Speaker 1: to have been easy or kind. In fact, people often
Speaker 1: carry both gratitude and hurt long after the person is gone. Therefore,
Speaker 1: this episode names the specific type of grief that shows
Speaker 1: up in complicated bonds because those connections leave marks that
Speaker 1: do not fade on any set schedule. Although the feelings
Speaker 1: may shift from one hour to the next, they still
Speaker 1: deserve space. Since the bond held both warmth and weight.
Speaker 1: The morning process can reflect that same mix. The reality
Speaker 1: is you do not need to sort every emotion before
Speaker 1: you listen. Instead, we sit with the reality that love
Speaker 1: and pain can share the same story. For example, a
Speaker 1: person may miss the good moments while also feeling lighter
Speaker 1: without the difficult ones. Plus those two experiences do not
Speaker 1: cancel each other out. Ultimately, the episode centers on this
Speaker 1: complicated bond grief because it shows up when the relationship
Speaker 1: asked a lot and gave back in uneven ways. Although
Speaker 1: it may not match common stories of loss, the weight
Speaker 1: remains real. Therefore, we begin by recognizing that tangled grief
Speaker 1: belongs here too, Because the feelings do not always line
Speaker 1: up neatly, some losses carry an extra layer of confusion
Speaker 1: right from the start. This kind of grief happens when
Speaker 1: the person who died was someone you loved and someone
Speaker 1: who also caused real pain while they were alive. Researchers
Speaker 1: at the American Psychiatric Association include this experience under the
Speaker 1: d s M five t R criteria for persistent complex bereavement.
Speaker 1: Because the bond itself was never simple. The relationship could
Speaker 1: have been with a parent who offered care one moment
Speaker 1: and criticism the next. It might have been a partner
Speaker 1: where affection mixed with arguments that never found resolution, or
Speaker 1: it could have been a sibling where shared history included
Speaker 1: both closeness and repeated hurt. In each case, the loss
Speaker 1: leaves behind a mix that refuses to settle into one
Speaker 1: clear emotion. Because of that mix, the grief often lands
Speaker 1: differently than other losses. Relief can arrive alongside sadness, and
Speaker 1: the relief itself brings another wave of guilt. Anger can
Speaker 1: surface even though the person is gone, and then guilt
Speaker 1: follows again because anger feels wrong to hold. Meanwhile, the
Speaker 1: good memories refuse to stay separate from the difficult ones,
Speaker 1: so every recall carries both comfort and tension at once.
Speaker 1: Although many people expect grief to move in one direction,
Speaker 1: this version stays tangled because the connection was tangled to
Speaker 1: begin with. The episode will look at why that difference
Speaker 1: matters and how the emotions keep circling without a clear order.
Speaker 1: Since the bond held both love and pain, the morning
Speaker 1: process has to make room for both instead of trying
Speaker 1: to separate them into neat parts. That difference shows up
Speaker 1: in small daily moments. You might notice yourself starting a
Speaker 1: sentence as if the person were still there, and then
Speaker 1: remember the last argument you had, or you might feel
Speaker 1: a sudden softness toward them, followed quickly by the memory
Speaker 1: of something that still stings. These shifts do not cancel
Speaker 1: each other out. They simply exist together because the relationship
Speaker 1: itself contained both sides. While other losses allow grief to
Speaker 1: focus on what was taken, this one keeps asking what
Speaker 1: the relationship actually was. The American Psychiatric Association DSM five
Speaker 1: TR criteria note that persistent complex bereavement can include these prolonged,
Speaker 1: conflicting feelings when the bond carried unresolved elements. That recognition
Speaker 1: helps explain why the sadness refuses to follow a single
Speaker 1: path and why the guilt over any lighter moment feels
Speaker 1: especially sharp because the conflict was ongoing. The absence does
Speaker 1: not automatically bring peace. Instead, the absence creates space for
Speaker 1: both the missing and the relief to sit side by side.
Speaker 1: That side by side quality is what makes this grief
Speaker 1: feel distinct. It asks for room to hold the full
Speaker 1: picture rather than a cleaned up version of the relationship.
Speaker 1: The episode will explore those layers without rushing them into
Speaker 1: any particular order. Right now though, I want to share
Speaker 1: a brief moment from my own life that brought this
Speaker 1: into focus for me. My father and I had a
Speaker 1: long stretch where every conversation ended with raised voices, Yet
Speaker 1: there were also quiet evenings when he taught me how
Speaker 1: to fix small things around the house. After he died,
Speaker 1: the first weeks felt like two separate tracks running at once.
Speaker 1: One track held the arguments that still echoed, and the
Speaker 1: other held those quiet evenings that I missed without warning.
Speaker 1: The tracks never merged into one feeling. They simply kept
Speaker 1: running next to each other, and that was the part
Speaker 1: that surprised me most. I want to share something with you,
Speaker 1: a real moment from my own experience with complicated grief,
Speaker 1: not to make this about me, but because I think
Speaker 1: it might help you feel less alone in what you
Speaker 1: were carrying. My grandmother raised me. She was the center
Speaker 1: of my world, but she was also hard in ways
Speaker 1: that left marks. She could be sharp, tongued and critical.
Speaker 1: She could make me feel small. There were years when
Speaker 1: I felt like I was holding my breath around her,
Speaker 1: waiting for the next thing to set her off. But
Speaker 1: she also fought like hell for me when nobody else did.
Speaker 1: She showed up, she stayed, and when she died, I
Speaker 1: was not prepared for what happened inside me. At her funeral,
Speaker 1: I stood up to speak. I had written something down,
Speaker 1: something neat and proper, about her life, But when I
Speaker 1: got to that podium, the words that came out were
Speaker 1: not the ones I had planned. I talked about the
Speaker 1: time she drove three hours in a snowstorm to bring
Speaker 1: me soup when I was sick. I talked about the
Speaker 1: way she called me every single Sunday for fifteen years,
Speaker 1: no matter what. And then I started crying, not gently,
Speaker 1: but hard, the kind of crying that takes over your
Speaker 1: whole body, the kind that makes you feel like you
Speaker 1: are drowning in the middle of a room full of people.
Speaker 1: Here is the part I could not explain to anyone
Speaker 1: that day. Along with that grief, there was something else,
Speaker 1: something that felt wrong to name out loud. I was
Speaker 1: also relieved. I was relieved that I would never again
Speaker 1: have to brace myself before answering the phone. I was
Speaker 1: relieved that I did not have to spend another holiday
Speaker 1: walking on eggshells, waiting for her to find something wrong
Speaker 1: with me. And that relief made me feel guilty, which
Speaker 1: made the crying worse, which made the relief feel even stronger.
Speaker 1: It was a loop I could not escape. I left
Speaker 1: that funeral feeling like something was broken in me. How
Speaker 1: could I miss her and be glad she was gone
Speaker 1: at the same time. How could I love someone so
Speaker 1: much and still feel angry at her? I did not
Speaker 1: have words for what I was experiencing. Nobody had told
Speaker 1: me that grief could feel like five different things at once,
Speaker 1: all tangled together so tightly you cannot find where one
Speaker 1: ends and the next begins. The truth is complicated relationships
Speaker 1: create complicated grief when someone has hurt us, even people
Speaker 1: we love deeply. The morning process does not follow a
Speaker 1: straight line. We are not just grieving their absence. We
Speaker 1: are grieving the relationship we wish we could have had.
Speaker 1: We are grieving our hope that things might somehow get better.
Speaker 1: We are grieving our own innocence. Maybe the belief that
Speaker 1: love should feel safe. That mix of emotions at a
Speaker 1: funeral or memorial service is more common than most people realize.
Speaker 1: Researchers who study grief have found again and again that
Speaker 1: people who have complicated or conflicted relationships with the person
Speaker 1: who died often experience what is sometimes called conflicting emotions.
Speaker 1: That means feeling sad and angry at the same time.
Speaker 1: It means missing someone while also being grateful they are gone.
Speaker 1: Means crying at the funeral and then feeling shame about
Speaker 1: those tears because part of you is relieved. If that
Speaker 1: sounds like something you are going through right now, I
Speaker 1: want you to hear me when I say this. You
Speaker 1: are not broken, You are not wrong. You are grieving
Speaker 1: someone whose relationship with you did not fit into a
Speaker 1: simple box, and your grief is reflecting that reality. It
Speaker 1: would be strange, actually, if you felt only one thing.
Speaker 1: It would be strange if you felt only sadness when
Speaker 1: there was hurt mixed in with the love. The reason
Speaker 1: I am telling you this is because I spent years
Speaker 1: thinking something was wrong with me. I thought I was
Speaker 1: supposed to feel one thing or move through grief in
Speaker 1: a certain order, and when I did not, I felt
Speaker 1: like I was failing. It took me a long time
Speaker 1: to understand that my grief was not broken. It was honest.
Speaker 1: It was telling the truth about a relationship that had
Speaker 1: never been simple. What I have come to to believe
Speaker 1: is that all of those conflicting feelings can exist at
Speaker 1: the same time and still be valid. You can grieve
Speaker 1: someone and be angry at them. You can love them
Speaker 1: and be hurt by them. You can miss them and
Speaker 1: be free of them at the same time. Those things
Speaker 1: do not cancel each other out. They coexist the same
Speaker 1: way the person themselves coexisted, complicated and contradictory and real.
Speaker 1: When you are ready, I want to offer you something,
Speaker 1: a small moment of permission to let all of those
Speaker 1: feelings exist without trying to sort them out or pick
Speaker 1: one to focus on, because that is often where the
Speaker 1: stuck feeling comes from, that sense that we need to
Speaker 1: figure out what we really feel before we can move forward.
Speaker 1: But what if we let go of that need? What
Speaker 1: if we just let the grief be as messy as
Speaker 1: the relationship was. Take a breath and let yourself feel
Speaker 1: whatever is there. The thing about grief is that most
Speaker 1: frameworks assume a relatively straightforward relationship. When someone we love dies,
Speaker 1: we expect to feel sad. When someone we love dies
Speaker 1: after a long illness, we expect some relief mixed with
Speaker 1: that sadness. These frameworks work reasonably well for many losses,
Speaker 1: but they start to show cracks when the relationship itself
Speaker 1: was complicated. Researchers at the Center for Complicated Grief at
Speaker 1: Columbia University have spent years studying how grief behaves differently
Speaker 1: when the bond where morning includes hurt, disappointment, or conflict.
Speaker 1: Their work helps explain why so many people in your
Speaker 1: situation feel like their grief does not match what they
Speaker 1: were told to expect when a relationship had friction. The
Speaker 1: grief that follows does not move in clean stages. It
Speaker 1: circles back on itself. You might feel angry one morning,
Speaker 1: tender by afternoon, and guilty by evening. None of these
Speaker 1: replace the others. They layer on top of each other,
Speaker 1: and sometimes they appear at the same time. This is
Speaker 1: not confusion or weakness. It is what grief looks like
Speaker 1: when the person we lost was not simple to love.
Speaker 1: Here is where many people get stuck. They believe they
Speaker 1: have to choose between their feelings. They think the relief
Speaker 1: they felt at the funeral means they did not really
Speaker 1: love their person. They think the guilt they carry now
Speaker 1: means they are bad for also feeling glad. The truth
Speaker 1: is that both can be completely true at the same time.
Speaker 1: You can love someone deeply and still feel relieved that
Speaker 1: a difficult chapter has closed. You can miss them and
Speaker 1: also be grateful the conflict has ended. One feeling does
Speaker 1: not erase the other. They exist side by side, and
Speaker 1: neither one makes the other less real. This is especially
Speaker 1: important because society tends to offer only two narratives for
Speaker 1: complicated relationships. Either the person was wonderful and your grief
Speaker 1: is pure sorrow, or the person was difficult and you
Speaker 1: should not grieve them at all. Neither of these feels right.
Speaker 1: When you were living in the middle of it. You
Speaker 1: knew them completely. They were both the person who hurt
Speaker 1: you and the person who shaped you. Your grief holds
Speaker 1: all of that without needing to pick one story over
Speaker 1: the other. The guilt that often shows up in these
Speaker 1: situations deserve special attention. It shows up not because you
Speaker 1: did something wrong, but because you expected yourself to grieve differently.
Speaker 1: You might feel guilty for the moments of peace you
Speaker 1: experienced after the death. You might feel guilty for not
Speaker 1: visiting more often, for setting boundaries, for speaking your truth
Speaker 1: when it cost you the relationship. These guilty feelings are
Speaker 1: not proof that you failed. They are proof that you
Speaker 1: were paying attention to a complicated situation, and you did
Speaker 1: the best you could with what you had. Some people
Speaker 1: in your situation find that their grief lasts longer than
Speaker 1: they expected. When researchers at the Columbia Center for Complicated
Speaker 1: Grief studied grief patterns, found that somewhere between ten and
Speaker 1: twenty percent of people experiencing grief following a complicated relationship
Speaker 1: go on to meet criteria for prolonged grief disorder. This
Speaker 1: does not mean something is broken in you. It means
Speaker 1: that the relationship you are mourning did not follow a
Speaker 1: simple pattern, and neither can your grief. The disorder label
Speaker 1: exists to describe a real experience, not to judge it.
Speaker 1: If your grief has felt endless, if you feel stuck
Speaker 1: in a loop of missing and resenting and remembering, that
Speaker 1: is not failure. That is what tangled bonds leave behind.
Speaker 1: What helps in these situations is not a timeline, but permission.
Speaker 1: Permission to feel everything without sorting it first. Permission to
Speaker 1: love someone you were also frustrated with. Permission to have
Speaker 1: a funeral where you felt relief and sadness in the
Speaker 1: same breath. Permission to miss them without missing who they were,
Speaker 1: at their worst. The other thing that helps is recognizing
Speaker 1: you are not alone in this. So many people carry
Speaker 1: grief that does not fit into neat boxes. They do
Speaker 1: not talk about it because they assume no one else understands.
Speaker 1: They worry they will be judged for not grieving the
Speaker 1: way others expect. But the pattern you are describing the
Speaker 1: one where love and pain exist together, where relief and
Speaker 1: guilt share space without canceling each other out. This is
Speaker 1: one of the most common experiences in grief. It just
Speaker 1: does not get talked about very often because it is
Speaker 1: hard to explain to people who have not lived it.
Speaker 1: That brings me to something I want to offer you.
Speaker 1: I would love to hear from you if you are
Speaker 1: willing share your story in the comments or reach out.
Speaker 1: Tell me about the relationship that did not fit neatly
Speaker 1: into the grief you were supposed to feel. Tell me
Speaker 1: about the funeral where you felt three things at once.
Speaker 1: Tell me about the mornings when you wake up and
Speaker 1: for a split second you forget they are gone, and
Speaker 1: then the weight comes back, and then you feel guilty
Speaker 1: for forgetting even for a second. These stories matter. They
Speaker 1: remind all of us that grief is not one size
Speaker 1: fits all, and they remind someone out there who is
Speaker 1: carrying the same complicated weight that they are not as
Speaker 1: alone as they feel. One of the things that helps
Speaker 1: when grief feels confusing is knowing you are not alone
Speaker 1: in that confusion. That is actually why I want to
Speaker 1: share some of what listeners have written to us over
Speaker 1: the past few months. Some of these letters stayed with
Speaker 1: me long after I read them because they captured something
Speaker 1: that gets talked about so rarely. Here is what someone
Speaker 1: shared after their father died. He had been hard on
Speaker 1: them throughout their childhood. There were moments of tenderness, but
Speaker 1: criticism was the language he spoke most fluently. They wrote
Speaker 1: that the morning after his funeral, they woke up and
Speaker 1: felt something unexpected relief, not the complicated grief they had
Speaker 1: prepared for, but actual relief that he was gone. Then
Speaker 1: the guilt arrived like a wave. They wrote, I caught
Speaker 1: myself thinking this house is finally quiet, and then I
Speaker 1: hated myself for thinking it. That feeling of relief when
Speaker 1: someone difficult finally leaves this world carries a specific kind
Speaker 1: of shame. It does not mean you did not love them,
Speaker 1: It does not mean you wanted them to suffer. It
Speaker 1: means you were suffering and the source of that suffering
Speaker 1: had finally stopped breathing. That is not cruelty. That is survival.
Speaker 1: Another listener wrote about something that haunts a lot of
Speaker 1: people in complicated grief, unfinished conversations. Her mother had been
Speaker 1: ill for a long time, and they had argued constantly.
Speaker 1: In those final years, little things became big things. Pride
Speaker 1: made them both stubborn. The last real conversation they had
Speaker 1: ended in frustration. Her mother passed before they could try again.
Speaker 1: She wrote, I keep rehearsing what I would say to
Speaker 1: her now. I have been practicing that conversation for three years.
Speaker 1: The weight of words never spoken does not fade the
Speaker 1: way we expect it to. It sits in the chest
Speaker 1: and replays. If this is something you carry, I want
Speaker 1: you to hear this. You are not responsible for a
Speaker 1: conversation that required two people to be ready at the
Speaker 1: same moment. That timing does not always work. The love
Speaker 1: in your silence was still there. You do not have
Speaker 1: to prove that to anyone, including yourself. Then there is
Speaker 1: the pressure that comes from other people. A listener named
Speaker 1: Michael reached out about his relationship with his brother. They
Speaker 1: had been estranged for over a decade after a falling
Speaker 1: out that involved money and family property. When his brother
Speaker 1: passed suddenly, Michael found himself navigating two griefs at once.
Speaker 1: The first was the actual loss, The second was the
Speaker 1: pressure from relatives to feel something he was not ready
Speaker 1: to feel. They wanted him to speak at the service.
Speaker 1: They kept saying things like he was your brother, you
Speaker 1: should forgive him. Michael wrote, I was not ready to
Speaker 1: forgive anyone. I was just trying to figure out if
Speaker 1: I was allowed to be sad about someone I had
Speaker 1: not spoken to in twelve years. That question whether you
Speaker 1: were allowed to grieve someone you had complicated feelings about
Speaker 1: comes up constantly. The answer is yes, Your grief does
Speaker 1: not require anyone else's permission. The relationationship you had or
Speaker 1: the relationship you did not have, is still yours to mourn.
Speaker 1: What stands out in all of these stories is that
Speaker 1: none of these people had simple emotions. They had real
Speaker 1: emotions in a situation that did not offer easy answers.
Speaker 1: That is not weakness, That is honesty. When we pretend
Speaker 1: that grief should look one particular way, we make it
Speaker 1: harder for people to simply feel what they feel. The
Speaker 1: relief does not cancel out the sadness. The unfinished arguments
Speaker 1: do not erase the love that was there underneath. The
Speaker 1: family pressure does not change what your actual experience was.
Speaker 1: I think about these letters often because they remind me
Speaker 1: that grief does not follow a script. The people who
Speaker 1: wrote to us were not looking for someone to fix
Speaker 1: their feelings. They were looking for someone to tell them
Speaker 1: their feelings made sense, and they do, every single one
Speaker 1: of them does. What I have noticed is that the
Speaker 1: moments when people feel most isolated are often the moments
Speaker 1: when connection most Knowing that someone else woke up feeling
Speaker 1: guilty for feeling relieved, knowing that someone else has been
Speaker 1: rehearsing a conversation that will never happen, Knowing that someone
Speaker 1: else was told to forgive when they were just trying
Speaker 1: to survive the day. That is what this space is for,
Speaker 1: Not answers, just company, just someone saying I hear you,
Speaker 1: and I know this is hard. When the grief starts
Speaker 1: to feel circular, I like to bring people back to
Speaker 1: something simple and honest, not tidy, just honest. One place
Speaker 1: to start is an unsent letter. You do not have
Speaker 1: to make it polite, and you do not have to
Speaker 1: make it forgiving. You can put the love on the
Speaker 1: page and the hurt on the page, because both belong
Speaker 1: to the story. If that person was a parent, a partner,
Speaker 1: a sibling, or someone who held power in your life,
Speaker 1: the letter can hold that mix without asking you to
Speaker 1: choose one feeling and silence the other. You might begin
Speaker 1: with I loved you when, or I needed you to
Speaker 1: or I still remember. Then you can keep going with
Speaker 1: the part that sits heavy in your chest. You can
Speaker 1: write about the laugh you miss and the comment that
Speaker 1: still stings. You can write about the care they gave
Speaker 1: and the damage they left behind. That kind of letter
Speaker 1: is not about making a case in court. It is
Speaker 1: about telling the truth in a place where you do
Speaker 1: not have to edit yourself for anyone else. Some people
Speaker 1: keep the letter in a drawer, Some tear it up.
Speaker 1: Some read it once and then set it aside. There
Speaker 1: is no correct finish. If writing feels like too much,
Speaker 1: you can make the ritual even smaller. Light a candle
Speaker 1: and name one difficult memory, just one, not the whole history,
Speaker 1: not the whole relationship, one memory that keeps coming back.
Speaker 1: Say it out loud, if you can, you might say
Speaker 1: I remember the hospital room, I remember the phone call,
Speaker 1: I remember the way I went quiet at that dinner.
Speaker 1: Then sit with the candle for a moment and let
Speaker 1: the memory be there without arguing with it. This can
Speaker 1: help with complicated grief because it gives the hard part
Speaker 1: a place to go. It does not erase anything. It
Speaker 1: simply gives shape to what has been stuck inside that
Speaker 1: said memory can bring up a lot, especially when the
Speaker 1: loss was messy or when other people expect you to
Speaker 1: keep the story simple. If the person died after a
Speaker 1: long conflict, or if the relationship was never safe enough
Speaker 1: to feel easy, that candle can become a small witness
Speaker 1: It says I see the hurt too. It can be
Speaker 1: especially grounding for disenfranchised grief, where other people may not
Speaker 1: understand why you are grieving so hard or why the
Speaker 1: grief carries anger. You do not have to defend the
Speaker 1: size of your feelings. You only have to name them honestly,
Speaker 1: in a way that feels steady enough for you today.
Speaker 1: Another practice that can help is finding one trusted person
Speaker 1: who can hear the full range of what you feel,
Speaker 1: not the polished version, not the version that protects everyone
Speaker 1: else from discomfort. The full range. That might mean saying
Speaker 1: I need you to hear both the love and the
Speaker 1: hurt without trying to fix either one, or I need
Speaker 1: to say something hard and I do not need advice
Speaker 1: right away. Choosing one person matters because complicated grief often
Speaker 1: gets lonely fast. People may want a clean memory, a
Speaker 1: clean apology, or a clean ending. Real life rarely hands
Speaker 1: us that, so it helps to place your story with
Speaker 1: someone who can stay present while you speak it. If
Speaker 1: you do have that person, you can decide in advance
Speaker 1: what you want from the conversation. Maybe you want them
Speaker 1: to listen and not interrupt. Maybe you want them to
Speaker 1: remind you to breathe if your voice shakes. Maybe you
Speaker 1: want them to simply say that makes sense. Because so
Speaker 1: much of this grief has felt out of place. You
Speaker 1: are not asking too much. When you ask for steadiness,
Speaker 1: you are asking for a human witness. And if the
Speaker 1: first person you try cannot hold it well, that does
Speaker 1: not mean your grief is too much. It means they
Speaker 1: may not be the right person for that job. What
Speaker 1: often helps most is combining these practices instead of treating
Speaker 1: them like separate chores. You might write the letter one evening,
Speaker 1: then light a candle another night, then speak to the
Speaker 1: trusted person when you feel ready. Or you might do
Speaker 1: the candle first because the memory needs somewhere to land,
Speaker 1: and then write the letter after. The order does not
Speaker 1: matter nearly as much as the kindness you bring to it.
Speaker 1: Some days you will have more words, some days you
Speaker 1: will only have one sentence. That is still something. And
Speaker 1: if guilt starts to rush in while you are doing
Speaker 1: any of this, notice that too. You do not need
Speaker 1: to force yourself past it. You can write, I feel
Speaker 1: guilty for loving them, and I feel guilty for resenting them.
Speaker 1: You can say that out loud to the person who
Speaker 1: is listening. You can let the candle burn for a
Speaker 1: few more minutes while you sit with the fact that
Speaker 1: grief after a hard relationship can be full of contradiction.
Speaker 1: That contradiction is not a failure. It is part of
Speaker 1: the bond. The thing I want to leave you with
Speaker 1: here is simple. These practices work best when you are
Speaker 1: gentle with yourself. Gentle does not mean pretending it was fine.
Speaker 1: It means letting the truth be there without using it
Speaker 1: to beat yourself up. It means giving your heart room
Speaker 1: to hold more than one feeling at once. So try
Speaker 1: the letter, or the candle or the trusted person, and
Speaker 1: let the practice be small enough to survive a hard day.
Speaker 1: We'll take a short break, and when we come back,
Speaker 1: we'll stay with this gently. If relief shows up, that
Speaker 1: does not make you a bad person. It does not
Speaker 1: mean you wanted harm. It means you are human and
Speaker 1: your feelings are responding to what happened, not to some
Speaker 1: moral scorecard. Sometimes the body loosens before the heart does.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the heart feels lighter for a moment and then
Speaker 1: guilt rushes in to police. It does not cancel the relief.
Speaker 1: It just means both things are here. When that guilt
Speaker 1: starts talking, I want you to try a different sentence.
Speaker 1: Instead of saying I should be over this, try this
Speaker 1: bond was complicated. That one sentence can make room for
Speaker 1: the truth. It says the relationship mattered. It says there
Speaker 1: was hurt. It says there may have been love, duty, fear, resentment, longing,
Speaker 1: and exhaustion, all living in the same place. And honestly,
Speaker 1: that is enough to explain why your grief does not
Speaker 1: behave neatly. You do not have to pretend the hard
Speaker 1: parts were small. You also do not have to turn
Speaker 1: the whole person into only the pain they caused. Both
Speaker 1: can be true. A parent can have been loving and cruel.
Speaker 1: A sibling can have been funny and impossible. A partner
Speaker 1: can have been tender in one season and wounding in another.
Speaker 1: When you name the bond honestly, you give your grief
Speaker 1: something steadier to hold. If your mind keeps chasing the
Speaker 1: idea that you should be further along, try meeting that
Speaker 1: thought with a short phrase. You can say, I am
Speaker 1: allowed to feel this, or this grief makes sense, or
Speaker 1: I do not need to earn my sadness. Keep it simple.
Speaker 1: You do not need a perfect speech while you are hurting.
Speaker 1: You need something small enough to say when the guilt
Speaker 1: rises fast, and if relief is part of what you feel,
Speaker 1: let that be part of the story too. Relief can
Speaker 1: mean the fighting has stopped. It can mean the waiting
Speaker 1: is over. It can mean your body is no longer
Speaker 1: bracing for the next sharp moment. None of that makes
Speaker 1: you cold. It makes you someone who has lived through
Speaker 1: a difficult connection and is trying to breathe inside the aftermath.
Speaker 1: So for now, let the sentence be this bond was complicated.
Speaker 1: Let that be kinder than should and truer than pretending. Then,
Speaker 1: when you are ready, carry that truth into the quiet
Speaker 1: with you For tonight, the simple ritual is this, before bed,
Speaker 1: place one hand on your chest, say your chosen phrase
Speaker 1: three times, and let the last breath stay soft. If
Speaker 1: your love and your hurt are both here, that does
Speaker 1: not make your grief less real. It makes it honest.
Speaker 1: A hard relationship can leave a person carrying sadness, anger, relief, regret,
Speaker 1: and even tenderness at once. You do not have to
Speaker 1: sort those feelings into good or bad before they count.
Speaker 1: The truth is some bonds stay with us because they
Speaker 1: were difficult, not because they were easy. That can be
Speaker 1: true after a death, and it can also be true
Speaker 1: in anticipatory grief, when the loss is still ahead and
Speaker 1: the history is already heavy. It can even show up
Speaker 1: in disenfranchise grief when other people don't understand why you
Speaker 1: feel this much. Your grief still belongs to you. So
Speaker 1: if tonight feels messy, let it be messy. If the
Speaker 1: sentence that fits is I miss them and I'm relieved,
Speaker 1: that sentence is allowed. If what you need is the
Speaker 1: small ritual we talked about. You can sit for a
Speaker 1: moment and finish one line I loved you when, or
Speaker 1: I needed you too, or I still remember. Then stop.
Speaker 1: That is enough for now. Next episode, we'll spend time
Speaker 1: with grief around birthdays, anniversaries, and other dates that can
Speaker 1: hit hard in surprising ways. Those days can bring a
Speaker 1: wave before you even realize it's coming, and we'll make
Speaker 1: space for that gently. And if this podcast helps you
Speaker 1: make sense of your grief, join our Supporters Club and
Speaker 1: help us keep these conversations going. You'll find the link
Speaker 1: in the episode description. If you want to share your
Speaker 1: story or send a question for a future episode, email me.
Speaker 1: I read them with care, and I keep coming back
Speaker 1: to them because they remind me that no one is
Speaker 1: carrying this alone for to night. Maybe let your hand
Speaker 1: rest where it is and let your grief be what
Speaker 1: it is