Shaken, Not Broken: Grief, Loss, and Reclaiming Your Identity

"What we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, for all that we love deeply becomes part of us." - Helen Keller

Grief has a way of sneaking up on us—or crashing down like a wave. It doesn't always arrive dressed in black or marked by funerals. Sometimes, it sounds like the silence after a beloved pet no longer greets you at the door or curls up with you on the couch. It looks like a packed box from a home you had to leave behind, or an empty chair at a family dinner after a relationship fell apart. It can live in the daily reminders of a role you no longer play: parent, partner, child, employee, friend.

Grief isn't just about losing someone. It's about losing parts of ourselves—our roles, routines, sense of safety or meaning. And when grief arrives, it often brings a question with it: Who am I now?

The Many Faces of Loss

We grieve more than we talk about. It’s not just death, though the loss of a loved one, whether human or animal, can fracture us in ways we never imagined. We grieve endings, ruptures, transitions, and unmet dreams:

• The end of a relationship or a marriage

• Estrangement from family or friends

• A move away from a beloved community or home

• The loss of a job or career path

• Chronic illness, disability, or diagnosis that changes how we move through the world

• The loss of a dream, or the future we imagined

• The grief that comes with aging, when roles shift and our bodies change

Grief shows up in ordinary and extraordinary moments: the first holiday after a loss, the music that catches your breath, the ritual of remembering.

Grief and Identity: The Earthquake Beneath Your Feet

Loss shakes our foundations and can unravel who we thought we were. When we lose a person, we often lose a role, too—caregiver, daughter, best friend, spouse. We lose the routines and responsibilities that anchored us, the mutual understanding and history. The "we" in our story becomes "me," and it can feel disorienting and lonely.

You may find yourself questioning everything: What do I believe now? What matters? Who am I, without them, or that?

Grief can also change how we see time. Some days, a minute feels like an hour. Other times, a year passes in a blink. It can make the past feel more vivid and the future feel uncertain. In this emotional fog, it’s easy to feel like you’ve lost not only someone or something but yourself.

But here's the thing: identity is not static. It’s shaped by our experiences. And as painful as it is, grief also reveals what matters most. It can be a doorway back to yourself—a new self forged by love, pain, memory, and courage.

The Stages of Grief

Grief isn’t tidy. The stages—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance—are real, but they’re not a checklist. They’re waves that come and go, sometimes all in one day. Some stages return years later. Others never arrive. And some losses don’t fit neatly into these categories at all.

You might laugh at something and then feel guilty. You might feel numb when you think you should be sad. You might be angry at the person you lost or confused by how much a non-death loss (like job loss or estrangement) hurts.

All of that is grief. All of it is valid.

The Six Core Needs of Grief

Everyone's grief journey is different, but we all share six core needs when navigating loss:

1. To have our pain witnessed. We need others to sit with us in the hurt, not fix it. Connection matters.

2. To express our feelings. Grief isn’t one emotion; it’s many. Anger, sadness, guilt, relief. Feel it all.

3. To release guilt. We often ask "what if?" when grief hits. But healing begins when we shift to "even if."

4. To heal old wounds. Loss can reawaken past pain. Let it surface. It’s a call for deeper healing.

5. To integrate pain with love. We don’t move on; we carry forward. Love doesn’t end with loss.

6. To find meaning. Not in the loss itself, but in who we are now and what we do next.

These needs don’t follow a timeline. You might revisit them over and over. That’s okay.

Reclaiming Identity After Loss

So, how do we rebuild when everything feels broken? Here are some starting places:

• Allow space for mourning. Don’t rush your grief. It deserves time, space, and care.

• Honour the legacy. Tell stories. Light candles. Share laughter and tears. Rituals matter.

• Reconnect with meaning. What matters to you now? What do you want to carry forward?

• Welcome new roles. You may never return to who you were. But who you are becoming is worth knowing.

• Create new traditions. This is especially important around anniversaries, holidays, and milestones.

• Accept duality. You can miss them and laugh. You can feel pain and gratitude. You can carry sorrow and joy.

• Let support in. You don't have to grieve alone, whether it’s through therapy, support groups, or trusted people.

And when those moments come—when a song stops you in your tracks, or a milestone feels unbearably quiet—know that your grief is a reflection of love. And that facing those moments takes more strength than most people realize.

Grief Is a Story of Love

If you’re grieving, you are not broken. You are in the process of becoming.

Grief shapes us. Not because we asked it to, but because we loved. And love, even after loss, has a way of leaving its fingerprints on our identity.

You may feel shattered, but your story isn't over. You're still here, still healing, and still you.

And that matters.

A Few Gentle Reflections

• What role or identity have you had to grieve?

• What do you want others to remember about the person, relationship, or chapter you lost?

• How can you honour what was while embracing what is?

• What parts of you are emerging now?

If You Need Support

You don’t have to go through this alone. Reach out, talk, cry, rest, and grieve in your own way, on your own timeline. If you're ready to explore how grief has shaped your sense of self, counselling can offer a compassionate space to begin.

You are allowed to feel it all and to keep living, loving, and becoming.

In my next blog, we’ll explore the social and cultural dimensions of identity. I hope you’ll join me.