Metaphors for Grief to Help Understand the Grieving Process

The experience of grieving a loss is common to all humans. From small losses in daily life to larger losses such as death and separation, people have been trying to understand grief. Many people find that they cannot adequately describe or express their grief. Many other people have spent their lives trying to write about, explain, or understand the grieving process.

Let’s look at several common metaphors. Perhaps one will resonate with you as you walk through grief yourself.

The Grieving Process

Commonly broken into five stages that are based on On Death and Dying, the 1969 book by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. The five stages are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. Many people may find they experience these stages in a different order. Some find they go back and forth in different stages.

There has been a lot written about the five stages. Some have added stages like shock and anxiety. Some compress or rearrange the stages. Regardless of how it breaks down, the common thread is that grief is a process. It has definable qualities that a grieving person may experience, and that counselors can help you work through.

This type of metaphor is commonly used in counseling as the landmark of a person’s journey through grief.

Tunnels

Speaking of journeying, many describe grief using the terms of tunnels. A tunnel limits your ability to see both peripherally and further ahead. There is an accompanying sense of uncertainty if you have never been through this tunnel. You don’t know where it ends or what exactly is waiting for you on the other side.

The only way to get out of a tunnel is to keep moving. Staying still is not a healthy option and going around is not an available option. The same is true of grief. You must go through the tunnel and when you come out to the other side, you will find good waiting for you.

Waves

Water metaphors are excellent for describing grief. The rise and fall of the tide are a particularly apt metaphor. There are times when grief is high, and the feelings of sorrow and anguish are strong. Then they go back, and life can feel normal, even calm. Waves can come fast and strong, then retreat with similar rapidity. Other times the waves of grief sneak up on you slowly.

The feeling of being pulled into white water rapids, and of not being able to breathe, are common descriptions that a grieving person will use. That feeling of being overwhelmed and barely able to survive, only to find eventually that things are calmer, and you can indeed swim in the rushing water without fear of drowning.

Whether you relate to waves or river metaphors, water is always moving, changing, and being changed by the landscape. In the same way, your grief will change, and it will change you.

Seasons

It is not uncommon to try to understand grief to the passing of seasons. Fall and winter have strong associations with grief. This comes both because of the decrease of daylight and warmth, and the accompanying holiday seasons when the loss of loved and familiar things and people become more acute.

Some liken their grief to shedding leaves in the fall, the slumber of winter, and the rebirth that comes in the spring. The way to grow new life requires the shedding of old things. Seasons are beautiful metaphors because there is an understanding that they will come to an end. The cold of winter does not last, nor do the storms of summer. There is no precise end date, just confidence that it will end.

The same is true of grief. You cannot make it fit the timeline you want; you cannot give it a definite end date. But grief will pass, and not be the biggest part of your life forever.

Conclusion

When you are going through the grieving process, it can be helpful to lean on the experiences and descriptions that others have had. While no one else’s experiences perfectly match yours, you may feel less alone when you see that others have shared their descriptions of grief.

Talk to your counselor about how you feel. Your counselor can offer compassion and encouragement at whatever stage, season, or other metaphorical description of the grieving process you are experiencing. Your experiences are unique, but you do not have to work through it alone. Call today to schedule an appointment with your counselor as you work through your grief.