My Favorite Tools for Releasing Grief

Grief is a challenging emotion.

We’re often not taught how to truly process grief even though it’s guaranteed that all of us will experience grief in our lifetimes.

In fact, grief is often shunned as an inconvenient state of being. Something to be suppressed, ignored, or medicated.

But the experience of grief, though heavy and intense, can be a beautiful acknowledgement of a great love and a desire of a better life (for yourself and others).

Here are a few of my favorite tools for honoring my grief and releasing it from my body.

1. Let Yourself Feel

You’ve heard a dozen times: you have to heal to feel.

And let’s be honest: is there ever a “good” or socially acceptable time to feel your grief?

If you’re afraid of truly falling apart, set a timer for 5 minutes and let yourself feel your grief until your timer runs out. Plan an activity to do after the 5 minutes so you have some pre-planned direction to help anchor you back. Make this a daily practice and slowly increase the timer as you’re able.

2. Reach Out to a Friend

Having friends you can fully express yourself to is vital in helping us to feel less isolated.

It’s important to set ground rules with your supporter that this isn’t a time for advice. Let them know you just want to be witnessed in your feelings, to be validated, and to be supported.

Speaking as someone who has struggled (still struggles) with being wholly vulnerable, I’ll admit this one is sometimes very scary.

Over the years, I have cultivated relationships with people to whom I can simply ask if anyone has 10 minutes to witness me and the feelings I am actively experiencing.

3. Setup Your Support System When You’re Feeling Good

When we feel good about life and the world, we’re not thinking about the possibility of a less than pleasant future. Yet this is the best time to cultivate your support network.

After years of overriding my body’s signals, I found that when I was in need of support I didn’t know who to ask for what. But when I’m feeling good, I know that when I’m feeling down I often just want someone to sit in space with me so I feel less alone but I don’t necessarily want to talk.

(Those of us with trauma may find using words a struggle and therefore talking on sensitive issues may re-trigger or deepen our feelings of grief in a less-than-healthy way.)

4. Somatic Release

Soma is latin for the body and somatic release address feelings by connecting the body with the emotion and activating the body to help release trapped emotions.

Here are a few of my go to somatic practices:

💖 Rolling around on the floor or stretching.

🧡 Tapping the parts of the body that feel contracted or holding the pain.

💛 Dancing, rowing, walking, hiking, and running.

💚 Breathwork.

💙 Chanting, screaming (silent screaming), vocalizing.

💜 Journaling, writing short stories, writing letters to past and future versions of myself, writing to loved ones.

🤍 Praying, laughing, invoking feelings of gratitude.

Experiencing grief is a natural part of living this life we’re in.


Having tools to make processing that grief can make it easier to continue to enjoy life fully.

If you’re struggling with grief and burnout, book a call with me today to create an action plan to start feeling more like yourself.