Grief Has Many Faces

Juanita Ecker

When we hear the word grief, we often think of losing someone we love. And while the death of a loved one can bring an unimaginable kind of pain, grief can show up in many different forms.

It can be the loss of a beloved pet who was part of your everyday life.

The end of a relationship or friendship.

Losing a job you depended on.

An opportunity you hoped and prayed would work out.

A move, a major life transition, or even the loss of the future you thought you were going to have.

Sometimes grief is obvious. Other times, we may not even realize that what we’re feeling is grief.

There is no perfect timeline for it, and there is no one “right” way to move through it. You might feel sadness one day, anger the next, followed by moments when you feel completely fine — only to have something small bring the emotions rushing back again.

When Emotions Feel Stuck

As we move through difficult experiences, we don’t always have the time, space, or support to fully process everything we’re feeling. We may push through because we have responsibilities, other people need us, or simply because facing the emotion feels too overwhelming in that moment.

The Emotion Code is one approach some people use to explore emotions they feel they may still be carrying from past experiences. Using muscle testing, the Emotion Code process is designed to identify what practitioners refer to as “trapped emotions” and then work toward releasing them. For someone moving through grief, this may provide an opportunity to slow down, acknowledge emotions that have been difficult to express, and create space for reflection and healing.

One client, Cheryl, was still grieving the loss of her mom many years after her passing. She couldn’t understand why the grief still felt so heavy. During her Emotion Code session, we identified emotions connected to that loss that she felt she had never fully processed.

Cheryl shared that part of her had been afraid to let go of those emotions because doing felt almost like letting go of her mom. That is something many people can relate to – the fear that releasing the pain somehow means losing the person or the memories attached to them.

After her session, Cheryl said she felt much lighter and more capable of moving forward in her healing journey. Releasing the emotional heaviness didn’t mean forgetting her mom or diminishing the love she had for her. It simply allowed her to hold onto the memories without feeling like she also had to hold onto all of the pain.

For someone moving through grief, the Emotion Code may provide an opportunity to slow down, acknowledge emotions that have been difficult to express, and create space for reflection and healing.

It isn’t about forgetting the person, pet, dream, job, or chapter you lost.

And it isn’t about rushing yourself to “get over it.”

It’s about honoring what happened, recognizing what you’re carrying, and allowing yourself the space to move forward in your own way.

You Don’t Have to Minimize Your Loss

One of the most important things to remember about grief is that your loss doesn’t have to look a certain way to matter.

You can grieve a person.

You can grieve a pet.

You can grieve a career.

You can grieve an opportunity.

You can grieve the version of your life you thought you would have.

Whatever the loss looks like, your emotions deserve to be acknowledged.

If you feel like you’ve been carrying emotions connected to a loss long after the moment has passed, an Emotion Code session may be one tool you choose to explore as part of your healing process.

Be gentle with yourself. Healing doesn’t mean forgetting. Sometimes it simply means learning how to carry the memory without carrying quite so much of the weight. Contact juanita@theshiftingsand.com or book a session.