It’s Ok to Grieve in Your Own Way

As autumn arrives, the trees begin their slow work of letting go. One by one, the leaves loosen their grip and fall to the ground below. There’s beauty in this surrender, the soft golden light, the quiet stillness, but also sadness. The trees don’t rush or resist, they simply release what they can no longer hold, trusting that something new will grow in time.

This month in the Blossome Community, we’re exploring grief and letting go,  and the many ways grief lives within us, whether our loved one is still with us or not.

You may not even realise that what you’re feeling is grief. It often hides beneath harder emotions like anger, resentment. Grief is one of the soft emotions that sits quietly beneath the surface, disguised by everything we do to hold ourselves together.

For some, grief begins long before a loss, in the heartbreak of loving someone in addiction and watching them slowly slip away. It’s the grief of not recognising the person you once knew, of missing their laugh, their spark, their presence, even while they’re still alive. This is anticipatory grief,  a long, silent ache that carries love, fear, and powerlessness all at once.

For others, grief comes after loss, when death finally takes the person you have already been grieving for years. When my husband, Chris, died after years of chronic alcoholism, my grief didn’t begin that day. I had been grieving for a long time, grieving the man I once knew, my one in a million, the life we had built, and the future we had planned.

I grieved the ordinary dreams, growing grey together, Sunday roasts, hearing him call me Cherub again, hearing the gate open when he returned from work, becoming grandparents one day. Those hopes lived deep within me, and losing them felt like losing him all over again. Grief after addiction loss is complicated. It’s rarely tidy or linear. It carries love and anger, guilt, shame, and relief, confusion and tenderness, all tangled together.

You don’t need to sort it out or make it make sense. You simply need to let it be what it is.

Grief doesn’t follow rules or timelines. It doesn’t care for the tidy stages we’ve been told to expect. It moves like the seasons, circling, softening, returning. There will be days that feel lighter and days that bring you back to your knees. Both are part of the rhythm.

There is no right way to grieve. There is only your way.

Some days you might find yourself filled with love, remembering what was good. Other days, you may feel numb or angry. Some days you might laugh, and that too is grief. It’s all part of learning how to live with what’s been lost and to carry love forward in a new way.

Like the trees, we, too, must learn the rhythm of release, loosening our hold on what we can’t change, allowing rest when we’re tired, trusting that renewal will come in its own time.

Your Self-Care Reminder

This week, give yourself permission to be exactly where you are.

When you catch yourself thinking you should be further along, calmer, or stronger, pause.
Breathe.
Place a hand on your heart and whisper, “May I allow myself to just feel.”

Let that be your act of self-care this week, to stop fighting the tide of your emotions and allow yourself to be held by them instead. Like the trees releasing their leaves, you can loosen your grip on control and let life move through you. Healing begins in these small acts of softness.

A Practice for you – A self-compassion Break for Grief

Follow along in this guided practice, a Self-compassion Break for Grief. This practice will guide you through a different way of responding to the suffering that you are feeling.

An Invitation
Inside the Blossome Community this month, we’re holding space for every form of grief,  for those living with the uncertainty of addiction, and for those learning to live after loss. Together, we’re exploring how to let go, how to honour love in all its forms, and how to trust in the quiet rhythm of healing.

If your heart feels heavy in this season of falling leaves, come sit with us. You don’t have to do this alone. Join the Blossome Community for support with your own self-care, using self-compassion to resource you and give you the trust you need in yourself to get through moments of difficulty. Join the Blossome Self-care Community

Kim Moore

Kim Moore is the Founder of Blossome CIC. She lost her husband Chris to alcoholism in 2017. She faced a difficult journey while raising 2 children alone, with her family living on the opposite side of the world. Kim  founded the Blossome Community and The Pathway to Peace healing journey so no one would have to feel alone while enduring the trauma of a loved one’s battle with alcoholism or addiction. She is also on a mission to end the generational cycle of alcoholism and addiction in families.