Grief is the normal and natural emotional response to change or loss of any kind – death, divorce, moving, financial changes, health changes, relationship changes, and on and on…  Grief is also the result of unmet hopes, dreams and expectations and the loss of intangible concepts such as safety, trust, security, respect, faith… and hope.  Grief is universal.  All of us have experienced grief throughout our lives as a result of many changes and losses.  But we are not prepared to handle, manage, or recover from the emotional impact of these changes and losses.

The GRM explains why we are so ill-prepared to recover from our grief if it’s so universal and a normal and natural response.
Just as our grief is universal, the ineffective ways of dealing with it are also pretty universal.  Often, the way we manage our grief is the same – or similar to – the ways our parents and other key figures in our lives have managed theirs…  in fact, sometimes for many generations.  In addition to parents and key family members, we also learn ineffective tools for dealing with grief from other key adults in our lives as we are growing up – teachers, clergy, coaches, counselors, and even the media and TV and music personalities.  

Grief is an emotional response – yet often, we try to ease our grief by using intellectual tools – we try to “figure it out,” “solve it,” or “understand” it.  Just as if we were asked to paint a room but were only given a hammer and a screwdriver, we cannot recover from grief with inappropriate tools.  If given a paintbrush, paint, and a drop cloth, we could indeed paint a room.  Given the proper emotional tools, we can also achieve recovery from our grief.  That’s what the Grief Recovery Method provides – the appropriate emotional tools for doing this work.