Anytime I hear the words “good grief,” I always mentally jump in and add “Charlie Brown!” to the end of it. But what exactly is “good grief,” anyway? Is there such a thing as grieving in a good way? If so, does that mean there is a way to grieve in a bad way, too? If there is a difference, how do you tell which is which?

Philosophically speaking, grief is a response to the rupture of an attachment. Grief is an unpleasant sensation, wherein we crave the return of our object of attachment. We want to see, touch, feel, smell, be with the person or animal again. We suffer because of our cravings, and we have an aversion to the reality of loss.

Energetically, we can see attachments between people in their auras. Auras can have connections between people, and even groups, that can originate in any one or more of the chakras. This is why our language reflects grief by using such physical metaphors. The sensation of a ruptured energetic tie between yourself and another is felt by the body intensely. Feeling broken-hearted, hollowed out, a lump in one’s throat, “mad” with grief, sick to one’s stomach, feeling like the world has turned upside down, and even experiences of dissociation (“nothing seemed real for awhile, I felt like I was in a fog”) are all physical manifestations of massive energetic and psychological shifts. The mind/body connection is never more apparent than when we’re going through extreme periods of grief. I do not feel that grief should be labeled as good or bad. It is a process. It is as natural as digestion or circulation.

 We are constantly going through the process of grief, really. Whether it is something relatively insignificant, like accidentally breaking one of your possessions, or something as major as losing a loved one, we are constantly moving into and out of various stages of the cycle of grief. Since it is a natural, and inevitable part of life, though, educating yourself on grief is not a bad thing. If you are grieving and intuitively sense that you are feeling more lost or incapacitated than you would normally expect, then by all means seek help.

An analogy to this might be if you were sick with a cold. Most of us can recognize when we have colds, and although we suffer through them and might slow down and take some time off work, we probably won’t panic and rush to the hospital. But if our cold worsened and worsened and worsened, we would be doing the right thing to seek treatment. Such is the same with grief. Honor the natural process you are going through, and be patient with yourself. But if you are feeling entirely overwhelmed and that you’re just “losing it,” see someone about it!

Again, there is no such thing as “bad grief.” Sometimes we just have more intense versions of the same grief process, and we need help in handling the intensity of the experience. That’s all.

Be gentle with yourself. Be kind to yourself, and to others. You never know who might be grieving.

 Good luck!