What Happens When You Stop Trying to “Get Over” Grief?

Lately, grief has been showing up a lot in my sessions. When I say grief, I’m not just talking about loss in the traditional sense, I’m referring to the grief around relationships, identity, missed opportunities, and life transitions. When I finally picked up The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller, it felt timely.

This book reinforced something I already believe at my core: Healing doesn’t happen in isolation, it happens in connection.

Weller’s work centers around the idea that grief isn’t something to “get over,” but something to move with and more importantly, something that was never meant to be carried alone.

Weller states that “grief needs community. It needs a village,” and that quote stuck with me.

When you zoom out, it makes so much sense. For most of human history, grief was communal. People gathered, they witnessed each other, they held space, and there was an understanding that pain needed somewhere to go… and that somewhere was other people.

However, in modern times I find that we tend to grieve in private. We attempt to do it quietly and efficiently, as if it’s something to process and move past as quickly as possible. I find that this thinking is where so many people get stuck.

What I appreciated most about this book is how much it validates grief as a natural, ongoing process, not a problem to solve. It aligns so closely with how I approach therapy: not fixing, not rushing, but sitting with what’s there and allowing it to be felt.

There’s also a really interesting layer where Weller expands grief beyond personal loss and talks about collective grief, specifically our disconnection from the natural world. That part was unique and thought-provoking, although at times it leaned a little… woo-woo for my taste.

Some of the ritualistic elements in the book - while meaningful in certain contexts - aren’t something I personally bring into my clinical work. This isn’t because they’re inherently bad, but because therapy, at least the way I practice it, isn’t about prescribing rituals. It’s about meeting people where they are. Like with most things, I take what resonates and leave the rest.

And what really resonated? The reminder that grief needs somewhere to land and that place is often in a community. In therapy, that might look like having a space where you can finally say the thing out loud.

In life, it might look like letting someone sit with you in the mess instead of trying to clean it up because grief doesn’t resolve through logic, it moves through connection.

And my biggest takeaway from this book is this: you don’t need to carry it alone.