Understanding the Different Stages of Grief

“In this world, you will have trouble.” These words of Jesus ring true and line up with our life experiences. In no place do those words resonate more than when we encounter and experience loss and grief in our lives. Those losses occur in different ways, and we feel and deal with them each in our own way.

The loss of a loved one is an experience that shakes the foundations of our world. What was once “the way life is” is irrevocably changed either in an instant or through the slow months as our loved one’s illness progresses and their health deteriorates.

It is natural in this situation of loss and grief to ask questions, to cry, to be angry, to feel numb, or to feel a jumble of emotions in a flurry of thoughts. Grieving comes to all of us at one time or another on our sojourn in this world. Indeed, in this world, we do have trouble.

Though all of us will grieve at some point in our lives, that will look different for everyone. Grief is a complex process in which at times you may not fully understand what you are feeling, or you may struggle trying to make sense of your own thoughts as you try to put the pieces of your life back together again after your loss. The emotional, mental, and spiritual burden that comes with grief can be difficult to bear.

While everyone grieves and works through loss in their own way, there are general stages of grief that most people go through, though they won’t all go through them in the same order or in the same way. One way to delineate these stages or phases of grief comes from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. Though not rules, they are a way to understand and try to describe the grief process.

It’s important to note at the outset that not everyone will experience the feelings described in the stages of grief, nor do they work through these in a linear or straightforward progression. However, many people who go through grief experience similar thoughts and feelings.

Sometimes it gives us comfort to know that the process of grieving is simply that – a process that others have gone through and emerged from able to face daily life with hope and purpose. When we feel certain feelings as we grieve, it may comfort us to know that other people go through similar things, even though our journey is our own.

The Stages of Grief

Initially, Kubler-Ross distinguished five stages of grief:

Denial – Refusing to accept that the loss you just experienced is happening.

Anger – Anger can be expressed as casting blame, either toward your loved one, God, or both. It may also be directed at a third party, as in the case where one loses a loved one due to the reckless or intentional actions of another.

Bargaining – The person experiencing loss is willing to do anything to undo what’s happened. They may promise God or themselves that they’ll make changes or sacrifices to have things back to the way they were.

Depression – In this stage, one is resigned to what’s happened. This resignation is not to be confused with being at peace. It’s a resignation born of fatigue, the sense of powerlessness, and having no other options available.

Acceptance – The last stage is where one becomes accepting of what’s happened as real, but they rest in the knowledge that they’ll be okay when all is said and done.

These five stages described broadly how one might move from first becoming aware of the loss, to where they’ve dealt with it and its implications. What the stages didn’t do was to place everything on a timeline for when and how one goes through these stages. People may grieve a loss for years, while for others it takes a shorter period.

This depends on personalities and temperament, as well as the type of loss endured. Additionally, the process isn’t a closed one. You may arrive at the point of acceptance, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that in the future you won’t feel angry at the Lord or your loved one. In that way, the grieving process doesn’t end, as such; it’s an ongoing reality to which we adjust our lives and try our best to live with.

Seven stages?

The five stages of grief were used for many years, and they are still in use today. However, there is another way of understanding the phases of grief, and it has also been in use for a while. It combines the insights from the previous model of the stages of grief in a different way and adds a few stages to the process.

Denial and shock – This stage occurs typically when one first hears about the loss. Due to denial, you may be refusing to accept or admit to yourself that what has happened actually happened; on account of shock, you may be feeling numb and be in a state of disbelief about the loss.

Pain and guilt – At this stage, your loss feels intolerable, and you may feel that you are a burden on the people around you that form your support system, or that because of what you’re going through you’re making other people’s lives more difficult due to your needs and feelings.

Anger and bargaining – At this stage, you may vacillate between these two emotional states, on the one hand casting blame and lashing out either toward your loved one, God, or other people and on the other, entreating God that you’re willing to do or give anything to undo what’s happened and get things back the way they were.

Depression – This stage will find you resigned to what has happened and going through a period of processing and reflecting on your loss. As pointed out in the earlier model, resignation may stem simply from fatigue.

The upward turn – You may at this stage be feeling relaxed and calm. Though they may be present, your feelings of anger and pain may not be as prominent or pronounced as before.

Reconstruction and working through – Having gone through the upward turn and no longer being dominated by anger and pain, at this stage you may begin rebuilding your life, making the effort to put the pieces of your life back together, and learning how to move forward with your life in the new reality.

Acceptance and hope – In the last stage, you begin accepting what happened as real and as the new situation or the new normal. Though things may have shifted considerably because of your loss, you know you’ll be okay, and things will work out eventually. As you move forward, you carry with you the feeling that you have fresh possibilities open to you in the future, and those possibilities feel tangible and give you hope for brighter days ahead.

The seven-stage model incorporates the previous model and adds new elements. Both models give the impression that working through grief proceeds linearly, but that would be misleading. Your grief journey may very well follow a straight path, or it may not. The key is to address your grief and process your emotions and thoughts. Unaddressed grief can rear its head later and complicate areas of your life such as your relationships.

You don’t have to walk the journey of grief alone. There are support groups for those who have undergone various kinds of loss and grief. Additionally, seeing a grief therapist one-on-one can provide you with valuable resources and a safe space to work through your grief.

These grief therapists are skilled at understanding how different individuals experience loss and work through grief in their own way. Your therapist will listen to your story and work with you to develop a meaningful perspective and help you process your grief, along with providing you with the tools that you need to cope.

If you are a person of faith, finding Christian grief therapy can help you enter and make use of a space that can provide you with peace and comfort through a biblical understanding of life and death, as well as laying hold of God’s promises of his mercy and presence with us in trying times.