Grief Work Is Soul Work, Not Self-Improvement
- Weaving Grief
- 17 minutes ago
- 6 min read
In our fast-paced, performance-oriented world, grief is often treated like a problem to solve, a wound to quickly suture shut, or worse—a personal failure to move on from as quickly as possible. We’re told to “get back to normal,” to find the silver lining, to keep ourselves busy. Underneath all this pressure is an assumption that grief should make us better, more efficient, more resilient, more put-together. But real grief work doesn’t operate on a timeline, and it doesn’t strive for perfection. Grief work is not about becoming a shinier version of ourselves. Grief work is soul work. And soul work is wild, circular, slow, and sacred. It doesn’t ask us to rise above our pain, but to descend into it—so we can touch something deeper.
The Myth of Self-Improvement in Healing
The self-help world, though well-intentioned, often frames grief as a means to an end. It tells us:
You’ll come out stronger.
Use this as an opportunity to grow.
Everything happens for a reason.
While growth can arise from and through pain, reducing grief to a self-improvement project dishonours its depth. It suggests that the value of our suffering lies only in how it transforms us or boosts our productivity. That we must extract a lesson, tidy it up, and return to normal as quickly as possible. This bypasses the truth that some losses don’t make us stronger. Some losses break us open in ways that will never fully mend—and that’s not failure. That’s grief doing its sacred, alchemical work—forever changing us, from the inside out.
In trying to “fix” grief, we miss the invitation to simply feel it.
Soul Work Isn’t Linear
The soul doesn’t operate in bullet points or to-do lists. It doesn’t move in straight lines. The soul is mythic, symbolic, mysterious, wild and untamed. When we grieve from the soul, we engage with the depth of what it means to be human. We begin to ask:
Who am I now?
What have I truly lost?
What wants to be remembered?
What do I need to honour and lay down?
Whats the purpose of it all?
This work is cyclical, spiraling, and deeply personal. One day you may feel grounded and capable. The next, you’re on the floor in tears. Nothing is wrong with you. That’s the rhythm of soul. It doesn’t respond to strategy. It responds to attention, presence, and ritual.
The Soul of Grief: A Sacred Initiation
There is a deep intelligence in grief. It arrives not to punish us, but to initiate us into a new relationship with life. In many indigenous and ancestral cultures, grief was seen as a rite of passage—a sacred encounter with the mystery of life.
Western culture, however, has stripped grief of its sacredness. We've pathologized it, rushed it, medicated it, and privatized it, when it's always been meant to be shared.
Grief is not a detour from life. It is a portal, and invitation that takes us into the liminal space between who we were and who we are becoming. And in that in-between space, the soul speaks—if we are willing to listen. This is why grief work can never be confined to a five-step model or a productivity hack. It requires slowness, reverence, tending, and presence.
Grief Isn’t a Problem to Solve
You do not need to turn your pain into a brand. You don’t have to make your heartbreak inspirational. You’re allowed to simply hurt.
Grief is not a mountain to climb with a summit at the end—it’s a tender terrain you navigate. Some days, you’ll walk with a steady pace. Other days, you’ll rest. Sometimes you’ll stumble. And sometimes, you'll stop and sing with the wind.
The modern obsession with optimization teaches us that everything painful must be transformed into something useful. But soul work teaches us that pain can simply be witnessed. That we don’t need to rise above our grief—we need to descend into its waters and let them carry us into deeper knowing.
What Grief Work as Soul Work Looks Like
So, what does this look like in practice? How do we shift from self-improvement to soul-tending? Here are some soulful approaches to grief work:
01. Allowing, Not Forcing
Let yourself feel what you feel. Rage. Numbness. Longing. Confusion. There is no “right” way to grieve. Give yourself permission to not know how or what you’re doing, or what it looks like to the outside world. Soul work embraces the unknown and uncertainty.
02. Ritual and Reverence
Grief needs containers. Light a candle for your loved one, or for yourself. Write letters to what’s been lost. Make an altar. Sing your sorrow. Ritual brings soul into the body. It gives form to the formless.
03. Community and Witnessing
We are not meant to grieve alone. We need people to witness our sorrow—not fix it, not make it prettier, but simply hold space for its truth. Grief longs for village.
04. Slowness and Rest
The soul doesn’t rush. Healing asks us to slow down. To let go of urgency. To nap. To move gently. To let our nervous systems settle. In this stillness and the spaces in-between, grief can speak.
05. Myth, Story, and Archetype
Sometimes our grief isn’t just personal—it’s ancestral, collective, or tied to the archetypal journeys of death and rebirth. Reading myth, exploring dreams, and writing poetry are all ways of engaging grief at the level of soul.
Grief Is an Act of Love
Woven with grief is love. You don’t grieve what you didn’t love. You don’t mourn what didn’t matter. To grieve well is to continue loving in absence. To remember. To name. To bless.
When we treat grief as soul work, we begin to see that it’s not about “moving on.” It’s about integrating what’s been lost into the fabric of our lives. We carry them forward—not by forgetting, but by weaving their memory into who we are becoming.
The Wounds That Don't Close
Not every wound is meant to be stitched up. Some stay open. Sacred. Like a portal we return to again and again, reminding us of what really matters. Some griefs become part of our identity—not because we’re stuck, but because they shaped us. To tend these wounds isn’t to seek closure. It’s to keep a place at the table for what we’ve lost.
The Courage to Feel It All
Doing grief work as soul work requires immense courage. The courage to not perform, not optimize, not sanitize our sorrow. It asks us to feel—to really feel—what most of the world is trying to numb. And yet, this is where the gold is. This is where we find our capacity to love more deeply. To live with more reverence. To remember what really matters. Grief cracks us open, yes—but it also reveals the vastness and depth of our hearts.
An Invitation
If you are in the midst of grief right now, I invite you to step out of the mindset of fixing and improving. Instead, ask: What is my grief asking me to tend to? What wants to be honoured, held, or expressed? What deeper truths are being revealed through this pain?
You don’t have to make your grief productive. You just have to let it be sacred. Let it be a companion. A teacher. A threshold. And let it lead you—not toward a shinier version of yourself, but toward your soul.
You Are Not Alone
At Weaving Grief, we hold space for the deep, slow, regenerative process of grief as soul work. We honour the sacred mess, the mystery, and the longing. You don’t have to figure it out alone.
If this post resonates with you, we invite you to:
Download our free resource: Being With Grief — a gentle invitation to tend your grief with somatic practices, rituals, and journal prompts.
Book a consultation call if you’re ready for one-on-one grief support rooted in depth, embodiment, and soul.
Join our newsletter and Weaving Grief Community for weekly reflections, somatic practices, and upcoming community offerings.
Because your grief deserves more than productivity. It deserves presence. It deserves poetry. It deserves to be woven into your life with care and intention.
About Us:
Weaving Grief specializes in compassionate grief therapy for individuals navigating loss of any kind - death, breakups, relationship transitions, chronic illness, loss of self, and more. By addressing these profound experiences, Weaving Grief empowers clients to grieve freely and live fully. Through somatic practices and meaningful reflection, we’re here to help you navigate these tender moments and rediscover the fullness of life.
Specific areas of focus: death of a loved one (recent or past), life changing transitions, relationship transitions and break ups, pregnancy loss, grief around family planning, chronic illness, loss of Self, and supporting entrepreneurs through the grief that comes with growth.
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