After a bereavement, many people expect the hardest part to be missing the person they have lost.
And of course, that pain can feel overwhelming.
But something else often appears alongside grief – a voice inside us that becomes surprisingly critical.
“I should be coping better.”
“I should have known.”
“I shouldn’t still feel this upset.”
“I need to be stronger.”
For many grieving people, these thoughts can become almost as painful as the grief itself.
The hidden weight of self-criticism
Grief changes the way we experience the world.
It can affect our emotions, concentration, memory, confidence, relationships, and sense of who we are.
When we are already carrying so much, it is understandable that we may start looking for answers:
Why did this happen?
Could I have prevented it?
Did I do enough?
Could I have said more?
These questions often come from love.
They come from the importance of the relationship we had.
But over time, they can turn into a cycle of guilt and self-blame.
Our minds are trying to protect us
Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) helps us understand something important:
Our brains are built to respond to threat.
When something painful happens, our minds often search for ways to make sense of it or regain a feeling of control.
Sometimes this means turning towards ourselves with criticism.
“If I blame myself, maybe I can understand what happened.”
“If I tell myself I should have done more, maybe I can prevent this pain.”
The problem is that self-criticism rarely gives us the comfort we are looking for.
It usually adds another layer of suffering.
Compassion is not letting yourself off the hook
Some people worry that being kinder to themselves means ignoring what happened or pretending everything is okay.
But compassion is not about denying pain.
It is about responding to ourselves in a way that acknowledges how difficult this is.
Imagine a close friend came to you and said:
“I miss them so much.”
“I keep thinking about what I could have done differently.”
“I don’t know how to do this.”
You probably wouldn’t respond with criticism.
You would likely offer kindness, patience, and understanding.
Compassion asks:
Can we offer ourselves some of that same care?
What might self-compassion look like after loss?
It might mean noticing when the inner critic appears.
It might mean gently questioning thoughts that feel painful or absolute.
Instead of:
“I should be coping better.”
Try:
“I am grieving someone important to me. This is difficult because they mattered.”
Instead of:
“I should have done more.”
Try:
“I made decisions with the love, knowledge, and resources I had at the time.”
These are not ways of erasing grief.
They are ways of making room for yourself within it.
Grief does not need another battle
Loss already asks us to carry something incredibly heavy.
Adding judgement and shame can make that weight even harder to hold.
Compassion Focused Therapy reminds us that we are not only people experiencing grief – we are also people who deserve care while we move through it.
At The Loss Foundation, we often explore different ways of understanding grief and the experiences that can come with it, including guilt, shame, and self-compassion.
Because sometimes the most supportive thing we can do is not ask ourselves to be stronger.
It is to be kinder.
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