Grieving, Even When It’s Nice Out
Understanding the Brain, the Body, and the Seasons of Loss
Grief has a way of showing up unexpectedly — not just when we’re alone or in the quiet moments, but sometimes even when the sun is shining, the air feels warm, and the rest of the world seems perfectly content. Loss doesn’t always follow the rhythms of the external world. And if you’ve ever found yourself grieving while everything around you appears to be “fine,” you’re not alone.
We’ve all heard of the so-called “stages” of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance — made popular by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. But modern grief psychology views these less as rigid steps and more as a constellation of emotional responses that can come and go in waves. The reality is: grief is not linear, logical, or even easily explained. It is, instead, deeply human. And often, deeply paradoxical.
Grief and the Brain: A Natural, Predictive System in Conflict
Dr. Mary-Frances O’Connor, neuroscientist and author of The Grieving Brain, invites us to understand grief as more than just emotional suffering — it’s a neurobiological response to losing someone who was woven into our daily lives (O’Connor, 2022).
Our brains build internal “maps” of the people we love — models based on memory, routine, and emotional connection. When a loved one dies, the brain doesn’t immediately erase that map. In fact, it continues to predict their presence. You might find yourself instinctively reaching for the phone to text them, expecting to see them walk through the door, or hearing their voice in your mind. That emotional dissonance — the painful gap between knowing they are gone and feeling like they’re still here — is not irrational. It’s a feature of how the human brain works.
Grief Is a Feature of Love
Grief is closely tied to love — specifically, the kind of attachment that forms strong, enduring bonds. Drawing on attachment theory (Bowlby, 1980), O’Connor describes these emotional connections as survival mechanisms. The same brain systems that evolved to help us stay close to our caregivers and communities are activated in grief. The brain regions involved — such as the ventral tegmental area (reward), amygdala (emotional salience), and prefrontal cortex (executive function) — continue to fire in the absence of the person we’ve lost.
This is why grief can feel so physically painful. The brain systems involved in emotional attachment overlap with those that process physical pain. We don’t just feel sad — we ache.
And that’s what makes grieving feel so disorienting: your brain is still operating from a model where your loved one exists. It can take weeks, months, or even years for that internal model to update — and even then, it may never fully disappear. Instead, our relationship to the loss changes. The map is altered, not erased.
The Seasons Don’t Always Match the Soul
So what do we do when our inner world is grieving, and the outer world feels bright, social, and bustling?
Rather than trying to push ourselves to "move on" or follow a checklist of coping strategies, we can turn gently toward what our bodies and brains are naturally attuned to: rhythm, ritual, and sensory experience.
Author Alison Davies, in The Self-Care Year, reminds us that nature offers us grounding tools — not solutions, but supports — that work in sync with our nervous systems (Davies, 2021). Take water, for example. Flowing water — whether it’s a creek, a river, or the ocean — has a calming effect on the body. It slows the heart rate, regulates breath, and reminds us of movement and fluidity. Water is always in motion, always adapting to its container — and perhaps there’s something healing in that metaphor.
Next time you’re near a stream or a lake, try this simple practice:
Let your fingertips touch the surface.
Notice the direction of the current.
Feel how it moves around you — persistent, soft, and certain.
Imagine yourself being carried by it, not resisting, just noticing.
Maybe, just maybe, fluidity is the only constant.
A Compassionate Reframe
When we understand that grief is not just emotional, but deeply neurological and embodied, we can offer ourselves more compassion. There’s nothing wrong with you if you’re grieving even when the weather is beautiful, or when life seems to demand cheerfulness. Your brain is doing what it was designed to do: trying to protect you, trying to love well, trying to hold on.
Grief is a mirror of love. And while it may never fully “go away,” it can transform. It can soften. It can be carried — even gently — through the seasons.
References:
O’Connor, M.‑F. (2022). The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss. HarperOne.
Davies, A. (2021). The Self‑Care Year: Reflect and Recharge with Simple Seasonal Rituals. Quadrille.
