top of page
Search

Grief Doesn’t Fix Itself But Facing It Can Change Everything

For years, I ran from my childhood grief, thinking time would magically fix it. I stayed busy, got older, built a life but when I stopped running, the pain was still there. Just as sharp. Just as overwhelming.


Avoiding grief is understandable. Nobody wants to feel broken, helpless, or exposed. And sometimes, facing grief turns out to be exactly as painful as you fear. You open the door, and it knocks the wind out of you. But here’s the part people don’t tell you: what comes after that moment is where real healing begins.


I don’t share this as theory, I’ve lived it. And what helped me wasn’t avoiding the pain or waiting for time to do its job. It was letting myself feel it and learning how to move through it.


Avoiding Pain Doesn’t Heal, It Just Delays


I thought if I recreated my best childhood memories bringing my own kids back to the cabin where I spent summers, it would heal me. But when I stepped into that cabin for the first time in decades, I crumbled.


I saw younger versions of myself and my siblings in every corner. The grief I’d been storing for years came out all at once.


Avoiding grief doesn’t make it smaller. It stores it. And one day, it comes out heavier than ever. The only shift came when I finally let myself feel what I had been running from since I was 13.


Letting It Hurt Is the First Step Forward


There’s no shortcut to grief work. If it’s old, deep, and tied to your identity, it’s going to hurt. But the worst pain doesn’t last forever.


When I finally let myself experience that sadness, it was unbearable at first. But years later, it’s softer. Still there but it doesn’t run the show anymore.


Healing isn’t about erasing pain. It’s about letting it move. That can mean therapy, journaling, meditation, or simply speaking the unspeakable to someone safe.


Why Insight Helps (But Doesn’t Fix Everything)


I used to believe that if I could just “make sense” of my grief, it would let go of me. Understanding the root of my pain gave me clarity but it didn’t erase it.


What it did give me was a roadmap. It showed me what needed repairing in my relationships and gave me a way to live better with my grief.


Insight is valuable, but it doesn’t delete the past. It helps you carry it differently.


The Truth About Time and Grief


We’re told “time heals all wounds.” But time by itself doesn’t heal anything.

When I finally faced what I’d avoided since adolescence, the grief was still raw—like no time had passed. What changed it wasn’t time, it was work. Time only started to help after I faced it.


It Gets Easier, But Only After It Gets Real


The first time I opened the door to my grief, it wrecked me. Now, when I revisit those same spaces, the grief is still there, but I’m not drowning. I’m living with it.


That shift didn’t come from avoiding or waiting. It came from doing the hardest thing: facing it.


Sometimes you really do have to let it hurt in order to heal.


-Scott

Want practical tools for navigating life with depression and anxiety, delivered right to you every week?

Resources. 


My Books




bottom of page