What does it mean to “unlearn” something? In a world that tends to define everything in opposites—good or bad, right or wrong—unlearning can feel like the most difficult task. But when we understand that the brain is not static but malleable, it becomes clear that unlearning isn’t just possible, it’s essential for healing and growth.
Research shows that the brain is always growing, changing, and evolving, constantly working to create safety and process new information, including the painful and uncomfortable memories we carry. When our brain stores a memory, it does so without emotion—it simply retains what’s necessary for survival. The autonomic nervous system (ANS), which operates automatically to protect us, is constantly evaluating the safety of our environment. When it detects danger, it moves us into a sympathetic state to act quickly, often bypassing complex emotional processing. This survival mechanism can be a double-edged sword, though: helpful when physical threats are present, but unhelpful when we are constantly on guard, assuming the people and spaces around us are not safe.
Unlearning what the brain has been conditioned to see as necessary for survival can be incredibly difficult. As grievers, this automatic survival mode can hold us in patterns that no longer serve us. We’ve been taught to view grief as something “bad” to avoid, and yet grief is a natural response to loss—a part of our healing process. This binary thinking of “good” vs. “bad” often limits our ability to fully engage with our grief. We need to challenge this duality, moving from simplistic labels to a spectrum that acknowledges the complexity of grief as a necessary process of healing.
Mary-Frances O’Connor, in The Grieving Brain, writes: “Grief is not just about the emotional pain we feel; it is a process by which the brain is trying to make sense of a world in which the person we loved is no longer there.” This aligns with the idea that grief isn’t just an emotional experience; it is a neurological one. The brain struggles to accept loss and adapt to a world without the person we loved. This struggle is part of the unlearning process. By dismantling the binary view of grief as something “bad” or “undesirable,” we open the door to a deeper understanding of how grief works in the brain and in our lives.
In this process of unlearning, we begin to see grief as a spectrum, rather than a binary of “good” or “bad.” This shift is essential to grieving well. What does it mean to grieve well? The answer to this question depends on you—on what your grief journey looks like and how you’ve learned to navigate it. This is where the principle of openness from restorative grief comes into play. Openness is about allowing yourself to sit with grief, to acknowledge its presence without judgment, and to give yourself permission to experience it without trying to fit it into predefined categories.
Grieving well, for me, has meant saying “no” to many things. It means disappointing others when necessary and rejecting societal norms that demand I suppress my grief for the sake of productivity or appearing “fine.” The process of grieving well is individual, and it requires a redefinition of wellness that doesn’t conform to cultural or societal expectations. As I’ve shared before, my grief work includes developing a plan for self-care during depressive episodes and honoring my wellness through practices that might not fit the typical mold of “moving on” or “getting over it.”
This unlearning process extends beyond personal grief; it includes a collective aspect, as we grieve the oppression and suffering of others. For me, grieving the oppression of LGBTQ+ communities in the U.S. is part of my own work—grieving the systems of conformity, medical gaslighting, and spiritual bypassing that limit true healing and growth. As I do this work, I recognize that my grief is connected to the collective grief of others. This shared grief calls for openness to new possibilities of connection, safety, and belonging.
Unlearning the rigid dichotomy of “good” vs. “bad” frees us to see grief as a healthy part of the human experience, something that moves us toward wellness rather than away from it. When we view grief as part of a larger spectrum of experience, we can start to embrace the messiness, complexity, and unpredictability of grief without fear or shame. The key to this openness is understanding that our grief work is not happening in a vacuum; it is part of a larger, collective healing process that includes our own growth and the healing of the communities around us.
Ultimately, the work of unlearning the moral codes and societal expectations that shape how we grieve is about trusting ourselves and others to create new structures—structures that support wellness, growth, and healing. It’s about recognizing that “good” isn’t the standard anymore—expansiveness is. In embracing the full spectrum of grief, we create space for healthy, helpful, and authentic ways to grieve that allow for growth, transformation, and healing.
Thank you for listening to episode 174 of Restorative Grief. I hope this essay has offered you a new lens through which to view your grief and the potential for unlearning the limiting ideas you’ve been taught about it. If you’re feeling resistance to this idea, I invite you to pick up a journal and write through that resistance. Express your frustration, your doubts, and your hopes. Grief is hard, but it is also a pathway to healing that is expansive and full of possibility. Please remember to subscribe to the podcast, share an episode with a friend, and help me out by talking about this work with people you know. If you want even more support, remember you can become a Patron and gain access to weekly workbooks to walk through the episode topics more intentionally, too.
And as always, before we go, please remember. The only solution for grief is to do the work of grieving. Thank you for listening. I’ll see you next week.
Links + Resources from this episode:
- The Grieving Brain by Mary-Frances O’Connor
- Become a Patron
- Learn more about The Restorative Grief Project