Do you remember asking the all-encompassing “WHY” about your grief and loss? I sure do. I also remember trying to answer it. For myself, for others, and for the sake of my future losses, too. And in doing so, I gave my mind permission to make it make sense, even if it made the story out of nothing. This week, we’re tackling a way of thinking that is natural to humans but often unhelpful and at worse, quite harmful.
Grief doesn’t just take someone or something we love. It takes the story we were telling ourselves about how the world works. Most of us move through life with an unspoken narrative running in the background: that effort leads to reward, that love offers protection, that if we do the “right” things we can avoid the worst outcomes. Loss shatters that narrative. And when it does, it can feel like the ground itself gives way.
When the world stops making sense, the human nervous system does what it has always done…it looks for meaning. Risk theorist Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls this instinct the narrative fallacy, a concept he explores in his non-fiction book titled The Black Swan. It describes our tendency to simplify complex, random, and painful events into clear cause-and-effect stories. Which sounds like a positive, right? These stories can help us feel less anxious. They can restore a sense of coherence. And in grief, that can feel like relief.
This doesn’t mean we’re foolish or avoidant. It means we’re human. However, you may know by now that overcoming our humanity is not part of a healthy grief process. We’re not meant to become super heroes or even superhuman. Grief work is the exploration and embracing of our humanity, with all its points of pride and failure.
But we also know that uncertainty is a deeply stressful experience for the human brain, and grief work also means we aren’t simply accepting that things are stressful and pretending we’re okay through it. When things feel senseless or threatening, we are far more likely to cling to narratives that reduce fear—even if those narratives aren’t especially accurate. The story doesn’t have to be true to be soothing. It just has to make the chaos feel smaller.
This is why, after loss, we hear or tell stories like:
- Everything happens for a reason.
- This will make me stronger.
- There must be a lesson in this.
- If I had done something differently, this wouldn’t have happened.
Sometimes these stories genuinely help someone survive the early days of grief. And not every story needs to be challenged or dismantled: especially when it belongs to someone else and is helping them stay regulated. But where restorative grief asks us to be careful is here: when a story becomes something we feel required to believe.
Grief is not linear. It is not fair. And it does not always resolve into meaning. When we pressure ourselves to make sense of what happened before we’re ready—or at all—we can end up turning grief into a problem to solve instead of an experience to tend. For ourselves and for others. This matters because meaning-making, when forced, often turns inward as blame:
- I should be further along.
- I must be doing grief wrong.
- If I had been better, this wouldn’t hurt so much.
It can also silence parts of us that don’t fit the narrative: anger, confusion, despair, relief, or numbness. Working through a lens of restorative grief makes room for all of it, without asking you to explain it away.
We see this same psychological pattern playing out in the world right now. In times of social and political upheaval, people often become deeply attached to simplified stories that offer certainty and identity. These narratives can feel stabilizing, but they can also make people rigid, defensive, and disconnected from complexity. The issue isn’t that humans seek meaning—it’s that we sometimes confuse certainty with safety.
Certainty promises protection. It tells us that if we believe the right things, align with the right group, or explain the world correctly, we will be spared—from harm, from grief, from responsibility, from uncertainty itself. This is why certainty can become addictive. It offers the illusion of control in a world that is anything but controllable.
We see this addiction play out clearly in religious frameworks that demand absolute answers, moral clarity, and unquestioned authority. We see it in highly charged political narratives that reduce complex human realities into good-versus-evil storylines. These systems don’t just offer beliefs—they offer insulation. A way to stand at a distance from the pain of the world while claiming to have it all figured out. And here’s where privilege matters.
Certainty as safety is not equally available to everyone. It is far easier to believe the world is coherent and manageable if your life has allowed you to remain buffered from its sharpest edges. If you can isolate, spiritually bypass, or intellectually explain suffering without having to live inside it, certainty can feel like proof that you’re “fine.” That you’re protected. That what’s happening out there doesn’t apply to you.
Grief disrupts that illusion.
Loss collapses the distance between ourselves and the truth that none of us are exempt. It refuses the fantasy that safety can be earned through correct beliefs or moral alignment. Grief brings us into direct contact with vulnerability—and in doing so, it quietly teaches us something that certainty never could.
Grief teaches us something different. Safety does not come from having the right story. It comes from staying honest, present, and compassionate with ourselves as we are changed by loss. Restorative grief doesn’t take meaning away from you. It gives you permission to let meaning be optional. To let it emerge slowly—or not at all—without turning your grief into a moral project.
The work, if there is work, is learning to notice the stories we tell ourselves and gently asking what they are doing for us. Are they helping us survive? Or are they pressuring us to become someone we’re not ready to be? You don’t need answers to the why to grieve well. You need room to let your grief be what it is—and support as you learn how to live inside a world that no longer offers easy certainty.
Before we close, I want to offer you a brief practice. This isn’t about calming yourself down or making anything feel better. It’s about orienting toward safety without asking your grief to make sense. If you’re able, pause for a moment.
Let your body settle in whatever position it’s already in.
There’s no correct posture here.
Bring your attention to something concrete around you;
the surface beneath your body,
the weight of your feet on the floor,
the place where your body meets the chair or the bed.
Now, without trying to change anything, notice your breath.
Not to control it: just to witness it.
You might silently say to yourself:
I am here.
This moment is real.
I don’t need to understand it to be in it.
If a story about your grief arises (why this happened, what it means, what should come next) see if you can let that story step just slightly to the side. You’re not getting rid of it. You’re simply noticing that it’s a story.
Then gently bring your attention back to your body.
You might place a hand somewhere that feels neutral or supportive.
You might notice a sound in the room.
You might feel the steadiness of gravity holding you.
Before you move on with your day, you might remind yourself:
Safety doesn’t come from certainty.
It comes from presence.
And right now, I am allowed to be here exactly as I am.
Thank you for listening to episode 236 of Restorative Grief. This is no small task —to learn and unlearn so much while you are grieving. But that’s the point. There is so much to learn and unlearn that at no point should we decide we are done grieving. Grief is not the villain nor is it an unexpected experience in this life. We owe it to ourselves to honor this piece of our human life as well as every other piece so that as we navigate, our narratives are as aligned and authentic as we have ever hoped to become.
If this is your first time listening to the podcast, I’m so grateful you are here. Please hit subscribe and leave a review so others can find this work and feel supported and challenged in their own grief experience. If you want to go a little bit deeper in the work, become a patron for as little as $2 a month and gain access to the workbook that goes along with every single episode in addition to bonus monthly episodes and mini lessons, too. Thank you as always to my past and present patrons; this work goes on because you continue to believe in it. And as always, before we go, one last thing. 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: