The Volume of Grief

When the Tears Do the Counting

Grief doesn’t ask for permission. It comes as a lump in the throat, a flood behind the eyes, a storm that shakes the ribs. It doesn’t check the clock. It doesn’t follow the rules.

Grief Has a Volume, Not a Schedule

During my EQ certification, one of my teachers said something to me, that really stuck with me. She said: "Every grief has a certain number of tears that need to be shed. But the thing is, we don't know the number beforehand." This is something I've carried with me ever since. As I've come to understand, some sorrows might only ask for a hundred tears, and others might ask for ten thousand. So we can't predict how long it'll take, only trust that when it's all out, we'll know.

Because you see, grief’s timeline isn’t linear. Grief doesn’t follow rules, obey timelines, or ask permission. Grief can resurface decades later in unexpected ways. It spirals - not in a clean arc, but in recurring waves that deepen over time as we evolve. Grief has a volume, not a schedule. And we’re not given the number in advance, we find out only by letting it move through us. One tear at a time.

Every grief has a certain number of tears that need to be shed. But the thing is, we don't know the number beforehand.

This has helped me stop trying to rush the process, and just let the tears do their counting.

When Grief Becomes a “Disorder”

In the medical and mental health world, grief has even been given a diagnosis. It’s called Prolonged Grief Disorder or “complicated grief.” The idea is that if your grief is still very present and disruptive after a certain amount of time, usually around twelve months, then it’s no longer considered normal mourning, but a disorder. Symptoms listed include persistent longing, difficulty moving on, and intense emotional pain. In other words, grief that lingers too long, or feels too heavy, gets labeled as something pathological.

But here's my take on it. I’ve come to understand that cultural expectations and the lack of support can actually create the very thing the medical world now calls “Prolonged Grief Disorder.” When you’re told directly or indirectly that your grief is “too much” or “taking too long" it can easily add shame to a process that's already extremely hard to go through. Add shame to it and it becomes that much harder.

Pathologising a natural process, combined with cultural expectations to “move on,” plus a lack of safe support and space to actually feel and process, can all pile into shame by not being allowed space to let the process unfold naturally, in its non-linearity, back and forth through the different stages of grief. And when we're not allowed, or when we don't allow, space for the waves to move through us as they rise, grief gets tangled. The tears stop flowing not because the grief is gone, but because the person has been made to feel wrong for still grieving. And that shame is often what keeps grief stuck, looping, unable to complete its movement.

Pathologising a natural process, combined with cultural expectations to “move on,” plus a lack of safe support and space to actually feel and process, can all pile into shame by not of being allowed space to let the process unfold naturally, in its non-linearity.

It’s easy to feel ashamed for still hurting. And shame doesn’t dissolve the grief, it buries it, where it festers. And then the diagnosis itself can add another layer of pressure, as if you’ve failed some invisible timeline of mourning. In that way, the label risks creating the very stuckness it’s supposed to describe.

The 90-Second Rule (and what it misses)

And this isn’t the only place where grief or other emotions get misunderstood. You have probably heard of the idea that emotions only last a minute and a half if we let them move. This comes from neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor, who explained that the chemical surge of an emotion peaks and passes in about 90 seconds if we don’t feed it with thoughts. But that’s regulation, not processing. Regulation is learning not to react from the wave. Processing is letting the emotion move through until it’s metabolised, which can take hours, months, or, in the case of grief, a lifetime of waves returning. The 90-second rule helps us pause; processing helps us heal.

Regulation is learning not to react from the wave. Processing is letting the emotion move through until it’s metabolised.

Emotions as energy in motion

I believe we need to let the waves of grief pass through our bodies, it's like that with all emotions, we need to let them move through otherwise they get stuck in our bodies, creating all sorts of physical and mental ailments that are really just unexpressed emotions turned inward.

The etymology of the word 'emotion': Emotion comes from the Latin "emovere" meaning "to move out". And that’s the whole point - emotions are movement. They are meant to pass through, not calcify inside us. Because, to borrow the words of trauma researcher Bessel van der Kolk: The Body Keeps the Score.

And so I’ll leave you with this small offering that came through me today, as I was reflecting around grief: