Grief Waves Keep on Coming—And That’s Actually a Good Sign After Loss
Grief can make reading hard. Want to listen to this article instead? Find its corresponding podcast episode here.
One of the most unsettling parts of grief isn’t just that it hurts. It’s that it keeps coming back over and over and over again.
You can be months or years removed from your loss. You can be functioning, working, laughing, building something that resembles a life again… and then out of nowhere, a wave knocks you sideways.
A song. A smell. A memory you didn’t ask for.
Suddenly you’re right back in your grief—crying in your car, staring at the ceiling at 2 a.m., reliving a loved one’s final moments, or caught in the depths of despair wondering how this is still happening.
For many grieving people, this isn’t just painful. It’s confusing.
A fresh wave of grief can make you ask things like:
Why is this still happening?
Shouldn’t I be further along by now?
Did I do something wrong?
But what if experiencing grief waves aren’t a sign that you’re stuck or “going backwards” in your grief?
What if they’re actually a sign that you’re doing something right?
That’s the reframe I’m exploring in this article—and that I get into in even more detail on Episode 55 of Grief Grower.
Grief Waves Are Supposed to Happen
In my conversation on Grief Grower with therapist and author Alex Mammadyarov, she said something that feels almost too simple—but carries so much weight:
“Grief waves are supposed to happen.”
She meant that grief waves are part of life after loss. Not just in the immediate aftermath. Not just in the first year. But indefinitely.
This can be a hard truth to sit with, because most of us have been taught—explicitly or implicitly—that grief is something we’re meant to resolve, recover from, move on from, or “get over.” We’re told that if enough time passes, or if we do enough “healing work,” the waves should stop coming.
So when they don’t, it’s easy to assume we’re the problem. But grief waves aren’t a glitch in the system. They are part of living the rest of our lives with grief!
The Shame of “I Should Be Over This By Now”
If you’ve ever felt embarrassed, frustrated, or even angry at yourself for still having grief waves, you’re in good company.
There’s a particular kind of shame that shows up in grief that sounds like:
This shouldn’t still be affecting me.
Other people would be over this by now.
Why am I still getting blindsided by this?
And that shame doesn’t come from nowhere.
We live in a society that treats grief like a temporary disruption, a season, an obstacle, or a short phase of life. Something you move through, and then eventually move past. But grief doesn’t operate on a set timeline. It operates on connection to the person or thing that you lost. And connection doesn’t expire.
Alex shared that over time, grief waves may shift. They might become less frequent. Sometimes less intense. Sometimes more predictable.
“They may come further and further apart… they may be sometimes a little bit less intense.”
But they don’t disappear entirely. More importantly, they’re not supposed to.
Because the goal of grief isn’t to eliminate your emotional response to loss. It’s to build a life that can hold it.
A Reframe That Changes Everything About “Grief Wave Shame”
There was a moment in our conversation that genuinely stopped me. It was one of those perspective shifts that, once you hear it, you can’t un-hear it.
When speaking about a fresh grief wave, Alex said:
“I actually haven’t felt like this in a little while… What have I been doing? Where have I been? Well, I’ve been living!”
And I just sat there thinking—wait.
What if grief waves don’t mean you’re still stuck? What if they mean you haven’t been? What if a wave hitting you after a stretch of time is actually evidence that, in between those waves, you were doing something else?
Maybe you were working, resting, connecting with others, creating something meaningful, or simply moving through your day-to-day tasks. In other words, between your last grief wave and your current one, you were living.
When you look at it that way, a grief wave isn’t just a return to pain. It’s also proof that there was space—however small—where grief wasn’t the only thing happening.
That your life, even in the aftermath of loss, has expanded enough to include other experiences.
And now, here comes grief again. Not because you failed—but because grief and life are coexisting.
The Fear of Letting the Grief Waves Come—How to Release Emotional Resistance
Of course, understanding grief waves intellectually is one thing. Letting them happen is another. Because for many grieving people—especially in the early days—grief doesn’t feel like a single wave. Often, it feels like a tsunami—something much more devastating and all-consuming.
When it comes to future grief waves, there’s often this very real fear: If I let this in, will it ever stop?
“There’s this feeling of like, is this going to end? Am I ever going to go back to feeling normal?”
Because of that fear, it makes perfect sense that you might try to avoid grief waves altogether. You stay busy, distract yourself, and keep moving because you’re trying to protect yourself from being swallowed up by pain or heartbreak. But over time, avoidance can create its own kind of stuckness.
Because the only way to learn that a wave will pass… is to experience it coming, swelling, and eventually passing.
Part of growing through grief is learning to feel the wave rise, crest, fall, and recede. And to notice—maybe with surprise—that you’re still here afterward.
You’ve Already Survived Every Grief Wave So Far
Here’s something you might reflect back on and recognize:
Every grief wave you’ve ever experienced… has ended.
Even the ones that felt unbearable. Even the ones that knocked you flat. Even the ones you were sure would swallow you whole.
Inclusive of—not in spite of—these grief waves, you are still here. Which means, whether you realized it at the time or not, you survived them.
As Alex described it, there’s a significant shift in self-perception after loss: You are both deeply impacted by life—and capable of weathering it.
You might try telling yourself: “I survived that grief wave. I can survive this next one.”
Not because it’s easy. But because it’s something you’ve already done—whether one, two, or thousands of times.
Growth Is Happening (Even When It Doesn’t Feel Like It)
One of the biggest misconceptions society has about grief is that growth should be visible. Obvious. Measurable. Linear. But in reality, growth in grief is often incredibly subtle—happening underneath what we’re conscious of in the day-to-day.
“Growth is sometimes very quiet and it happens in these very little moments.”
This is illustrated by instances like:
Realizing you made it through a grief wave
Asking for help when things get overwhelming
Expressing your grief through your words or through your body
Noticing that you can feel something painful without immediately trying to escape it
Letting yourself cry—and not judging yourself for it
Continuing your day, even after being hit with something hard
These aren’t the kinds of milestones that get celebrated, but they matter—because they are evidence that your capacity is changing.
To be clear, what’s changing is not your grief. It’s your capacity to hold it. Said another way: It is you that’s growing to accommodate your grief!
Closing Thoughts: It’s Okay—and Normal—for Grief Waves to Continue After Loss
If your grief still shows up, if waves still come out of nowhere, and if you find yourself thinking, “Why is this still happening?,” I want to offer you a different question:
What if this is exactly what’s supposed to be happening?
Not because it feels good. Not because you would choose it. But because this is what it looks like to continue loving, remembering, and living after loss.
Grief waves aren’t proof that you’re broken; they’re proof that you’re still connected to who or what you lost. They’re also proof that—even if you don’t realize it in the moment—you are continuing to grow.
