How to Be Kinder to Yourself in Grief With One Simple, Compassionate Phrase
Grief can make reading hard. Want to listen to this article instead? Find its corresponding podcast episode here.
After a loss, it can be a struggle to speak to yourself with kindness.
You might judge yourself for not being able to do the things you used to do before loss, for being more tearful or forgetful, or for not performing as well as you want to at work or school.
But here’s something I believe—and that I learned the hard way after my mom died in 2013:
If criticizing yourself fixed everything, we would all be 110% healed.
Read that again.
Because if self-criticism actually worked, if beating yourself up over how "off" you've been since your loss actually made you more capable, more functional, more like your old self, wouldn't we all be done grieving by now? Wouldn't the harsh inner voice have fixed this already?
In more than thirteen years of grieving and almost ten years of working with people facing all kinds of losses, I’ve realized—as grievers—we cannot hate ourselves into better versions of ourselves.
Criticism hasn’t worked in the past. It won't work in the future. And yet so many grieving people spend their days mentally tearing themselves apart for not handling loss "better."
In this article, I'll share:
The difference between critical self-talk and compassionate self-talk after loss
One simple phrase you can use today to instantly soften how you talk to yourself
The psychology and research behind why this small linguistic shift works for grieving people
How this tool fits into a much bigger practice of integrating loss into your life
Before we go further, I want to say clearly: if you've been hard on yourself since your loss, you're not doing grief wrong. You're doing something incredibly difficult while also being human, which means your brain sometimes defaults to judgment instead of tenderness.
That's not a character flaw or a “skills failure” on your part. That's just what pain in your brain tends to do when it doesn't have better tools to reach for yet.
Let's give you one.
The Problem With Critical Self-Talk After Loss
Grief already demands a lot of you. It demands you keep functioning while your internal and external worlds have been rearranged. It demands you show up to work or school, answer texts and emails, feed yourself (and perhaps others!), and exist in a body that feels unfamiliar—all while constantly carrying something heavy and invisible.
On top of all of those demands, many grievers unconsciously or consciously add a second layer of suffering: self-criticism.
You forget to buy something at the store and think, "What is wrong with me?"
You snap at someone you love and think, "I'm becoming a terrible person."
You cry in your car before a meeting and think, "I need to get it together."
None of these thoughts account for the fact that you’re grieving. They treat your grief-affected brain, body, and behavior as though they should be operating at full, pre-loss capacity, and then they punish you when they're not.
This is where most grievers get stuck. Not because grief itself is the whole problem, but because critical self-talk gets layered on top of grief, and that combination is what starts to feel unbearable.
Critical vs. Compassionate Self-Talk: What's the Difference?
Let's define our terms, because language matters here.
Critical, as an adjective, means: to pass judgment. To point out defects or faults in.
This is what critical self-talk sounds like after a loss:
"Look how grief has broken you."
"You're acting crazy."
"You can't do anything right."
"You deserve to be alone."
Compassionate, as an adjective, means something entirely different: to companion in suffering. To offer tenderness with.
This is what compassionate self-talk sounds like after a loss:
"It's okay that grief has changed you."
"Your feelings are normal."
"It's okay to not have all the answers."
"We'll figure this out together."
Notice the shift. Critical self-talk positions you as broken, wrong, or failing. Compassionate self-talk positions you as a person going through something enormous, deserving of the same tenderness you'd offer a friend or loved one.
Ask yourself: When I make a mistake, forget something, or struggle to function in this season, which voice do I default to?
If you don’t know whether your self-talk is critical or compassionate, try speaking your inner thoughts aloud. For many grieving people, the voice of criticism comes out harsher, meaner, or more frustrated, while the voice of compassion is usually calming and empathetic. For example, “You’re not who you used to be” sounds much different with a cruel tone than it does with an understanding one. The first is judgmental. The second is kind.
The One Phrase That Changes Everything: "While Grieving"
Here's the trick I teach inside my free Grow Through Grief workshop, and it's consistently one of my students' favorite tools for building instant self-compassion.
All you have to do is add the phrase "while grieving" to whatever you're doing or thinking throughout your day.
It looks like this:
I'm brushing my teeth… while grieving.
I'm getting groceries… while grieving.
I'm listening to this podcast… while grieving.
I'm answering emails… while grieving.
I'm making dinner… while grieving.
I'm sitting through a work meeting… while grieving.
I'm trying to fall asleep… while grieving.
I'm laughing at something funny… while grieving.
I'm forgetting where I put my keys… while grieving.
I'm showing up to a birthday party… while grieving.
I'm scrolling my phone… while grieving.
I'm having a hard time making a decision… while grieving.
I’m living my life… while grieving.
This tiny addition does two important things:
First, it releases the frustration and inner wrestling that come from expecting yourself to function like your pre-loss self. Of course you forgot something on the bus. Of course that meeting felt harder than usual. Of course watching that show made you cry. You're doing it all while grieving, which is an enormous, invisible weight to carry through an ordinary task.
Once I had a client who was struggling to go to the grocery store after her dad died, upset as to why it felt like such a hard task when in her life “before,” going to the grocery store was a mundane weekly activity. I joked with her, in the style of the Lord of the Rings meme: one does not simply go to the grocery store while grieving!
During our session I said, “Not only are there carts and crowds. There’s his favorite snack in aisle four, a song he loved playing over the speaker system, and a stranger who reminds you of him if you squint. There’s fluorescent lights that feel way too bright for a grieving brain and the beeping of the checkout station. Not to mention the financial stress of paying at the register and the practical, logistical stress of driving there and back amongst other drivers making whatever decisions they’re going to make on the road that day. Add on top of that, there’s carrying in and unloading the groceries and deciding where they go in your kitchen. Of course it’s hard. You're grocery shopping—while grieving!”
Second, and just as important, this phrase opens the door to noticing all the incredible ways you're still functioning, inclusive of your grief. Not despite it. Not in some future version of yourself that has grief "handled." This phrase celebrates who you are and what you’re capable of right now, while grieving.
You got out of bed while grieving. You went to work while grieving. You showed up for your kid's recital or your friend’s birthday party while grieving. These are not small things. This is endurance and resilience happening in real time.
Ask yourself: What did I do today while grieving that deserves a little more credit than I've been giving it?
Why This Works: The Psychology Behind the Phrase
This trick might feel almost too simple to be effective, but it's actually rooted in real, evidence-based psychology and data.
In narrative therapy, a blame-free practice that helps clients rewrite their inner stories, one of the foundational moves is separating the person from the problem. So instead of your story being "I am broken," your rewrite becomes, "Grief is affecting me a lot right now."
That small shift matters, because when people get stuck inside a problem-saturated story about themselves—thinking that they are the source of their suffering—it reinforces that painful identity and makes it harder to access a more compassionate, accurate view of who they are.
Adding "while grieving" does exactly this. It externalizes the grief instead of collapsing it into your identity. It interrupts the story that says, “I am the reason why my life is awful,” and turns it into a kinder, more true one: “I am a person doing my best to live inside of a really awful experience.”
There's also a body of research on what psychologists call self-distancing, popularized by researcher Ethan Kross and colleagues. Their work suggests that even small shifts in language can create psychological distance from a distressing experience, which helps people process that experience with more objectivity and less overwhelm.
Some of this research has even found that the amount of linguistic distance people use when talking about their struggles is connected to their symptom levels and how well they respond to treatment over time. In other words, how you talk about what you're going through isn't just a reflection of how you feel. It can actually shape how you feel.
"While grieving" is a tiny, two-word act of linguistic distancing and narrative reframing, wrapped into a phrase simple enough to use—literally while you’re doing the dishes.
This Is Just One Tool Inside a Bigger Practice of Rebuilding After Loss
This phrase is a wonderful starting point, but it's not an all-purpose tool for your entire grief experience. It's one small lesson inside a much bigger practice of integrating loss into your life, which happens in the third module, Integrate, of my five-step GRIEF Method inside Life After Loss Academy.
The Integrate module is all about learning how to fold your losses and your loved ones into the larger story of your life, rather than treating grief as something separate from you that you’re supposed to eventually "get over" and leave behind. And here's what I've seen, over and over again with my clients and students: doing this integration compassionately feels dramatically different than doing it critically.
When you try to integrate your grief with a critical inner voice, it feels like failure. Like you're constantly falling short of who you used to be in the past and want to become in the future.
When you integrate your grief with a compassionate inner voice, aka a "while grieving" voice, it feels like growth. Like you're becoming someone new who still cares for what and who you've lost—and that care includes you too! Compassion can extend backwards to your life before loss, but it can also come with you into the future too.
"While grieving" is just one doorway into weaving your losses into the larger fabric of your life story. Inside the Integrate module, we go much deeper into designing personalized, creative ways to work with—instead of against—grief. This helps you build a life rooted in compassion for everything you’ve been through rather than a life filled with criticism for all the ways you’re falling short. It makes all the difference when you’re carrying the heavy weight of grief!
Closing Thoughts: You're Allowed to Be Kind to Yourself… While Grieving
You are not failing at grief because you forgot something, snapped at someone, or needed to cancel plans. You are a person carrying something enormous, doing your best to keep living… while grieving!
That deserves compassion, not criticism.
The next time you notice that harsh inner voice creeping in, try this instead: name what you're doing, add "while grieving," and notice what shifts in you—emotionally, mentally, physically, or even spiritually. See how rewriting your story impacts how you feel about living inside of it.
If you want two more of my students' favorite tools for building a life alongside grief, I'd love for you to watch my free workshop, Grow Through Grief. It's a short, practical preview of exactly the kind of work we do inside Life After Loss Academy, and it's available whenever you're ready to watch it. Click here to access it.
