Grief- Surviving and not Living

If you’ve been reading along with me, you know that at the end of every post, I always write that we are LIVING and GRIEVING. While scrolling through Instagram like everyone else, I saw a post about survival and not truly living. It made me think about myself and that statement, and I started to wonder whether I am actually Living or Surviving. So, I decided to share my thoughts with you.

No doubt, grief has been a landscape without a map, and each traveler must find their way across its shifting terrain. For me, immediately after losing my sister, my world felt changed, colored by a sorrow that blurs the edges of joy and dulls the vibrancy of daily life. Time, which once moved with rhythm and purpose, can stretch and warp. Tasks that were once effortless—eating, sleeping, even speaking—become hard. In this shadowed place, my heart ached not just for losing my sister or the vanished time, but for the me that once moved lightly through the world.

Survival, in these moments, can feel like a task assigned by fate rather than a gift. The breathing is deep and long, the sun rises, and yet the living feels hollow, a mechanical echo of the life that once was. For some of us, this state is temporary—a cruel but necessary passage. For others, it becomes protracted, a kind of suspended animation in which grief is ever-present, and the colors of the world remain muted.

Surviving-

What does it mean to survive grief? Survival is not thriving. It is putting one foot in front of the other, an act of rising each day despite the heaviness in the chest and the fog in the mind. It is sometimes simply not giving up, even when the embers of hope have burned low.

On the outside, survival can look like functioning: going to work, preparing meals, answering emails, attending functions, nodding politely at the appropriate moments, and even hanging out with friends and family. But on the inside, as a survivor, we feel as if we are watching life through frosted glass, unable to touch the vibrancy that once animated them.

Survival in grief is neither failure nor weakness; it is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit. It is a quiet rebellion against the sorrow that would see us undone, even if the effort is invisible to others. Yet, survival is not the same as living. To survive is to weather the storm, to hold on when the winds threaten to tear us apart. Living, by contrast, is to dance again when the rain has passed.

Between surviving and living lies a gulf—a muted existence in which one is neither fully engaged with life nor entirely lost to it. In this state, days blur together. Food is eaten without taste, conversations pass without resonance, and laughter feels like a memory rather than a possibility.

This is the “not living” that can follow grief—a kind of emotional hibernation. The body is present, the mind is functioning, but the spirit is dormant. This state is often misunderstood by those who have not experienced it. Friends may urge the grieving to “move on” or “find closure,” not realizing that the wound is still raw, the heart still in retreat.

Not living is not a deliberate choice, nor is it laziness or self-indulgence. It is the body’s and soul’s way of protecting itself from further pain, of allowing the psyche time to rebuild itself after overwhelming loss. It is a necessary pause, a breathing space where grieving can exist without the pressure to heal or change.

The Social Pressure to Heal

The society we live in is impatient with discomfort, often struggles to accommodate grief that lingers. There is an unspoken expectation that, after a specific period, we are expected to “get back to normal.” Yet, for us grieving, normal is gone. The world is forever changed, and so are we.

This pressure can deepen the void between mere survival and true living. Grieving may feel alienated, pressured to wear a mask of recovery while our inner world remains shattered. We tend to retreat further, withdrawing from the very connections that could help them heal. It is a cruel paradox: grief is universal, but the experience of it can be incredibly isolating.

Self-Forgiveness and Compassion

Living again does not mean forgetting. It does not mean that the loss ceases to matter. Instead, it means weaving the memory of the loved one, or the lost possibility, into the fabric of a new self. It is about allowing joy to coexist with sorrow, and hope with remembrance.

Small steps mark the journey back: the first genuine laugh, the first time music brings pleasure instead of tears, the first moment when anticipation replaces dread. These are fragile, tentative things, but they are signs of life returning. Vex King wrote in the book Good Vibes, Good Life,- “Beating yourself up will not change the situation; it is what you strive for next that matters.”

The path from survival to living requires patience and kindness—both from others and from oneself. It is easy to become frustrated by the slowness of healing, or to judge oneself for not moving “fast enough.” Compassion is the antidote to this impatience. It is the quiet voice that says: it is enough to survive today; tomorrow, perhaps, you will live a little more.

Forgiveness, too, plays a role. While grieving, sometimes we tend to hold ourselves to impossible standards, berating ourselves for not feeling better, for not being more resilient, for not “snapping out of it.” Forgiveness is the act of letting go of these expectations, of recognizing that healing is not linear and that survival, in itself, is a form of courage.

“Forgive yourself for the bad decisions you’ve made, for the times you lacked belief, for the times you hurt others, and yourself. Forgive yourself for the mistakes you’ve made. What matters most is that you’re willing to move forward with a better mindset.”- Vex King.

True Living

Eventually, hope may begin to flicker—even if only as a distant possibility. Hope is not the denial of pain but the belief that pain need not be the only note in the song. It is the willingness to imagine a future in which happiness might once again be possible.

To grieve but survive is to endure, to persist through the unthinkable. To move towards living, we have to let hope take root, slowly, quietly, until it grows strong enough to lift us out of the cave.

Grieving but surviving while not living is a complex and deeply human experience. It is a space of vulnerability, of waiting, of silent strength. If you find yourself here, know that you are not alone; I am right here with you. I have learned that there is no timetable for sorrow; The heart mends at its own pace, and life, in time, can return—not in the same form, but often with a new depth and gentle wisdom born of having walked through the valley of loss. In this quiet middle ground, remember, surviving is enough for now. Living will come again, in its own time, with its quiet grace, but we have to work towards it. Putting in the effort is work, but we have to get to the point where we are GRIEVING and LIVING, even if we are not there, we’ll get there.