Challenging the Myth of Moving On From the Loss of Someone You Loved
- Aug 11
- 4 min read
Updated: Aug 27
Written by Julie Farnsworth, Trauma-Informed Grief Coach
Julie Farnsworth has spent her life helping others to live better lives. After 30 years working as a social worker, she founded "One Free Soul Grief Journey, LLC" in honor of her sister, Erica, who lost her life to cancer at the age of 40.
I want to talk about something that we have been led to believe, the idea that we need to have some kind of timeline for grief and loss. After this timeline is complete, we will simply carry on with our lives and head off into the proverbial sunset for the next phase, essentially “moving on and letting go.” I want to debunk this myth and challenge this “stage” of grief and loss once and for all. This myth has caused many of us to feel like there is something wrong with us if we cannot move on with our lives and let go of our loved ones.
If we think about it on a deeper level, we can start to see the flaw in this logic. Why would we, or why should we, expect that, if we have loved someone and had a deep connection to them, we would actually want to let that go? I think it should really be just the opposite.
What if we reframe this into something that sounds and feels like this, I loved this person dearly, and I lost them. I need to accept that they are gone, but I do not have to forget about them and move on with my life, acting as if they did not exist or the connection was not important enough to continue to “carry” the love forward. I can still have room in my heart to accept new love and new people, but I do not have to let go of my loved one, I just need to look at it as a changed connection with them.
What might this new connection look like? It will be different for everyone, but it could include honoring shared traditions and the things that mattered to our loved one. A favorite song, experience, or place can remain alive in our hearts, memories, and minds. What we shared with them can continue to matter. We can also honor them on special days, such as birthdays and anniversaries. Their favorite foods and recipes can still be part of our lives, recreated and shared with others as we talk about them and the memories connected to them.
This leads me to the next part of this new process and something that we can think more about. What if we honored our loved ones by carrying them and their love forward in ways that could also help others? This could look like making a donation in their name, planting flowers and vegetables in their honor to give to others, performing a random act of kindness, hosting a meal to share with others and serving all their favorite foods, starting a charity in their name, or writing about them.
Think about the things that were important to them. Did they love children, animals, art, science, reading, writing, or nature? The possibilities start to present themselves when we find organizations that connect to the things they enjoyed or were passionate about.
When we start to shift our focus to integrating the loss into our lives through continuing bonds, rather than forcing false closure, we can start to view it through a different lens. We realize that it has changed us in different ways, especially if our identities were closely tied to the person we lost. However, if we look at the ways these changes could lead us to something positive, we can experience a mindset shift. We start to see that we might have a newfound appreciation for things if we know how to tune into them.
For example, after the loss of my sister, I started to realize that I was seeing a lot of birds and noticing different feathers on the ground. There was a recurring theme that started to present itself to me. By paying attention to nature and my surroundings, I began to feel a connection to her and a sense of peace in my heart. Discovering the joy of noticing these small things made me think about this positive shift. I began to intentionally pay closer attention to the things in my surroundings. My focus became one of gratitude for this new awareness and the realization that it was actually a gift.
When we realize that our loss can put us in a position to receive some gifts, we can pay attention to new qualities that we now have, such as resilience and strength, or a newfound understanding and empathy for others who have also experienced loss. We might appreciate the people in our lives more than ever and treat ourselves with more care and compassion.
We can see that life is fleeting, but this is a reminder to live our lives in ways that reflect the love of the person who left and to find joy in ways that honor them. Let us all strive to change the myth of “moving on and letting go” and instead think of it as moving forward by carrying their love with us into the future and making room for the newfound gifts and joys in our lives.
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Julie Farnsworth, Trauma-Informed Grief Coach
Julie Farnsworth is a Certified Trauma-Informed Grief Coach, Neuro-Change and Mind-Body Medicine Practitioner, Social Worker, and Mental Health Therapist. Since the age of 12, as a volunteer with the Red Cross, Julie has been called to help as many people as she can. She is the founder of "One Free Soul Grief Journey," which provides 1:1 healing journeys for anyone who needs help navigating the intricacies of grief and loss. Julie brings her years of experience walking alongside fellow grievers, as well as her own personal experience with grief and loss, to ignite her passion to help others to go from surviving to thriving.
