Grief is the normal and natural response to loss of any kind.

It is a normal part of life.

So why does the word grief still seem to evoke such discomfort? Why do we hesitate to use it when talking about life’s difficult experiences?

I think language and grief literacy matters.

The more we use words that accurately describe our experience, the less uncomfortable, stigmatised or taboo those experiences can become.

By not saying the word grief doesn’t make the experience any less real. It doesn’t make the discomfort disappear. Grief is still happening, whether we name it or not.

Recently, I tested language for myself.

I introduced an idea using the word grief and it fell flat. There was little engagement.

I then explored the same idea using the words loss and change — and the response was the complete opposite.

It made me wonder: what is it about the word grief that makes us pull back?

We all experience loss. We all experience change. And if grief is a natural response to loss and change, then all of us experience grief in some form.

Yet we still seem to shy away from the word.

Perhaps part of the reason we accept the words loss and change are that they feel easier to say.

Loss describes what happened.

Change describes what is happening.

The words feel safer. Broader. Less confronting.

Yet grief names what can happen inside us when something changes, when something ends, when something we are attached to is no longer as it was.

It truly validates the experience of living with what has changed — the absence, the adjustment, the uncertainty, and the feelings that come with having to let go of something we cared about. Perhaps that is why the word can feel harder to say.

We can talk about loss and change without necessarily talking about how deeply they affect us.

But to name grief is to acknowledge that change can affect us deeply, and that we may find it challenging to navigate the space left behind.

Or is it that we have come to associate the word grief with only the most obvious losses, particularly death?

But so many of life’s transitions involve genuine loss.

A relationship ends.
A child grows up and needs us differently.
A friendship changes.

Infertility and miscarriage.

A pet dies or must be rehomed.
A role comes to an end.
A career shifts.
A home is left behind.
Our health or capacity changes.
Someone we love becomes distant.

Bankruptcy and financial hardship.
A future we imagined is no longer possible.

These are experiences we grieve. But may not always be recognised as grief.

And when we don’t have language for what we are experiencing, we may feel like we don’t understand our emotional response and that we should instead, simply adapt, be grateful, be resilient — and move on.

Perhaps avoiding the word grief unintentionally minimises the experience itself.

Because calling something grief says: This happened and it mattered.

It acknowledges that something has been lost, even when that loss isn’t visible to others.

If we called more experiences grief, we’d have to acknowledge how often people are grieving things that aren’t socially recognised as worthy of grief.

And perhaps that is exactly why the word does matter.

Not to make life harder, but to give people language for what they are already carrying.

So maybe we don’t need to avoid and shrink grief to make it more comfortable to acknowledge in everyday life.

Improving grief literacy in our community and our workplaces will bring new understanding and acceptance that grief already belongs there, and that we need to make our understanding of grief larger to include the realities of everyday life. Because grief is not only a response to profound loss.

It can be an ordinary human response to any loss, change, attachment, transition, and how that alters what life looks and feels like. I wonder if we avoid the word grief because calling something grief means we draw attention to just how much of life involves loss, change and the experience of grief.

What if using the word grief more often didn’t make life more painful — but simply gave us permission to recognise it as part of being human?