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I cannot tell you how many grieving clients, grieving students I have worked with through

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the years, who have said, "I feel like my grief is making me self-centered or I've been

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accused of being selfish or making my loss all about me."

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Is this true?

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Is this real?

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Is there something to being selfish in the aftermath of loss?

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So I wanted to get into this topic.

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Is grief really selfish?

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And my answer might surprise you.

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[Music]

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Hi there, grief growers and welcome back to grief grower.

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I am calm today.

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I don't know if you can hear this outside where I am, but I am recording in the middle

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of the thunderstorms.

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My hope is that there is some sort of ASMR rain thunder sound happening in the background

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as you listen to this.

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And that is something that is soothing to you as it is for me.

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I am grateful that you're here.

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If you have been growing alongside me in my work for a while, welcome back.

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If you are new to me in my work, hello.

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My name is Shelby for Scythia.

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I am in grief coach, a two-time author and founder of an online course in community called Life

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After Loss Academy, where I have helped dozens of grieving people stop feeling lost, stuck,

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broken and alone.

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And we're going to get to talking to a bit of that today and start building lives that

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they genuinely love from the lives that loss has forced them to live.

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Here on grief grower, we believe that grief is not something to get over.

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It is something that we grow with and alongside for the rest of our lives.

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And that when we stop treating grief less like something that's wrong with us and more

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like something that deepens our humanity, we can create rich, meaningful lives that include

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our grief, that allow our grief to come along for the right.

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And today on the show, we're going to be talking about a question that I get asked more often

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than I would like to admit.

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And that is, is grief selfish.

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And I cannot tell you how many grieving clients, grieving students I have worked with through

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the years, who have said, "I feel like my grief is making me self-centered or I've been accused

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of being selfish or making my loss all about me."

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In Life After Loss, is this true?

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Is this real?

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Is there something to being selfish in the aftermath of loss?

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And so this is inspired by a question that I received via email from a podcast listener

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named Anjan.

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He wrote, "Thank you for all the work you do for grievous.

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It seems to me that some people think that grief is due to self-love, essentially saying

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that grief is selfish.

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I do not know whether you have made content on this but would request you to consider this

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as a topic."

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So Anjan, this one's for you.

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This question is so thoughtful and honest.

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And again, like I said, it is, it's far from unique.

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I get this question from grieving people all over the world, especially those in Eurocentric

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cultures, I'm thinking like the United States, Europe, Australia, because these societies

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are focused a lot on individualism, but we want your individualism to serve the masses.

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And so that when you focus on you or yourself, you're not being productive.

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You're not contributing to the economy or to your household.

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And selfishness is often a verbal weapon that is lobbed at people who are trying to focus

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on their healing.

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Let me concretize this.

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Let's bring this down into the ground.

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Statements like, "You're not the only one who's hurting, you know."

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Can we talk about something else for once?

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Well, I didn't say anything when my dad died.

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I just powered through.

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If you really loved them, you'd celebrate their life instead of wallowing.

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Oh, people just use grief as an excuse to be lazy.

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The implication under all of these statements is that you are somehow selfish for grieving.

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You are making your loss all about you or that you are not grieving correctly.

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And these statements sort of fall under this icky umbrella of shame that says, "You're

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making this loss about you."

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This, the details of your loss, how you're getting through it, this conversation, you are monopolizing

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it and controlling it and taking hold of it in a way that I don't like.

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So I'm going to point the conversation at you and accuse you, griever, of being a selfish

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person.

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So I wanted to get into this topic is grief really selfish?

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And my answer might surprise you.

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If you've been around my work long enough, you may have received an email to this effect.

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Yes, I believe grief is selfish.

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But before you turn this podcast off, not in the way that you think.

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Here's the thing, grief to me is selfish in the same way that tending to yourself after

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a natural disaster is selfish.

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When a natural disaster like a flood or a tornado or a hurricane or an earthquake or a wildfire

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or a snowstorm, something tears through your life, it makes sense that you were focused on

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your home, your power outage, your broken windows, your next meal.

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Yes, you have an awareness of your neighbors and your friends and your larger community that

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has been impacted by this disaster.

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But largely, your focus is centered on you and your small corner of the world because you're

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the one who's small corner of the world just fell apart.

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You are not selfish in society standards for being upset that your roof is gone.

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You're the one who has to deal with it.

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It makes sense that you are self-centered.

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It makes sense that you are the focus of your life right now.

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You are the one in the wake of your loss making decisions about next steps while also figuring

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out how to survive the moment that you are forced to live in right now because you are

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simultaneously the center of the chaos and the one who is responsible for rebuilding from

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it.

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People on the outside might say, "Shouldy things like well, at least you got some time off

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work or other people had it worse."

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But that doesn't change the fact that your life, your life, the life that belongs to you,

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the life that you were living here on planet earth, just got turned upside down in a very

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major, life altering probably permanent way.

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Grief is self-centered.

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Grief is selfish because the weight of it is personal.

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The fact that your grief is all about you is not or should not be a source of shame.

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It is a recognition of humanity.

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Like yes, my grief is all about me.

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The person I love is gone or the life I thought I was building vanished whether slowly bit

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by bit or overnight.

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I am the one left in the rubble of the pieces of my life before.

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I am the one standing here in the aftermath of the destruction, having to survive in the

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aftermath of destruction and then also rebuild again.

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To the question is grief selfish.

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I say, "Of course grief is selfish.

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How could it not be?"

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What I want to talk about specifically though is that Anjan in his question also sent me

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a link to a YouTube video that was a Buddhist reflection on grief.

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This kind of presented me with a compassionate but also challenging lens to see grief through.

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I won't replay the YouTube video here but I did link to it in the blog on my website

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under the same name.

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It is grief selfish.

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If you search, "Is grief selfish?"

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Shelby for Cynthia on Google, you will find the blog article.

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It is from a 2001 Dama talk by Anjan Brahm who is a Buddhist monk who is teaching to explore

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things like non-attachment and impermanence and peace through surrender.

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There are a lot, a lot, a lot of Buddhist teachings focused on these things.

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The talk, the YouTube video is about three and a half minutes or so.

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It references a Buddhist teaching called the Salasuta which offers this reflection.

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I am going to read a little bit from the Buddhist reflection.

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Not abandoning grief.

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A person suffers all the more pain.

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Be wailing one whose time is done.

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You fall under the sway of grief.

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Having your own happiness, you should pull out your own arrow, your own lamentation, longing,

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and sorrow.

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This is a powerful teaching.

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It is one that encourages a healing by letting go of grief.

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Not because grief in and of itself is inherently wrong but because attachment to what cannot

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be changed or what can no longer be can make suffering more painful.

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If that is the focus of your grief, this part is ended and I can't change it.

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A lot of the Buddha Kura Shura is that can make the pain that comes with loss doubly painful.

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It can double and triple down on the pain you experience in the aftermath of loss.

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This teaching and a lot of Buddhist teachings are teachings that resonate deeply with a lot

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of people.

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If this resonates with you, like the non-attachment and grief is letting go, wonderful.

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I hope that you take that and I hope that you let it guide you.

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For other grieving people, such as myself, maybe you as well, listener, especially in the

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raw or acute or early days of loss, teachings like this can feel invalidating to your grief

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and even shaming because they can be interpreted as you are clinging too hard to your loss,

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you're bringing more suffering onto yourself, move on already.

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And that is not a helpful message when your heart is like already screaming in pain

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because it makes it seem as if the reason you are in pain is because you can't detach

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from this.

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You are making this loss all about you.

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You are so selfish.

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This interpretation that grief is selfish in a negative sense that grief is about control

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and ego and a refusal to let go or the illusion that there is separation between us.

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This can make people feel defective for doing something as natural and as human as mourning

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a person or a life that they've lost and can no longer get back to.

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I often refer to grief as a threshold you can't cross back over, the door is closed to

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you and you can't get back through to the other side.

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Any grief or loss event is a threshold or a doorway like that and it is normal to look

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back at the door and say, "I will never get to access my life before again.

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I will never get to go through that door and we live that part of my life."

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And that is sad.

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That is hard.

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I have attached to that or I have attached to them in some way and it is very normal to

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grieve that thing.

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And once again, in many Eurocentric societies, cultures where individual emotions are already

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policed, people want you.

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If you're going to be an individualist, you must also be serving capitalism or patriarchy

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or white supremacy of the masses.

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It is very easy for grievers to absorb this message of, "You are so selfish.

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We're making this all about you."

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Like a sponge, this message of shame just like soaks in like a sponge.

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Try and say that five times.

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That's the message of shame, soaks in like a sponge.

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It sounds like a vocal warm up for choir.

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It is distressing, I'll say.

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When society calls grief self-centered, I'll give you some other examples of how this sounds.

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I can't believe you're still not over it.

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You need to move on and you're making this all about you.

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One of the biggest reasons that these judgments sting with people is because they strike or

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they get to the heart of this very core fear that so many grieving people carry, maybe

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there really is something wrong with me.

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Maybe I'm bad at grieving.

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Maybe my grief or my loss or my feelings about it make me so other from other people that

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I no longer belong to my family or my friend group or my community group anymore because

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they all think I'm too weird or too sad or too self-absorbed or too angry or too selfish

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for grieving.

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When your grief doesn't look acceptable to other people, when it takes too long, when it

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gets too loud, when it becomes too inconvenient for other people to carry, society, friends, family,

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loved ones, the media, bosses, co-workers, calls itself fish.

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To my brain, from my perspective, as a grief-coaching person who's been doing this work and as a

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griever who's been grieving for going on 12 years now, at least, in my view, this is not a reflection

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of your grief or something being wrong with you.

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It is a very clear mirror reflection of society's inability to sit with pain and death and uncertainty

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and vulnerability.

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Something is not wrong with you.

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Something is wrong with all of this.

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Still, society, we do not do grief well yet.

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We're getting there, baby steps, but society does not do grief well yet.

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Its current solution still is to point at grievers and call them selfish when they are grieving normally.

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I do want to touch on this topic, though, going back to the Buddhist ego-death non-attachment

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sentiment that Anjun shared in this email and answer the question kind of a secondary

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question is grieving about ego because some people or philosophies or religions might

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argue that grief is really just the ego's way of saying, "This should not have happened.

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I did not consent to this.

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I want my person back and I want to be in control of my life, not God and not fate."

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And yes, absolutely.

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Grief can have this flavor, this existential of like, "Why is this my life?

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Why me?

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I am a cursed person.

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I want all of this back and I should be in charge of my life and not this other being.

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I have belief in a not fate and not destiny and not pointlessness, not nihilism."

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But if this is a part of your grief, I kind of have to say like, "So what?

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We are biologically wired to want connection and stability and when this door, when this

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threshold, this closes to you and you cannot access your life before.

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It makes sense that you missed your person or that you resent death for existing or you

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should have could have would have all the other paths your life could have taken instead

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of forcing you through this door that is now close to you.

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If again, for my view, does not and should not be explained away as a failure of spirituality,

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you are not a bad Buddhist, you are not a bad Christian, you are not a bad Jew, you are

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not a bad Muslim because you are grieving.

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It is not a lack of enlightenment or a clinging to attachment that has gotten you here.

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You are not broken because your grief feels overwhelming.

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Grief is overwhelming.

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You are not failing because your sad or angry are still missing somebody who died months

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or years or decades later.

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We all, if we are willing to talk about it, miss someone who died months or years or decades

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later.

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And you are not egotistical for noticing all the ways you have been impacted by loss, whether

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or not society can put words to it or not, we are noticing the ways we have been impacted

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by loss.

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Back to episode, I think it's episode four or five with Rebecca Sofer where we talk about

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the five year anniversary of COVID, society has been impacted by COVID.

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We haven't quite put language to it yet in a lot of ways, but a lot of people know that

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sense that time something has changed.

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And you are not egotistical for being a person who notices it.

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You are simply highly sensitive or highly aware of taking that tally of here's tick, tick,

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tick, all the ways that grief has changed my life.

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You are doing exactly what every human does after loss.

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You are grieving and taking an inventory and a kind of a status report of what are all

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the ways that grief has impacted me.

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The invitation I want to offer you in this episode and kind of as a response or an action

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to Anjana's question is to reframe grief as a form of self-compassion, not something that

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makes you selfish.

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So instead of seeing grief as a selfish expression of poor miserable me, why me I'm cursed

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by the heavens or I'm overly attached to XYZ, you can choose if you want to see grief

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as an expression of love and remembrance that lives on through you.

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That is something you can stay attached and connected to.

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You could choose to see it as pain that is worthy of attention.

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A lot of times in my after loss academy my students would be like, my grief is a signal that I need

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to pay more attention to something.

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And so if I'm getting a lot of like grief activators in the grocery store or songs coming

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on the radio, it's a signal to me to pause and tend to that pain.

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Grief could also be a signal of longing that reveals how deeply you can connect to people,

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places, things, relationships.

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And it can also be a arrow pointing towards healing that requires a slowing down and attuning

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in.

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Yes, grief is centered on the self, but not in this harmful, egocentric way that society

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often accuses us of.

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Grief is self-centered in the sense that you must turn inward.

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You've got to look at yourself in many, many ways, more than I can even tally on this podcast

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in order to heal.

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You must.

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You have a mandate to care for the one who is still here on earth and that person is you.

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And that is not a shameful thing.

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That is a sacred thing.

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I propose to you, everyone listening out there, that being selfish in grief is actually

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very necessary.

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So if we flip the script, what if being selfish in grief is not a character flaw, you are

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not broken or defective, it is a survival strategy.

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You are not grieving to make a scene or cause drama at the family barbecue.

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You are grieving because your entire world just changed.

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One of those is a lot more in character for you than the other.

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You are not emotional because you are dramatic.

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You are emotional because your body, heart and soul are processing something massive,

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which one feels more true for you.

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You are not remembering your loss or reliving your loss to get attention.

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You are remembering your loss because the person or thing you lost mattered a lot to you

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and it's important to you to keep it close in memory.

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In Life After Loss Academy, which is my online course in community for moving through grief,

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I walk you through what I call my five step grief method, GRIEF and the first three modules,

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GRIEF and RELEASE and INTOGRADE, are entirely focused on you, the grieving person and how you

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would like to rebuild your life after loss.

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We don't even talk about doing grief with others, setting boundaries with friends, family

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co-workers until the established module when we establish boundaries and better relationships

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in life after loss.

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So these first three modules, GRIEF and RELEASE and INTOGRADE, go as such.

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GRIEF is about regaining your sense of stability in a world in a life that has fallen apart.

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GRIEF is about processing and expressing your difficult emotions, sadness, anger, guilt,

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despair, hopelessness, whatever you want to throw in the mix, we'll release it together.

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INTOGRADE is about folding loss into your life, weaving it in, in ways that feel nourishing

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and connecting to you, such as remembering a lot of one through signs and symbols.

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And so these first three modules is helping you feel safe, helping you release emotions,

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helping you weave grief into your life in the ways that resonate best for you.

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And the grief method as a whole, what I teach in my course and what I bring to you here

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on the podcast, this is not about narcissism or control or selfishness.

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It is about you reorienting to your life after loss came in and just punched your compass,

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the thing that was orienting your life right in the face.

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And yes, that means the focus is on you.

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But that's not because your grief makes you more important than anybody else.

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It's because your nervous system, your identity, your beliefs, your memories, your

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memories and your daily life were all impacted by your loss.

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Self-centered does not mean selfish.

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In the context of grief, it means self-focused and having a focus on the self is crucial for

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your healing, for your coming back to life after loss.

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Here are some next steps and some scripts because I can't leave you without some very

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practical boundary setting statements to take into the world with you.

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Most times someone accuses you of being self-centered or selfish for grieving.

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See if you can reframe it.

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This helps you stop receiving the word selfish or self-centered as a curse word, which it can

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feel like in life after loss, and start appreciating it as a very core reality.

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This is a true thing in life after loss.

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In other words, you are centering yourself because you have to.

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Loss has happened to you, so it makes sense that you are selfish or self-centered in this

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season.

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So here are a few scripts to respond when someone just boob lobs a selfish statement in your

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direction.

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For I can't believe you are still not over it.

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You can say, "You're right.

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I'm not over it because that's not how grief works."

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If someone says, "You need to move on."

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You could say, "A lot of people say you need to move on when they don't like how someone's

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expressing their grief."

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What exactly is it am I doing that's upsetting to you?

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I would genuinely like to understand.

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If somebody says to you, "You're making this all about you."

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You could respond, "My grief is all about me.

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It's my grief and my loss that happened to me."

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The good news is, "You have your own grief."

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And that's all about you.

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That one's a little sassy, so do with that what you will.

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If somebody says, "You're not the only one who's hurting, you know."

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You could say something like, "I'm aware that my mom's death has affected a lot of people."

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And I get to grieve her as much as everybody else does.

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If somebody looks at you and says, "Can we talk about something else for once?"

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You could say, "I'll never stop talking about my diagnosis or their death or the pet loss

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that changed my life."

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It is something that is going to stay with me forever.

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That's a boundary-setting statement.

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If somebody says, "I didn't say anything when my dad died, I just powered through."

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You could say, "You may have powered through, but I'm choosing to address my grief

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head on.

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It feels more healing to me."

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If somebody accuses you of being selfish by saying, "If you really loved them, you would

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celebrate their life instead of wallowing."

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You can say, "I can celebrate their life and feel sad that they're not here.

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I am capable of having more than one emotion at a time."

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And finally, if somebody says to you, "People just use grief as an excuse to be lazy."

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I encourage you to say, "Lasiness isn't real, and I can't believe you just said that."

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If you think I'm using my grief to get out of something, let's have a conversation about

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what you think that looks like.

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This is very much an invitation for curiosity and a clear statement of what your beliefs

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around what they said are.

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I want you to remember through all of these that grief is not something that makes you

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broken, it's something that makes you human.

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And in a world that often tells you to ignore your pain and hurry up and be okay already,

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reclaiming your right to grief or kind of interrupting somebody else's thought of

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grief as selfish, you putting a boulder in the road of that thought for them is an act of

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self-compassion, both for you and for them whether they notice it or not.

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Here's my final thoughts for you, for Anjan and everyone else listening.

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Is grief selfish?

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Yes, but not in the way that people mean it when they say it to shame you.

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grief is selfish in the way that healing is selfish.

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When you are healing, you are focused on your needs, you are reaching out for help from

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other people, you are oftentimes taking a break from pouring from your cup because you do

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not have the energy or capacity to do so.

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Grief self-centers you because you're still here on planet earth, something devastating

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happened, you got shoved through that door and that door is permanently close to you and

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you are now tasked with getting through today, getting through tomorrow and getting through

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the rest of your life.

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And even loss cannot change the fact that you and nobody at loss took a lot away from you

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but loss cannot change the fact that you and nobody else is in the driver's seat of your

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life.

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You may not have been able to control the weather, you still can't.

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You may not have been able to control the GPS navigation, maybe still can't.

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You really can't control the bumpiness of the road that you're driving on.

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But you are in charge of how you respond and where you're going next.

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That's about all we have power over in life after loss.

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And I say that's about all we have power over and sometimes that feels like nothing and

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sometimes it feels like everything.

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But when you're grieving, you do not need to be and I hold this so firmly in my heart, it

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is not helpful for you to be shamed and belittled for focusing on yourself.

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You need to be encouraged by the people surrounding you to dive deep into your losses, to your

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stories, to your values and your heart as you pursue this process of putting the pieces

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of your life back together in the way that makes the most sense for you.

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In other words, you need to be allowed to explore who loss is turning you into without harmful,

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hurtful labels like selfish slap to cross you.

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Inside life after a loss academy, if this resonates with you, I can help you ground in

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a stability, get you that compass back, release emotions like shame, sadness, guilt, and

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rebuild a life that feels meaningful to you even with grief and tow, even with grief

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as a passenger in that car.

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You do not need to do this alone.

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You just need support that does not judge you for being a human person who is trying your

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best to heal.

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If this speaks to your experience and you want to center your healing, you are in an

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era of your life where that is true without shame, without being called selfish, I invite

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you to join life after a loss academy so we can figure out your next steps where you drive

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it next, what's your direction together.

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And that is a space where I would just love to welcome you to take your questions to acknowledge

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that grief is inherently selfish, but maybe that's kind of a radical, cool thing and we can

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all be selfish about our grief in tandem together.

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And you can find more information about how to do that in the show notes.

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On John, thank you so much for your question for writing in for these Buddhist teachings

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that I did not know existed until your letter.

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And if you'd like to submit a question for me to answer on a future episode of grief

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grower, you can also find contact information for me to do that in the show notes.

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That's all for this episode of grief grower.

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Thank you so very much for joining me today.

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If you're looking for grief support beyond this show, you can find free workshops, blog

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articles and my signature, what's your grief support style quiz at shallbeforcithia.com/links.

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If this podcast felt validating, comforting, educational or otherwise helpful to you and

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your grief, please subscribe and leave a review on Apple podcasts or Spotify and be sure

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to share this show with a friend because you never know what someone you love is going

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through.

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A very, very big thank you to the grief growers community for supporting the show on Patreon.

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If you'd like to join them and help me keep this show free from ads from mattresses and

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delivery kits because grief is hard enough without commercials, head to patreon.com/shellbeforcithia.

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As a supporter, you get to help me choose new topics and guess for the show and you're

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the first to get behind the scenes access to all of my upcoming projects like my new book

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coming out in 2026.

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Grief grower is hosted by me, shallbeforcithia and the theme music is composed by Addy Goldstein.

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Until next time, grief growers, I see you.

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I am so proud of you and the work that you're doing in the world and I love you because

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even through grief, we are growing.

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