We're three weeks into grief month, and this episode goes somewhere that doesn't get nearly enough airtime — grieving someone who is still alive. Whether you've had to create distance from a relationship for your own well-being, or you're mourning a version of a person who is no longer who they once were, this kind of loss is real, disorienting, and deserves to be named.
In this Therapy Is My Cardio segment, Jessica walks through the clinical framework of ambiguous loss and four powerful shifts that actually move the needle — straight from the therapy room.
What You'll Learn in This Episode
What ambiguous loss is and why it's one of the hardest kinds of grief to process
The two main forms ambiguous loss takes — and which one you may be living with
Why humans struggle so much with unresolved, "open loop" losses
Four practical reps for working through relational grief
Why your healing does not require the other person's participation
How grief and love can coexist without contradiction
Coming Up Next Week
We're closing out grief month with identity grief — grieving a version of yourself that existed before the thing that changed everything. Don't miss it.
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Transcripts
Jessica Colarco (:
Hi, welcome back to Healing is My Hobby, I'm Jessica, and welcome to our Therapy is My Cardio segment, where emotional work becomes a workout and healing becomes the movement. We are three weeks in to our grief series this month, and today's episode is one I've been thinking
for a long time,
this one is about a kind of grief that is almost impossible to explain to someone who hasn't lived it.
What do you do when the person you're grieving is still alive? When the relationship technically exists, but something essential is gone? When you've had to create distance from someone you love or used to love for your own well-being? When you're waiting for a door to close that never quite does? This is some of the most disorienting grief there is.
and it deserves a real conversation.
As you know, with Therapy is My Cardio, we have a warm-up, a workout, and a cool-down. In this warm-up today, we wanna explore naming it before you can work with it. In my practice, I work with a lot of women who are carrying this specific kind of grief. And one of the first things I do, one of the most important things I do, is give it a name.
Psychologist Pauline Boss called it ambiguous loss. Loss without clear definition. Loss without a clean ending. Loss that exists and a kind of permanent in between.
and there are two main forms it takes. The first is when someone is physically present but psychologically absent. A parent with dementia, a partner who checked out emotionally years ago, a parent who was in the house but not really there. Not available, not attuned, not safe. You're in a relationship with them. They exist in your life.
but the connection you needed, the version of them you needed isn't there. And grief for something you never fully had is an especially complicated thing to hold. The second form is when someone is physically gone.
but psychologically ever present. An estrangement, a divorce that's legally final but emotionally unresolved, a friendship that ended without closure, a parent or sibling you've had to separate from whose absence takes up a strange and heavy amount of space. Now you know what you're working with. That's our warmup because you can't heal something you haven't named.
Let's move on to the workout, doing the hard reps. I wanna explore four shifts that actually move the needle in session. What makes ambiguous loss so painful and so clinically significant?
is that it denies us narrative. Humans heal through stories. We need a beginning, a middle, and an end. We need something to point to and say, that's where it happened,
here's what I've made of its sense. Ambiguous loss doesn't give us that. It gives us an open loop, and open loops are exhausting to carry. So what does the work actually look like?
Here's what I notice shifts in session. And these are your four reps today.
Rep one, separate the person from the role. So many women I work with feel guilty for grieving a parent who is still alive. They feel like they're being disloyal or dramatic or unfair. But here's what I help them see. You're not grieving the person as a whole. You're grieving what you needed from them that wasn't there. The mother who was attentive and safe. The father who showed up. The partner who was present and consistent.
eries on boundaries coming in:
Let's move on to rep number two. Name the specific losses inside the larger loss. Instead of trying to grieve the relationship, which is abstract and overwhelming, we get specific. What did you lose? Safety, consistency, being known, having someone in your corner?
The version of the holidays you always imagined? The phone call when things get hard? Naming the specific losses makes them grievable. It gives you something to actually work with. Rep number three, release the requirement for external resolution. This is often the most powerful shift. The healing from relational grief does not require the other person's participation.
It does not require an apology. It does not require their acknowledgement. It does not require them to change or to see what you see or finally give you what you needed. Your healing can happen inside you. It can happen in your own processing, in your own therapy, in your own journey toward understanding what happened and integrating it into who you are. You don't need them to close the loop. You can close it yourself. That is not easy work, but it's liberating.
Rep four, let grief and love coexist. Grief and love are not opposites. You can grieve a person and still love them. You can grieve a relationship and still choose to maintain it. You can grieve what was never there and still wish them well. These are not contradictions. They are the full complicated truth of loving imperfect people in an imperfect world. I love you.
Let's move on to our cool down as we let the work settle. After a hard workout, we don't just walk off the floor. We breathe, we stretch, we let the body integrate what just happened. And that's the same thing we do here. This week's reflection is for anyone carrying this particular kind of grief. I want you to think of a relationship past or present where you've been grieving something that was never quite there or something that used to be and isn't anymore.
And I want you to ask yourself, what specifically did I lose? Not the whole relationship. What exactly do I wish had been different? Getting that specific might bring something up and that's okay. That's actually the goal. You did great work today. Let it land. Next week, we're gonna be closing out grief month with something I think is going to resonate deeply. We're talking about identity grief.
grieving a version of yourself, the self that existed before the thing that changed everything.
I'll see you then. And if you'd like to read my blog or stay up to date, you can sign up for the newsletter at healingismyhobby.com. You can follow me on Instagram at Healing Is My Hobby or on YouTube at Healing Is My Hobby. And if you'd like to know more about my clinical practice, you can visit jessicacolarko.lcsw.com or follow me on Instagram at jessicacolarko.lcsw. Thank you, see you next week.
