When Grief Changes You But Doesn’t Define You: Finding Your Way Through Loss
Rachel Hart-Phillips is in the car, driving away from the hospital mortuary. It is one of those days that feels almost impossible to hold — the kind where everything is too much, too raw, too real. She has just seen her husband. The future she thought she had is no longer there. And alongside the shock and the grief, there is another feeling beginning to take shape.
Fear.
Not just of what has happened, but of what it might mean. That this could be the thing that defines her. That from this moment on, she might always be “the person this happened to.” That her life might narrow around this one experience, this one loss, this one story.
She says it out loud to the friend driving her home. And he responds, simply and almost casually, “don’t let it.”
It isn’t a solution. It isn’t even something she can fully take in at the time. How could you, in the middle of something so overwhelming? But she keeps it. She carries it with her, even when it feels impossible to believe. And over time, it becomes something she can return to. Not as an instruction to be okay, but as a way of orienting herself inside something that has changed everything.
There is something in that moment that many of us will recognise, even if our circumstances are different. That quiet, often unspoken fear that the hardest thing we go through might become the thing that defines us. It might not be grief. It might be anxiety, burnout, a loss of confidence, a period of feeling lost or stuck. But the shape of the fear is often the same. That this is who I am now. That this is how it will always be.
And yet, life is rarely that singular. It is not one thing, even when one thing feels overwhelming. What Rachel’s story holds, gently and without forcing it, is the idea that we can be shaped by what happens to us without being entirely defined by it.
This is not about dismissing the impact of what we go through. Loss does change us. Grief changes us. The experiences that stop us in our tracks — the ones that make us question who we are and how we go on — they leave their mark. Rachel speaks about the many emotions that came with her grief: sadness, of course, but also anger, guilt, fear, even moments of something like joy returning in unexpected ways And perhaps one of the hardest parts is that these emotions don’t arrive neatly. They don’t follow a clear path. They can feel contradictory, confusing, and sometimes even shameful.
We are not always given space to experience that fully. There is often a subtle pressure, from the world around us and from within, to be strong, to hold it together, to find a way through as quickly as possible. Rachel described being told she was strong after earlier loss, and how that became something she felt she had to live up to — as if showing her grief might mean she was doing it wrong But over time, she came to understand that strength, in this context, looks very different. It is not about holding everything in. It is about allowing what is there to be there.
This is a different kind of orientation to the one many of us are used to. Rather than asking “how do I fix this?” or “how do I stop feeling like this?”, it becomes something more like “how do I stay with this, without losing myself inside it?” It is slower. Less certain. But also, perhaps, more human.
Rachel spoke about grief as something that lives in the body, not just the mind. Something that needs to be felt and moved through, rather than thought away And that might look like very ordinary things. A walk. A song. A moment of crying that comes out of nowhere. A small flicker of light that catches you by surprise. None of these are solutions. But they are ways of staying connected to yourself, even as everything shifts.
There was something else in our conversation that stayed with me, and it sits alongside that original thought. The idea that when something hard happens, we don’t just struggle with what we’re feeling — we also struggle with how to be around each other. The not knowing what to say. The fear of getting it wrong. The way we can sometimes back away, even when we care deeply.
Rachel has built her work around this space — around helping us find words when words feel impossible. And what she returns to, again and again, is that it doesn’t need to be perfect. Often, it is the simplest expressions that matter most. A message. A card. A “I’m here.” A “love you.” Not to fix anything, but to sit alongside it.
Because when life becomes difficult, what we are often looking for is not a solution, but a sense of not being alone in it.
And maybe this is where that original thought — don’t let it — becomes something softer, something more spacious. Not a demand to overcome or to move on. But a quiet reminder that even when something changes you, it doesn’t have to take everything with it. There can still be other parts of you. Other moments. Other possibilities that sit alongside the hard.
Rachel speaks about the metaphor of a disco ball — something made up of broken pieces that still reflects light. Not in spite of what it’s been through, but because of how those pieces come together. It feels like a more honest image of how we live. Not perfectly put back together. Not untouched by what has happened. But still capable of reflecting something back into the world.
If you are in a moment where things feel uncertain, or heavy, or difficult to name, it might not be about finding a way to change yourself. It might be about staying close to yourself, even here. Allowing what is present to be present. And trusting, even if only a little, that there is more to you than the thing that has happened.
If this feels close to home, you can listen to the full conversation with Rachel on A Thought I Kept.
And if you’re looking for a steadier way to navigate what you’re feeling, or to find your footing again, you’re always welcome to explore the coaching and resources here at If Lost Start Here.
For now, perhaps just this thought to carry gently with you:
What is the thing you’re afraid might define you?
And what might it mean, in your own time, not to let it?
