When you’re grieving, caring for yourself can feel impossible.
I remember the early days after losing Cynthia. Taking a shower was not my priority. I know that might be hard for some people to understand, but deep grief has a way of turning even the simplest tasks into mountains you do not have the energy to climb. Getting out of bed. Washing your body. Sitting down to eat a meal. Things that once happened without a second thought suddenly felt overwhelming.
Eating became a chore. I had no appetite, and food brought me no comfort. I would go through the motions simply because I knew I needed to, not because I wanted to. The woman who once cooked with love and fed her family with intention felt very far away, and I did not know when she would return.
If you’ve experienced a significant loss, perhaps some of this sounds familiar. Maybe you’ve struggled to sleep, forgotten to drink water, or found yourself neglecting the most basic needs because the weight of your grief left little room for anything else. This is a side of grief that many people experience, yet few people talk about.
That is why self-care in grief is so important.
Not the picture-perfect version of self-care that often fills social media feeds, but the gentle, practical acts of caring for yourself when your heart is broken.
The truth is that learning how to care for yourself in grief is not a luxury or a sign that you’re moving on. It is an important part of surviving loss. It is how you support your mind, body, and spirit as you carry a burden that was never meant to be easy.
In this article, I’ll share some gentle ways to care for yourself while grieving, especially on the days when even the smallest acts feel like more than you can manage.
1. Create Your Own Self-Care Plan
One of the biggest misconceptions about self-care in grief is that it looks the same for everyone. It doesn’t.
In the early days after losing Cynthia, taking a shower felt overwhelming. For someone else, that may not be a struggle at all. They may be able to keep up with their daily routines but find it impossible to leave the house, answer phone calls, or spend time around other people. Grief affects each of us differently, which is why there is no universal self-care checklist that works for everyone.
Instead of focusing on what you think you should be doing, focus on what feels manageable for you.
For me, that meant showing up for myself in whatever small ways I could. Hiking became one of those ways. There was something comforting about stepping outside and letting nature hold space for my grief. The trees did not ask me to explain my pain or rush my healing. They simply stood there, quiet and steady, reminding me that I was not alone and that God was still present, even in the darkest moments.
I wrote more deeply about a moment like this in this article The tree that held me, where something as simple as being in nature helped me carry a particularly heavy day of grief.
On the days I could manage it, I would get dressed and put on a little lipstick. It may sound insignificant, but at the time, it felt like a victory. It helped me catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and remember that beneath the grief, I was still there.
When eating balanced meals felt beyond me, I started taking vitamins as a way to support my body. Later, when grief-related hair loss became another painful reminder of what I was carrying, I cut my hair very low. What began as a practical decision became an act of care and acceptance during a season when so much felt out of my control.
Your self-care plan may look completely different from mine, and that is okay. The goal is not perfection. The goal is simply to identify one or two small ways you can care for yourself right where you are. Maybe that means drinking a glass of water, taking a short walk, sitting in the sun for ten minutes, or getting an extra hour of rest.
No act of self-care is too small when you are grieving. Sometimes the smallest steps are the ones that carry us through the hardest days.
2. Be Open to Trying Different Things (Even If They Seem Silly)
Another important part of self-care in grief is permitting yourself to try things you would normally overlook or dismiss.
In those early days after Cynthia transitioned, sleep became difficult for me. I would lie awake at night, exhausted but unable to rest, my mind going to places I didn’t want it to go. Nothing felt comforting, and silence felt too loud.
That was when my daughter, Marilyn, stepped in.
She would quietly come into my room and ask, “Mum, where is your computer?” Before I could even fully respond, she would already be searching YouTube, putting on rain sounds and ocean waves that played softly through the night. She didn’t over-explain it. She just did it. And somehow, that simple act gave me something I didn’t even know I needed, the sound of calm in the middle of chaos.
To this day, I still fall asleep to rain sounds.
That experience opened my eyes to something important: healing doesn’t always come in obvious or “serious” forms. Sometimes it comes through the smallest, even unexpected things.
I began to explore more. Long, warm baths became a quiet place of comfort, like being gently held when everything else felt heavy. I played solitaire for hours, not because it solved anything, but because it gave my mind something simple to hold onto.
I listened to music, especially the songs Cynthia loved. And even though it often brought tears, I kept playing them. Strangely, it felt like staying close to her memory, like she was still somewhere near.
I also watched history documentaries, finding comfort in learning about lives that had already been lived through and survived.
The point is this: self-care in grief is deeply personal. What helps one person may not help another, and that’s okay. This season is not about doing things perfectly or traditionally. It’s about staying open. Trying things, even if they seem small or silly at first, and noticing what brings even a moment of relief.
Grief is already heavy enough. You don’t need to judge the ways you try to carry it.
3. Give Yourself Permission to Be
Self-care in grief is not only about what you do. It is also about what you allow yourself to be.
In the months after Cynthia passed, I was on vacation when it happened. When it came time to think about returning to work, something in me simply refused. I did not want to go back to a world that expected normalcy from me when nothing about my world felt normal anymore. I just wanted space. To grieve without a schedule. Without expectations. Without having to hold myself together for other people’s comfort.
And so, I did.
I did not work for almost six years.
I know that may sound difficult for some people to understand. But I wasn’t lazy, and I wasn’t giving up. I was unwell in ways that grief often makes hard to explain. My mind was carrying more than I could manage, and the parts of me that used to function easily simply could not anymore. Forcing myself back too soon would have broken me further, not healed me.
Choosing to step away was one of the hardest decisions I ever made, but also one of the most necessary.
I share this because so often in grief, we wait for permission, from society, from family, even from time itself, to pause, to rest, to fall apart, to not be okay. But the truth is, no one else can give you that permission. Not really.
You begin to realize, slowly and painfully, that only you can.
Nobody else is inside your grief. Nobody else knows what it takes to survive your day-to-day.
So give yourself permission.
Permission to be slow. Permission to step back. Permission to cry without explaining yourself. Permission to sit in silence. Permission to not have it all together. Permission to simply *be*, exactly where you are, without rushing to become anything else.
Some days, self-care in grief looks like doing something. And other days, it simply looks like allowing yourself to exist without apology.
4. Learn to Lean on People
This one is often the hardest to accept in grief, and I intentionally didn’t place it at the very beginning. For many people, “lean on others” can sound like a cliché. But there is something deeper here that often goes unspoken.
You are not the only one grieving.
In my own home, I wasn’t the only one carrying loss. My children lost their sister. While I was trying to find my way back to myself, they were also trying to find their way through their own pain, watching their mother struggle while dealing with their own broken hearts.
Grief in a family is not a single wound. There are many wounds sitting under the same roof, each one hurting in its own way, all trying to heal at the same time.
And because of that, there was something quietly powerful about shared strength.
I am deeply grateful for my children, my friends, and my family who surrounded me during that time. They showed up on the days I could not show up for myself. They checked on me, sat with me, and stayed close even when words were not enough. In their presence, I was reminded that I was still loved, even in my most broken state, and that my life still mattered.
It is also important to remember that many people genuinely want to help, but do not always know how. Grief can be uncomfortable for others, and sometimes they hesitate not because they do not care, but because they are unsure of what to say or do. In those moments, being open about what you need can make a difference.
Whether it is asking someone to sit with you in silence, help with practical tasks, check in on you regularly, or simply listen without trying to fix anything, allowing people to show up for you in clear ways can make support feel more accessible.
Leaning on people in grief does not mean you are weak. It simply means you are human, and you were never meant to carry this kind of pain alone.
Closing Thoughts
If there is one thing I hope you take from this, it is that self-care in grief does not have to look big or polished. It does not have to look the way the world often presents it. Sometimes it is as small as getting out of bed. Sometimes it is rain sounds helping you sleep. Sometimes it is permitting yourself to pause, or allowing others to show up for you when you cannot carry everything alone.
Healing in grief is not linear, and it is not the same for everyone. But through it all, you are allowed to find what helps you survive this season, one gentle step at a time.
If you are walking through grief and need a place to feel understood, you are welcome in our community for grieving mothers, One Day One Mother. It is a space where you can read other stories, share your own, and simply be around people who understand without explanation. Sometimes, that in itself is a form of self-care in grief.
And if you are looking for a gentle way to begin processing what you feel, our 30-day grief journal for grieving mothers was created with that in mind. It is designed to help you sit with your emotions, one page at a time, without pressure or expectation.
You do not have to do this alone. And you do not have to rush your healing.