Grief is the immediate emotional wave when you learn of a loss. Grieving is the longer process where those waves become less intense and frequent over time, letting you learn to comfort yourself. The brain doesn't erase grief, it adapts to it.
How does the brain's response to grief compare with its response to other intense emotions like love or joy or fear?
I think it's very helpful to distinguish between grief and grieving. So grief is another human emotion. A wave of grief comes over us when we're aware that we've had a really profound loss. That's our reaction to it. That natural response is what we call grief, and that really happens in the moment. Grieving, on the other hand, is the way that grief changes Over time, you would have to ask the same person what their grief is like on more than one occasion to figure out what's changing. Grief is never going to go away. It's just a normal human reaction. Grieving means that over time, those waves of grief tend to be less intense. They tend to be less frequent. They become more familiar. And eventually, we discover how to comfort ourselves in those moments.
The Library of Minds: Brain Coach: How to Stay Sharp When AI Does the Thinking | Jim Kwik
