(Ep. 34) Learning to Comfort Grief and Identify its Hidden Forms

What if you've been carrying grief for years — over things you never even let yourself call grief?In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise return to a subject at the very root of the Compassion Method — grief — but this time they go looking for its hidden forms. Most of us only recognize grief in death. Laura, whose own journey began with losing her husband Jeff fourteen years ago, has learned that we've all grieved far more than we realize: we just never had permission to feel it because it didn't arrive as a funeral.Laura and Brian widen the lens to the losses that quietly shape us: grieving what we hoped for, grieving the childhood or the parent we didn't get, grieving a divorce or a season that ended. They explain why minimizing your pain ("other people have it worse," "they did their best") is just another way of suppressing it, why you can't rank grief because it's about how deeply something hit you, not how big it looks, and how "compounded grief" stacks old, unhealed losses onto present ones — which is why a current heartbreak can feel so much bigger than it "should." It closes with something tender and hopeful: how facing grief, rather than fixing it, is what finally lets the good memories return.In this episode: 🔹 Why grief isn't only about death — the hidden losses we never gave ourselves permission to feel 🔹 Why "other people have it worse" is denial that keeps you suppressing your pain 🔹 You can't rank grief: why depth is about how something hit you, not how big it looks 🔹 "Compounded grief": how old, unhealed losses stack onto a present one and magnify it 🔹 Why the goal is to comfort grief, not fix it — and how that lets joy and good memories returnA gentle note: this episode discusses grief and losing a spouse with honesty and hope. If you're carrying a loss of any kind, be kind to yourself as you listen — and if you're struggling, reach out to someone you trust.📩 Get your free Weekly Dose of Compassion — two short notes in your inbox every week. One to speak over yourself. One from Laura: https://www.lauraduncan.com/pl/2148814868🔗 Learn more: https://triggeredandtrue.com https://lauraduncan.com