We have all experienced feeling angry in our lives. It can range from an mild irritation to an intense rage. After your loss, you may be feeling short bursts or longer periods of anger. You may be feeling angry toward your loved one, your situation or at others around you. Anger can be constructive when it is the catalyst for us to move forward or it can be destructive if it puts us in a state of freeze.

Anger during the grieving process is much more common than you might initially think. If this is the space you are in, please know it is perfectly natural. Anger is actually a secondary emotion, an adaptive response to a perceived threat. In the experience of grief, our loss is the perceived threat and it can shake our very foundation. We often default to anger because we feel too exposed, raw and vulnerable after our loss. The profound sadness and emptiness after our loss can feel too scary to face, so we default to anger as it can sometimes provide structure, an anchor of sorts. 

Since anger is a secondary emotion, you can start looking at what your anger may be blanketing when you feel ready. If you are able to label the emotions underlying your anger, this can help catalyze the shift out of a state of anger. There are dozens of primary emotions your anger may be covering, but a few more common ones are betrayal, rejection, humiliation, or feeling worthless and / or helpless.

If you are able to begin naming your anger, it will eventually begin to be less present in your experience. Once it is less present, it will have less power and control over you, allowing you to really address the underlying emotions. This is the place where the healing can begin.

Guilt can be an incredibly uncomfortable emotion. Though uncomfortable as it may be, guilt can be productive by playing an important role in keeping us accountable for making things right when we may have misstepped. After we lose a loved one and we are unable to right a perceived misstep, our grieving brain would much rather feel guilty than to feel helpless. 

If left alone, guilt can start to take the shape of shame and shame is quite destructive. There is a very large difference between guilt and shame. Guilt generally indicates you feel bad for something you did or did not do, while shame may indicate you feel you are a bad person for something you did or didn't do. Shame teaches us that we have to be a certain way in order to be accepted by others. Shame can be limiting, isolating and secretive. In shame, we withdraw so you may tend to reach out less, share less or have feelings of unworthiness. 

Instead of letting guilt consume you, you can make a gentle choice to change your response in any next moment. This is especially important when you are likely feeling a complete loss of control. Connect with others and communicate how you are feeling. Naming your guilt and putting a voice to it can begin to normalize it and it will eventually lose its power.

Regret and guilt are very closely related, but there is one subtle difference. Regret tends to be a “looking back” of sorts, feeling you should have or wishing you could have done something differently. Unlike guilt, regret is generally felt during reflection and is discovered in hindsight. 

During the grieving process, regret generally enters when we feel we have unfinished business with our loved one. Your regret may also tend to be focused on past experiences with your loved one as regret is about wanting or wishing something that happened to now be different. This can be challenging to rectify after our loved ones are gone and we no longer have an opportunity to be face to face with them.

Regret can feel quite painful and staying in a place of regret as we grieve can become a defensive response. Regret keeps us in the past, avoiding the reality of the present moment that we may not want to face. Instead, if we allow it, regret can be a teacher for us. We can utilize it as an opportunity to learn how we might like things to be different moving forward.

As with guilt, naming your regrets and sharing them with another or journaling them can help to lift their weight and the hold they may have over you. You may want to even write a letter to your loved one, many find this to be quite cathartic.