Why Did This Happen to Me?

Grief changes everything.

How you feel when you wake up in the morning. How you move through your work and the ordinary tasks of your day. Where your mind wanders when you're trying to fall asleep, despite being so exhausted you can barely think straight.

When a devastating loss guts you, it can feel like a sucker punch. In the early days, the anguish, disorientation, and sense of injustice can feel unbearable. And somewhere in the middle of all that heartbreak, a question often rises up:

Why did this happen to me?

Grief researcher Dr. Lucy Hone knows overwhelming loss personally. Her interest in resilience began long before her own daughter died in a tragic accident, but that loss deepened her understanding of just how universal this question is. She includes it among the questions grieving people repeatedly ask in her book, How Will I Ever Get Through This?

I was moved by her questions, as I too have faced life altering losses and I spend my days making space for others with countless questions:

Why did my beloved dog die so young? Why did we lose this baby after trying so hard to grow our family? Why did my partner have a stroke just as we were beginning the next chapter of our lives? Why did my child die? 

Why me?

When There Is No Satisfying Answer

When life has been upended by a loss you never imagined facing, of course you want to understand how this became your life.

But here's the hard part. Even if we could answer the why, it wouldn't take a molecule of your anguish away. You’re still heartbroken. The loss still happened. Your life has still been upended, and knowing why doesn't change the reality you're now facing.

The question “Why Me?” needs space and room to move. There's something important about wrestling with the unfairness of what happened and acknowledging how profoundly the loss has changed your life.

You Don’t Have To Find The Meaning Yet

Sometimes people rush to find meaning because sitting with the overwhelm is so damn hard.

God chose this to help me.

Maybe this happened so I could finally face something.

This loss will make me stronger.

Perhaps those thoughts will eventually hold meaning for you. I'm not here to take that away. But hear me well: you don’t have to turn your heartbreak into something meaningful before you're ready.

Meaning may come as you move through grief. First, there needs to be space for the fact that this has shattered you and it hurts. And that’s hard work.

Moving Through Grief, Not Around It

I help people move through their pain, not around it. That doesn't mean immersing yourself in painful feelings until you're completely overwhelmed. It means gently increasing your capacity to experience the grief that's already there, a little at a time, so it doesn't flatten you.

You may already feel like you're grieving all the time. But feeling consumed by grief isn't always the same as having the capacity to move through it. As that capacity grows, there can slowly be more room for grief to ebb and flow, for a wave to come, and eventually, for there to be a little space before the next one.

Sometimes it helps to start simple. Move your body. Take a walk, even here in the Pacific Northwest when the rain settles in for the season, grab an umbrella and move. Movement can help when your nervous system is flooded with the overwhelm that grief brings. It gives some of that energy somewhere to go.

Try to be kind to yourself. You're moving through something hard. You don't need to do it perfectly. And choose friends who are kind and give you room to just be. Having compassionate support makes a big difference.

Making More Space For Grief

In my work, I use Lifespan Integration, a gentle approach that helps expand our capacity to process and move through hard, overwhelming emotions while feeling more grounded in your body and in the present moment.

We aren't trying to erase your grief. We aren't rushing you toward meaning, and we aren't looking for a clever way around your heartbreak. My goal is to help you create more space for your grief, so you can gently move through the hard feelings and begin finding your footing again.

You may never find an acceptable answer to why me?

But you don't have to move through what happened alone.

Learn more about grief therapy and how I can support you.

With care and compassion,

Jacquelyn

Written by Jacquelyn Baker
Space for Grief — Renton, WA
In-person & online therapy across Washington