When Simple Things Feel Impossible

Bowling balls, frustration, and rest stops in grief.

Hello wonderful human,

This week, mid-session with a coaching client, I found myself reaching for a new way to describe something I see often: why expecting ourselves to operate at full capacity after loss is only piling shame on top of pain. I heard my client’s knotted frustration at their suddenly limited ability to do things that once came naturally, and it’s a frustration I've witnessed countless times (in myself, of course, as well).

It's that particular kind of frustration that emerges when you go to use a muscle you've relied on a million times, only to find it weak and threatening to tear. The frustration we aim at ourselves when simple errands feel impossible and to-do lists keep growing because life now feels like moving through a thick molasses of despair.

It often doesn't matter if someone knows intellectually that "grief isn't linear" or that "it can't be rushed". Those validating statements often just prompt a sigh and an "I know."

Because there’s cognitive understanding, or the logic of grief. And then there’s deep knowing, or the way it feels in your body. And sometimes, I think what bridges that gap is the right metaphor.

So I found myself using the visual of a bowling ball:

What if you spent years mastering the rhythm of juggling tennis balls and then someone throws a bowling ball into the mix and still expects you to keep juggling like nothing changed? Think about your body’s response to the bowling ball. Your muscles would strain with the unfamiliar weight, your core would tighten for stability, and your shoulders would tense to maintain balance. Every part of your system would have to reorganize to keep going.

This is exactly what devastating loss does to your nervous system. It’s not just another challenge to manage or get through. It’s not a tennis ball. It’s something that changes how your entire body has to function in the world right now. So trying to ignore how grief lives within you is like pretending the bowling ball doesn’t change how your muscles have to work. Your body will find ways to tell you anyways, like through exhaustion, tension, and through strains and aches while trying to maintain an impossible rhythm.

The goal is not to make the bowling ball feel like a tennis ball. It’s to adapt. To widen your stance and strengthen your core. It’s to learn how to move in new ways with the weight of what you’re carrying.

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Two days later, I came across an old video of Dr. Becky (highly recommend her work) talking about frustration in learning. And while she wasn't speaking about grief, something hit home for me: frustration is actually a sign that we're learning something new. Dr. Becky says that the primary emotion of learning is frustration. And grief has got to be the hardest learning curve we’ll ever face.

When you feel frustrated by how hard simple tasks have become, when you can't believe how impossible it feels to just get through a day, that frustration is not evidence that you're not doing something right. It's evidence that your nervous system is actively learning how to exist in a world that's fundamentally different now.

That doesn't mean we need to fully embrace the frustration or push through it, but maybe we can see it differently, in a way that promotes permission and removes unnecessary suffering.

Your nervous system is adapting to a fundamentally changed environment.

When I say you're "learning," I don't just mean emotionally. Your entire body is learning how to exist in a world that suddenly feels different and unsafe, because grief isn't just a feeling. It changes how your entire system functions. Your brain is literally rewiring itself to understand a reality it was never prepared for. That sounds like a near impossible task, right?

That's why even the smallest things can feel overwhelming. Loss isn't like a fender bender on your way to work that you process and then move past. Your body registers their absence everywhere, every day. When you hear that song in the car you always played together. When you buy groceries for one instead of two. When you reach for your phone to text them about something funny. There's no moment where they aren't missing.

We don't aim for recovery, we aim for resilience.

When I talk about "healing," I mean healing from the trauma of loss, not from grief itself (because grief isn't something to be fixed or cured). And when I say "resilience," I'm not talking about that toxic "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" cultural narrative we hear all too often. I'm talking about something much more fundamental: your body's natural rhythm of activation and rest.

Think of resilience like breathing. It's not about holding your breath longer, it's about the natural flow between inhale and exhale. It's not about enduring more stress, it's about giving your system permission to rest when it needs to.

In other words...

Cultural resilience says "Keep going! Power through!"

Nervous system resilience says "Lay the F down. Rest is a non-negotiable."

This means we need to find rest stops in grief.

When we talk about flexibility, resiliency, and returning to a sense of safety, I know that might feel impossibly far away. And not only might it feel far away, but it might feel like betrayal to want to feel okay. Or like you’re leaving your person behind if you’re not in this much pain anymore. So another important piece to this is that we're not aiming for long stretches of "feeling good." We're looking for small, brief or micro moments where your nervous system can settle, just so it can keep carrying what can’t be fixed.

We’re looking for tiny rest stops in the long journey of loss.

These might look like:

• That first morning sip of coffee when your body softens, just for a moment

• A hot shower where your muscles release their grip, even briefly

• The steady weight of a pet laying against you

• The meditative rhythm of chopping vegetables or walking familiar paths

• The grounding pressure of a heavy blanket

Each of these moments send a super important signal to your nervous system: "Even with this weight, even with their absence, there are places I can rest."

We aim to support regulation, not force okay-ness.

We can't force our nervous system to regulate. We can't demand relief. But we can create supportive conditions that make moments of regulation more possible.

We might:

• Make our environment more soothing by adding essential oils to a warm shower

• Create physical comfort through weighted blankets or soft textures

• Bring nature's regulating rhythms inside with plants or natural light

• Curate music that helps our system settle

We can also identify and use resources, such as whatever helps our nervous system remember it’s possible to sense safety here, even if for only a moment:

• Photos that evoke memories of feeling safe and connected

• Objects that carry comforting associations

• Spaces where our body has experienced ease

• Songs that help regulate our breath and heart rate

The bowling ball doesn't become lighter because we pretend it weighs less. Our nervous system doesn't adapt faster because we shame it for struggling.

Real healing happens when we stop fighting against grief's weight and start creating space for our system to find its own rhythm of rest and adaptation. In these small moments of reprieve, in the gentle permission to move slowly, in the recognition that frustration itself is part of learning, we find a different kind of strength. A much more sustainable kind. Not the kind that powers through, but the kind that knows when to pause, when to rest, and when to trust that even in profound loss, our bodies can find tiny anchors of safety, one exhale, one rest stop at a time.

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