Where Does My Grief Belong When the World Is Suffering?

With the current horrors and terror in the Middle East, the death and destruction from hurricanes in the Southeast, and countless other world events and states that deserve our attention and action, many of us are asking ourselves a difficult question:

Where does my grief belong when others are suffering so immensely in such extreme ways?

If you've found yourself asking this question—whether about your own personal loss or about how to hold space for both your pain and the world's—you're not alone. This is one of the most common tensions we hear from clients, especially during times of collective crisis.

But the answer might surprise you.

What's Happening When We Ask This Question

When we question where our grief fits in the face of others' suffering, several psychological processes are often at play:

Perspective Taking

Being able to see our situation from a larger vantage point provides us some distance from ourselves in order to gain further insight. This can be adaptive—it helps us understand that we're not the only ones in pain, that suffering is a universal human experience, and that our struggles exist within a broader context.

To an extent, this perspective is healthy and can even help us feel less isolated.

Acknowledging

We're taking note that we can never exactly know nor fully understand another's experience or pain. This recognition of the limits of our understanding is important—it keeps us humble and prevents us from making assumptions about what others are going through.

Distancing

Here's where things get more complicated. Without even knowing it, perspective taking and acknowledging how different our experience is can become a form of distancing from the pain and suffering of others.

This distancing is more normal than not—we humans are wired to turn away from and avoid pain, both our own and others'. It's a protective mechanism.

But this kind of distancing places a barrier between the experience of others and ourselves, and that barrier can come in many forms. Sometimes it's a shut-down of our compassion centers in order to protect our sense of safety and security. Other times it manifests as numbness, overwhelm, or a sense of helplessness that keeps us from engaging at all.

Diminishing

This is when perspective-taking prevents us from feeling the depth of our own emotions, as well as connecting to the experience of others' pain.

When we tell ourselves "my problems are nothing compared to what they're going through," we're not just gaining perspective—we're actively diminishing our own experience. And paradoxically, this makes it harder, not easier, to truly connect with and show up for others who are suffering.

The Truth About Grief and Compassion

Here's what we know from both research and clinical experience:

Our connection to and grace for our own suffering and pain bolsters our ability to connect to others, see others in theirs, and make a choice about how to show up when others are struggling.

Read that again, because it's important.

Compassion and grace for ourselves in our own experiences paves the way for more compassion and grace for others.

Your pain and your grief does not need to diminish the pain and grief that others are facing. In fact, acknowledging and turning towards your own grief and pain can be a conduit to connection and action towards the pain of others.

How This Works

When we allow ourselves to fully feel our own grief—when we turn towards it rather than away from it—we develop several crucial capacities:

Emotional resilience: We learn that we can feel pain and survive it. This gives us the strength to witness others' pain without shutting down.

Empathy: Our own experience of suffering deepens our ability to understand and connect with the suffering of others, even when the specific circumstances are different.

Courage: When we don't have to protect ourselves from our own pain anymore, we have more bandwidth to engage with the pain in the world around us.

Clarity about action: Rather than being paralyzed by guilt or overwhelm, we can more clearly see where and how we want to show up, what causes call to us, and what meaningful action we can take.

Permission to Grieve

So if you're grieving a personal loss right now—a death, a relationship ending, a diagnosis, a dream that didn't come to fruition—and you're wondering if you "should" be focusing on that when there are wars and natural disasters and collective traumas unfolding:

You don't have to choose.

Your grief deserves space. So does your awareness of and response to suffering in the world. They don't have to compete.

In fact, honoring your own grief is one of the most important things you can do to maintain the emotional capacity to show up for others.

What This Looks Like in Practice

This doesn't mean we become self-absorbed or ignore what's happening in the world. It means we:

• Allow ourselves to feel our personal grief without guilt or comparison

• Stay connected to news and events that matter, while also protecting our emotional resources

• Take meaningful action where we can—whether that's donating, volunteering, advocating, or simply being present for someone else who's struggling

• Recognize that tending to our own pain isn't selfish; it's what allows us to be present for collective pain

• Hold both our individual grief and our awareness of collective suffering without letting one erase the other

  
  

An Invitation

The next time you find yourself asking "where does my grief fit?" or "how can I be sad about this when so many have it worse?", pause.

Notice what's happening beneath that question. Are you gaining helpful perspective? Or are you diminishing your own experience in a way that actually disconnects you from both yourself and others?

Then, try this: What if you turned towards your grief instead of away from it? What if you gave yourself full permission to feel what you're feeling, without comparison or judgment?

You might find that this doesn't make you less compassionate towards others—it makes you more so.

Because when we stop abandoning ourselves, we're better able to show up for everyone else.

If you're struggling to hold both your personal grief and awareness of collective suffering, we're here. Reach out to us and follow @groundedgrief for more support and resources.