CATALYST FOR RENEWAL | Monthly Blog
August 2026 | catalystforrenewalstudio.com
When Grief Comes Rushing Back —
Triggers, Emotions, and the Healing They Carry
By Dr. Susan Sterkenberg, PhD | Catalyst for Renewal
It had been ten years. I was sitting at a red light downtown, thirty minutes before a presentation, when I passed the art school where I used to drop him off in the mornings.
The memory arrived whole and complete — his face through the passenger window, my voice saying have a good day, his backpack over one shoulder as he headed toward the building. And I was a blubbering mess. Ten years out. Thirty minutes before I had to be professional and present for a room full of people.
That is what a grief trigger feels like. And if you have experienced one — whether it’s been six weeks or six years since your loss — you know exactly what I mean.
No One Warned Me About Triggers
In Becoming Sanctuary, I write honestly about this: no one warned me adequately about triggers. Or perhaps they did, and I simply couldn’t have understood in advance what they would actually feel like — that particular ambush quality, the way they arrive without announcement and drop you, without warning, back into the heart of the worst of it.
A song on the radio. A young man who moves through space the way your person moved. The route you used to drive. A birthday on the calendar. A holiday table set one place short. These are not signs that something is wrong with you, or that your grief is stuck, or that you haven’t healed. They are proof that you loved someone completely — and that love does not end when a life does.
“The triggers soften in their frequency, in their intensity, in how long they last. But they don’t disappear entirely, and you don’t need them to. Each one is a moment of contact. A proof that love persists.”
What no one tells you is this: triggers can arrive with the same force years later as they did in the early days. Not always. Not even often, as time passes. But they can. And when they do, it is not regression. It is love, surfacing. It is the indelible mark your person left on the ordinary geography of your days.
Emotions Are Not the Enemy — They Are the Messenger
One of the most important reframes I offer in grief work — and in The Stirring, where I explore emotional intelligence and self-care more broadly — is this: emotions are like weather.
We do not judge a storm for arriving. We do not tell ourselves something is wrong with the sky because it is raining. Weather simply is what is present — information about current conditions, not a verdict on the forecast forever. Our emotions work the same way. They are not character flaws. They are not evidence of weakness or failure to cope. They are the body’s honest signal system, alerting us to what is alive within us.
In grief especially, this reframe matters enormously. The wave of sadness that hits at a birthday dinner is not a sign that you are broken. The unexpected rage at a quiet moment is not proof that something has gone wrong. The guilt that rises when you laugh at something funny — that tender, complicated guilt — is love asserting itself, worrying that joy means forgetting. It doesn’t. But the feeling deserves to be received, not suppressed.
“Fighting a trigger is like trying to fight a wave. The wave is stronger. Better to go with it, feel it fully, and find your footing again on the other side.”
When we judge our emotions — when we tell ourselves we shouldn’t feel this, or we’re taking too long, or others have had it worse — we cut off the very signals that the healing process depends on. The emotion is trying to tell us something. Our work is to let it speak.
Self-Care Is Not Optional in Grief — It Is the Work
When a trigger hits, the body needs tending. Not performance. Not pushing through. Tending.
Give yourself a few minutes. Pull over if you’re driving. Step outside if you’re in a building. Let the wave come, breathe through it, and then gather yourself and go back in. You cannot prevent triggers. But you can learn to ride them with a little more grace over time — and the grace begins with giving yourself permission to feel what arrives without apology.
Beyond the moment of a trigger, grief asks for consistent, whole-person care: moving the body so the nervous system has somewhere to metabolize what the mind cannot yet process. Walking the same path repeatedly, because repetition is medicine when the world feels chaotic. Eating with attention. Protecting sleep. Sitting quietly without a task. These are not indulgences. They are, as I write in Becoming Sanctuary, survival strategy. They are how you make it through days that feel impossible.
And they are part of the healing journey — not detours from it. Every act of genuine self-care is a statement that your life still matters. That you are still here, still capable of being tended and restored. That is not small. That is everything.
An Invitation to Go Deeper This Fall
If you are carrying grief — whether it is new or years old, whether it feels stuck or simply unfinished — I want you to know that you do not have to walk this alone. And sometimes, the most powerful thing we can do is step away from ordinary life for a few days and give grief the space and witness it has been waiting for.
This November, I am hosting the Sanctuaries of Renewal Grief Retreat in the Low Country — a two-day immersive experience at May River Manor in Bluffton, South Carolina, grounded in the Seven Sanctuaries framework from Becoming Sanctuary. Every element is research-backed: continuing bonds theory, somatic healing, expressive arts, peer witnessing, nature immersion, and ritual ceremony. It is grief work done in beauty, in community, and with professional guidance.
Sanctuaries of Renewal Grief Retreat
May River Manor | Bluffton, South Carolina
November 2–3, 2026 (Sunday November 1 arrival & welcome)
Early bird: $795 | After September 1: $995
Includes all meals, materials, Becoming Sanctuary book, and one year of monthly Grief Group (virtual)
Register: catalystforrenewalstudio.com | pennsusan01@outlook.com
Whether the retreat calls to you or you simply want to talk — a complimentary 30-minute consultation is always available. Reach out at pennsusan01@outlook.com or visit catalystforrenewalstudio.com.
About Dr. Susan Sterkenberg
Dr. Susan Sterkenberg, PhD, is the founder of Catalyst for Renewal, based on Hilton Head Island, SC. A grief transformation coach with a doctorate in psychology and 30+ years of experience, she is the author of Becoming Sanctuary: One Mother’s Journey Through Seven Sacred Spaces of Grief and The Stirring: Excavating Your Authentic Self for the Life That Is Waiting.
