Every year from 2nd–8th December, Grief Awareness Week offers a dedicated space to recognise, honour, and support the many people living with loss. Led by the Good Grief Trust, the campaign aims to ensure that anyone bereaved in the UK can access the right help, at the right time, wherever they are in their journey.
It is a week that encourages conversation, understanding, and connection—because grief touches every life, yet so often remains unspoken.
This Year’s Theme: “Growing with Grief”
This year, the message at the heart of Grief Awareness Week is “Growing with Grief.”
Losing someone we love often feels like an ending—one that changes us in ways we never expected. Yet, over time, grief can also become the ground from which something new begins to grow. While we cannot return to the person we were before the loss, we gently evolve into someone shaped by love, memories, and the strength that slowly forms through the pain.
This growth doesn’t erase the sadness, and it certainly doesn’t replace the person who has died. But it can make space for hope to return. Many people find that grief deepens their compassion, heightens their awareness of what truly matters, and helps them show up in life with greater presence and authenticity.
Each year, a new theme is created for National Grief Awareness Week to deepen public understanding of grief and highlight the many ways people live, cope, and grow after loss. “Growing with Grief” is an invitation to honour both the ache and the resilience within us.
Why This Time of Year Can Feel Especially Difficult
December carries a mix of celebrations, gatherings, and moments of togetherness. For someone grieving, it can also shine a spotlight on the absence of the person they wish could still be here.
Whether your loss is recent or happened many years ago, this time of year can stir emotions such as:
- A deeper sense of loneliness
- Intensified memories
- Yearning for how things used to be
- Guilt for not feeling “festive”
- Emotional or physical exhaustion
- Worry about getting through special days
Grief has no timeline.
Some people may feel the rawness of their loss as if it were yesterday. Others may find that decades later, the season still brings a quiet ache or unexpected waves of emotion.
Each grief journey is unique, and it deserves to be honoured without comparison, pressure, judgement or expectation. Who has the right to tell an individual… well you should be over it now … without even mentioning the name of the departed individual. It feels disrespectful and indeed dismissive.
How Counselling Can Support Someone Who Is Grieving
Speaking with a trained counsellor can provide a safe, steady space to explore the thoughts and feelings that grief brings—especially at times of year when emotions can feel more intense.
Counselling can offer:
- A compassionate, non-judgemental space to express your feelings
- Support in understanding the natural responses of grief
- Help in navigating changes to identity, routine, and relationships
- Tools to cope with overwhelming emotions
- A sense of not having to carry the weight of loss alone
- Space to remember and honour your loved one safely and gently
Counselling doesn’t try to “fix” grief. Instead, it helps you make sense of your experience, find moments of steadiness, and uncover inner resources that may feel lost in the fog of bereavement.
A Gentle Reminder
If you are finding this time of year difficult, please know you are not alone. Grief Awareness Week reminds us that support exists—and that reaching out is an act of strength, not weakness.
I offer warm, person-centred support to individuals at any stage of their grief. If you feel it may help to talk, you’re welcome to reach out when the time feels right for you.
You deserve space, compassion, and understanding as you navigate your own unique path through loss
Warmly, Sue