Part 4 of 5 - The mental body, and a practice for noticing thoughts without obeying them
Loss doesn’t only arrive in the heart and the body. It arrives in the mind, too, and the mind gets to work right away. It starts telling stories.
I should be over this by now...
I could have done something...
If I had seen it coming, said it differently, spoken up sooner, made a different choice...
Everyone else seems to be handling this better than I am...
You might recognize a few of these. You may have been telling one of them to yourself for months, or years, so quietly that it stopped sounding like a thought and started sounding like the truth.
And the loss behind the story doesn’t have to be a death. We grieve a marriage that ended, a job that disappeared, a diagnosis that changed the plan, a home we had to leave, a friendship that faded, a community that isn’t what it was, a dream that didn’t come true, or a version of ourselves we thought we’d always be...The mind tells stories about all of it.
What changed for me
It’s been a long time since I’ve had an “I should have” moment. That wasn’t always true. At some point I learned to shift that practice, and I’m sure I don’t do it perfectly or all the time. But the longer I pay attention, the more I think it has less to do with a clever thought technique and more to do with small, regular connections.
A small connection might be a text that says “thinking of you,” a short phone call, ten unhurried minutes at a kitchen table, or a card that arrives on an ordinary Tuesday. None of it looks like much on its own. But when it’s done with time and intention, it adds up. Over the years, those small moments leave less unsaid and less undone. When I’ve been in the habit of showing up, even briefly, the “I should have” voice has less to work with.
The same is true of the things in our lives that aren’t people: a body we listen to, a dream we tend, a work or a community we stay close to. Small, regular attention keeps us in relationship with them, so that when something changes, we’re less likely to be left wondering what we missed.
The flip side is true too. When the small connections get skipped, because life is full, the call can wait, or we assume there will be time later, the “I should have” voice has more to work with. Missed moments don’t usually feel like much in the week they’re missed. They add up the same way the small connections do, only in the other direction. Neither direction is a verdict on us. It just helps to know that small, ordinary choices carry more weight than they seem to.
This isn’t a guarantee, and it isn’t a measure of anyone’s worth. Some losses come with no warning and no chance to say goodbye, and some of us were doing our best in seasons when “small and regular” was more than we had to give. If you’re carrying an “I should have” right now, that’s what the practice below is for.
The third body
The mental body is the third layer of the four energy bodies I talk about: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. It holds our thoughts, beliefs, and the narratives we use to make sense of our lives.
The mind is a meaning-maker. When something painful happens, it wants an explanation, a cause, a reason, and above all a way to feel less helpless. That’s a gift most of the time. In grief it can become a trap.
The hard truth about telling ourselves “I could have done something,” is that blaming ourselves can feel strangely better than the alternative in the immediate present sense. If I could have prevented it, then the world still makes sense and I still have some control. The harder truth is that sometimes there was nothing we could have done, and our love and our effort still weren’t enough to keep things from changing.
Behind “I should be over this,” there’s often a quieter fear: that we’re taking too long, that we’re a burden, that something is wrong with us. But grief doesn’t run on a schedule. It lasts as long as the love does, and love doesn’t have an expiration date.
What’s in our hands and what isn’t
A lot of the stories we tell are really about control. They quietly blur the line between what was ours to carry and what never was. It helps to separate the two.
What we don’t control: how and when someone dies, what a diagnosis does, what a company or a committee decides, what other people choose, whether a relationship can be saved, when a season ends, and how long grief takes. We can’t go back and change any of it, no matter how many times the mind replays it.
What we do have a say in: how we show up from here. We can tell the truth about how we feel, reach out to the people still with us, speak to ourselves the way we’d speak to a friend, and honor what we lost in ways that feel true. We can also make amends where something real needs repair. This is where those small, regular connections come in. They’re one of the few things that are always within reach.
What hindsight does
One reason the “I could have” story is so persuasive is that we’re telling it from the other side of the event. We know how it ended. We’re looking back at an earlier version of ourselves who didn’t have that information and judging her by what we know now.
That earlier version was doing her best with what she knew at the time, usually while tired, scared, and caring about something. A kinder question is what did I know then, and what was I carrying?
Sometimes there is something real to face, a harm done or something left unsaid that truly needs repair. That deserves care and is worth bringing to a trusted person, a pastor, or a counselor, not buried and not endlessly relitigated. But most of the time, the story in our heads is far harsher than the facts.
A practice: notice, don’t obey
You can’t stop your mind from telling stories, and you don’t have to. What you can do is change your relationship to them. Try this the next time one of these thoughts shows up.
1. Catch it and add a few words. Instead of “I should be over this,” try “I’m having the thought that I should be over this.” That little shift creates a bit of space between you and the thought. It’s a thought passing through, not a verdict.
2. Ask: is this a fact or a story? A fact can be checked. “The company closed in June” is a fact. “I should have seen it coming” is a story. You don’t have to argue with it. Just notice which one you’re holding.
3. Check what it does in your body. Notice what happens in your chest, your stomach, your shoulders when the thought arrives. Does it tighten you, or ease you? Your body often knows before your mind does whether a story is helping or hurting.
4. Listen for the love underneath. Many of these thoughts are protecting something. “I should have done more” often means I cared and I wanted more for it. “I should be over this” often means I’m tired and I want to feel okay again. You can thank the thought for trying to help without letting it run the show.
5. Offer one true, gentler sentence. This isn’t forced positivity. It’s something you can actually believe, like “I did the best I could with what I knew” or “I’m allowed to still be hurting” or “Missing what was is part of having loved it.” Say it quietly to yourself, the way you’d say it to a friend.
You may need to do this many times. These stories have had years to grow, and they won’t disappear overnight. Each time you notice a thought without obeying it, you loosen its grip a little.
You’re not alone in this
If you’re in a season of remembering, with anniversaries, holidays, and the days that mark who or what isn’t here, the stories tend to get louder. That’s normal. You don’t have to sort through them by yourself. Saying a story out loud to someone who can hear it without needing to fix it often takes away half of the power of the story.
A gentle invitation
This week, listen for one story you tell about your loss. Just listen. Don’t argue, and don’t try to replace it. Then ask yourself: what would I say to someone I love who told me this story about themselves?
What is the story you’ve been telling yourself, and what might be underneath it?
And who is one person you could offer a small, intentional connection to this week?
If you’re ready to talk, schedule a free conversation here or reply to this post, and we’ll find a gentle first step together.
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