Article
When devastating loss strikes, the first five minutes matter more than most people realize. Grief triggers a physical and emotional spiral before the mind catches up. By pausing, practicing gratitude, and remembering the good, we can navigate loss with greater presence. Intentional relationships leave fewer regrets and more peace.
Nobody warns you that the hardest part of loss isn't the grief. It's what your brain does in the first five minutes before you've said a word out loud.
I was driving from North Carolina to Pennsylvania when I got the call. We were on our way to see her.
My mom had passed away.
I felt the breath sucked out of me. My whole body tensed up. Before a single clear thought formed, my mind went straight to oh my gosh, and then it went everywhere at once.
Nothing in my experience prepared me for those first minutes. What I learned from them changed how I think about grief, presence, and the small window where everything gets decided.
In the first few minutes after devastating news, you move through grief, sadness, anger, fond memories, sometimes all in the same breath. That part people expect.
What they don't usually notice: the body is already in crisis before the mind catches up.
The chest tightens. The breath disappears. And because the mind starts racing in a million directions, you end up absent from both. Body screaming, mind sprinting, and you somewhere in the middle of neither.
That's where the spiral starts. Right there, in that few seconds of absence.
I know what I'd change about those first minutes in the car.
I wish I'd gone straight to the fond memories. Skipped the weariness, at least at first, and let myself feel grateful for all the time we had.
After her cancer diagnosis, I called my mom every single day until she passed. Every day. Those conversations were sitting right there in my memory, a whole library of them, and my brain just... wouldn't go there. Wouldn't open the door.
💡 Here's why. The brain is trying to protect you from getting hurt again. So it locks out gratitude and floods you with the negative. It feels like truth. It's actually a defense mechanism running the show.
Understanding that mechanism gives you a chance to interrupt it.
This is what I built from that drive. Three things, in order.
1. Pause and calm your mind. Be present. Feel what your body is doing. Notice the tension, the breath, the tightness. Presence pulls you out of the racing thoughts and back into the moment you are actually living.
2. Focus on gratitude. Whether the loss is a person or a job, there are real things worth holding onto that are tied to that event. Name them. Hold them. Gratitude in that window changes the trajectory of what comes next.
3. Once you've processed, give yourself time to both grieve and remember the good. Grief deserves room. So do the memories that make you smile. Both need space, and you don't have to choose.
The biggest mistake I see people make in those first minutes: they go straight to the negative and stay there. The spiral takes over, and it gets harder to climb out with every hour.
There's one more thing from that day.
Because my mom and I were intentional about our time together, I had no regrets. We left nothing unsaid. Every conversation that needed to happen had already happened, daily, for as long as she was fighting.
Intentionality doesn't stop the grief. It stops the guilt from stacking on top of it.
Grief I paid fully, right there on the highway. Guilt is a different weight. It comes from conversations you postponed, words you figured you'd get to when the time was right.
The time is rarely right. It's usually just today, slightly inconvenient.
Call the person you've been putting off. Say the thing. Not when it's perfect, just when it's possible.
When that call comes, the hardest one, you want two things already in place: something to do in the first five minutes, and a relationship with nothing left on the table.
I had one. Now I have both.
What's one conversation you've been putting off that you know, deep down, needs to happen? Drop it in the comments, or just let it sit with you today.
#TheLessonsWeAlmostMiss #GriefJourney #MindsetMatters
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