A winter of the mind: how to escape survival mode
For many of us, it has been a cold and traumatic year. But, as one reader found, difficult times can lead to new and revolutionary ways of thinking
The one change that didn’t work: I pounded through exercise classes – until my doctor prescribed rest
I was grief-stricken and exhausted when I began high-intensity interval training. Then came a short, sharp scream in my knees and intense thumping in my chest
‘I knew she was dying, but didn’t expect her to time it so spectacularly’: losing my mother as my baby was born
As I lay in the maternity ward, I learned my mother was gravely ill. What followed was a year full of love, rage, resentment – and a strange cocktail of new life and imminent death
‘We need to find our kin, people who speak the same language’: the power of shared grief, from Covid to the Queen
Why are so many of us mourning a queen we never met? Is it about Elizabeth II the person, or what she represented for Britain and the world – or us, and our apparently unrelated sorrows? We talk to psychotherapists, anthropologists – and the bereaved
How to rebuild a life after the death of a partner
Losing someone you love dearly is devastating, but the bond couples shared in life is vital to those who live on, says Juliet Rosenfeld
After my sister died I didn’t know what to do with my furious pain – but poets and horses led the way
I was heartbroken and angry but horse riding and medieval poetry revealed the quest I was on, says Clover Stroud
Julia Samuel: ‘The princes turned the dial by talking about grief’
In times of tragedy and despair, Julia Samuel is the person to whom the nation turns. A grief counsellor and pioneer of paediatric psychotherapy, she talks about the effects of the pandemic, her friendship with Princess Diana – and helping families to resolve their conflicts
Mary-Frances O’Connor: ‘People struggle to understand grief, but it is a byproduct of love’
The US psychology professor talks about her new book on the experience of losing a loved one and the lessons we can learn
Living in a woman’s body: when my child died, my every cell hurt. She was worth every tear I shed
After almost three decades, I still miss my daughter. But losing her taught me that grief is something to venerate, not deny
A new start after 60: ‘I had the most dishonest dark hair imaginable. So at 65 I shaved it all off’
When her daughter’s hair began to turn grey, Marsha Coupé decided she had to say goodbye to her own dyed locks. It was like being reborn