What does it look like when abortion grief isn’t moving?
For many clients, it may not show up as obvious grief. It can look like going over the same thoughts again and again, emotional ups and downs, feeling numb, or patterns that don’t seem connected—but keep pulling them back to the same place.
In this webinar, Michele Mazelin, Communications Manager for Support After Abortion, guided abortion healing providers through a practical, compassionate framework for understanding how grief shows up after abortion, why it can become “stuck,” and how providers can help clients begin moving toward healing again.
Drawing on insights from grief experts, real client language, team reflection, and concrete activities from Support After Abortion’s new Activity Guide for Facilitators, the conversation explored different types of grief, the particular weight of disenfranchised grief after abortion, the difference between empathy and compassion, and practical tools for both providers and clients. Throughout, the webinar emphasized a core truth: providers do not need to fix grief. They need to help make space for it, witness it, and respond in ways that allow healing to unfold.
INTRODUCTION & ONE WORD CHECK-IN
Michele opened the webinar by inviting participants to think of one word that described how they were arriving emotionally, mentally, or physically. The chat quickly filled with words like “busy,” “blessed,” “tired,” “curious,” “hopeful,” “expectant,” “peaceful,” “encouraged,” “ready for healing,” “scattered,” and “thankful and sad.”
She pointed to this simple exercise as a small example of the webinar’s larger theme: “putting words to internal experiences.” When something is named, she said, it becomes more visible and can begin to feel a little less stuck. Even the act of choosing one word can be a first step toward movement and healing.
She pointed out that the One Word Check-in exercise is in the Opening & Trust Building section of the Activity Guide for Facilitators: Walking Together Through Abortion Healing, which would be discussed more during this webinar. Providers were encouraged to watch the replay and recaps of the recent webinar on Building Strong Connections: Using Activities in Abortion Healing Groups & One-in-One and Activity Lab for Facilitators.
That opening also modeled something practical for providers. Before moving into education, interpretation, or intervention, the webinar began by helping people notice what was already present. What’s going on beneath the surface isn’t always clear or easy to name. Creating space to notice it is often where the work begins.
WHAT IS GRIEF?
Michele then asked participants a foundational question: What is grief?
To begin defining grief, Michele invited participants to share their own understanding in the chat. The responses reflected just how expansive grief can be. Participants described it as “the feeling of extreme loss,” “an emotional experience and response to loss,” “a sacred journey,” “long sorrow,” “grieving the loss of what could have been,” “a multitude of emotions,” and “pain that can cause you to go numb.” One participant called grief “an adjustment,” while another described it as something that “comes in waves” and is “something I carry in my heart.”
Nyles Pinckney, Men’s Healing Coordinator for Support After Abortion, added that for him, grief can feel like many emotions at once — anger, sadness, irritability, and more. He noted this can be especially true for men who have been taught how to understand or process those emotions clearly.
Michele then invited participants to recall a time they had experienced grief personally. Team member Angel Pennyman, Relationship Development Specialist, shared about the death of her husband after a lengthy cancer battle and the anticipatory grief that came with watching his decline and preparing to say goodbye. Others in the chat named grief experiences connected to the deaths of parents, grandparents, and siblings, as well as miscarriage, abortion, and the end of a long friendship.
The exercise reinforced an important provider truth: even if a helper has not lived a client’s exact experience, grief itself is something most people know in some form. That shared human reality can become one point of connection. “And we can tap into that as we care for others in their grief,” Michele said.
She also underscored that grief varies in intensity both between people and within the same person over time. It may change slowly or suddenly. It may stay intense for a long time or come in waves. All of that, she said, is common and okay.
As Michele invited participants to reflect on images showing different grief responses, participants reflected on what resonated from their own experiences, the experiences of people close to them, and those of clients.
Attendees named anger, overworking, sadness, irritability, shutdown, annoyance, relief, isolation, and masking. One said, “I’ve felt all of them at different times in my grief journey.” Another participant said, “Anger is my go-to emotion in grief, and it’s ugly.” One person captured the volatility of grief vividly, writing that the slide felt like “a day in the life of grief” and that “each of these pictures could be an hour in the head of grief.”
Participants named how easy it can be to bury grief in busyness, overworking, or emotional shutdown. As one person put it, “On the surface, people may seem fine, but they may be masking their grief.” Another named a particularly painful layer of abortion grief: “the grief of abortion is hard because when it’s a secret you can’t express it.”
VOICES OF AFTER ABORTION GRIEF
Then a series of short audio clips drawn from the experiences of women and men impacted by abortion was played. The brief series painted a complex and layered picture of post-abortion grief. We recommend you listen for yourself at 7:19-10:41 in the replay.
Some speakers in the clips described trying to push through grief, stay busy, or act fine, only to find that the pain followed them into relationships and inner peace. Others described hidden weight, numbness, anger, anxiety, insomnia, sadness, shame, intrusive thoughts, or the pain of reaching a due date or milestone and being hit harder than expected. One described deep spiritual distress, saying she felt “unworthy, like God would never forgive me.” Another described contemplating ending his life and locking the secret away for twenty years. Still another described feeling complete relief at first, only to have intrusive thoughts so destructive she stopped functioning emerge years later after marriage and the birth of a child.
Together, those snippets showed how grief can surface in many forms: hidden pain, anger, numbness, intrusive thoughts, spiritual distress, anxiety, depression, relationship strain, and delayed emotional collapse. It may also affect men and women differently, or appear in relationships where both people are struggling but not in the same way.
The cumulative effect of these stories was clear: abortion grief is often not straightforward. It may look like sadness, but it may also look like overactivity, avoidance, irritability, emotional flatness, or pain that emerges much later.
WHY DO SOME PEOPLE FEEL STUCK AFTER ABORTION?
To explain why some grief seems to move while other grief stays trapped, Michele introduced a metaphor from grief expert David Kessler. Grief, she said, is meant to flow like a river. But when something blocks it — “secrecy, isolation, anger, betrayal, depression” — grief can begin circling in place like an eddy. This metaphor became one of the webinar’s central organizing images.
Participants were then invited to reflect on how they recognize grief in others. Angel shared that one of the biggest signs she had noticed in a grieving friend was withdrawal from communication — not responding to texts or emails and isolating herself. Others in the chat named depression, isolation, and changes in a person’s typical presentation.
Michele emphasized that grief does not always announce itself clearly. A person may feel anger they cannot explain, guilt over what they did or did not do, an urge to withdraw, fear of being alone, numbness, overwhelm, obsessive thinking, insomnia, oversleeping, overeating, not eating, hyperfunctioning, or an inability to function at all. Often, there is no single obvious symptom. Instead, providers need to learn to recognize patterns, shifts, and the many ways grief can surface in body, behavior, and relationship.
THE LANGUAGE OF LOSS — AND AFTER ABORTION CARE
Before walking through different types of grief, Michele paused over one important word: “loss.”
Many definitions describe grief as a response to loss. But in after-abortion care, she explained, that word can be complicated. Not every client experiences abortion as loss, and Michele explained, “that language can be tricky—and even a barrier— for some clients” even while they are deeply struggling grieving.
Michele’s guidance was not to avoid the word altogether, but to use it with care and openness. A provider might say that grief is a natural response to loss, while also acknowledging that the person may or may not think of their abortion in those terms. She suggested wording such as, “But if you’re wrestling with your emotions, there may be some kind of loss in the picture.” Examples named included the child they would not hold or watch grow up, the peace they once had, a relationship that changed or ended, trust that was broken, or dreams that no longer feel possible.
The key, Michele said, is not to define the person’s experience for them. The provider’s role is to validate, stay curious, and create space for the client to discover what grief means in their own experience.
DIFFERENT TYPES OF ABORTION GRIEF
Michele then walked through several types of grief providers may encounter in abortion healing work.
She began with what is often called “normal grief,” while quickly noting that there is not really one “normal” way to grieve. In this framework, the term refers to common grief reactions that tend to soften over time as the person remains engaged in life.
She described anticipatory grief as grieving before a loss happens. Michele noted that this can occur when a person sees a loss coming, such as the end of life, divorce, or another major change. On the After Abortion Line, she said, some clients reach out before an abortion because they expect to be emotionally impacted afterward and want to know what support is available.
Participants immediately resonated with that. One person shared, “sometimes you grieve before a loss, because you’re expecting it.” Angel added that anticipatory grief had been especially hard because she “couldn’t explain… that I was grieving before the loss.” Margaret Cogswell, Creative Marketing Specialist, responded that she felt something similar regarding her aging parents.
Michele explained that masked grief often shows up indirectly—grief “leaking out” in ways that don’t immediately seem connected. Clients talk about feeling unaffected at first, but later identify connections between their abortion(s) and patterns such as substance misuse, anger, or other unhealthy coping behaviors.
Secondary grief and cumulative grief were distinguished. Secondary grief involves losses connected to the primary loss — such as the loss of a relationship, identity, financial stability, or educational direction. Cumulative grief refers to multiple losses stacking up before earlier losses have had a chance to settle. Michele compared secondary grief to a single storm washing away multiple bridges, while saying cumulative grief is more like repeated storms arriving before the water from the first has even receded.
She also explained delayed grief, when grief reactions do not show up until much later. Here again, the chat reflected strong recognition. Angel shared, “Delayed grief too — I was busy handling ‘all of the things’ that I couldn’t allow myself to feel.” Others named rumination, shame, silence, pain, and difficulty moving on.
Michele also discussed complicated grief, where grief becomes entangled with guilt, shame, anxiety, or other burdens and begins interfering with daily life, making grief harder to process.
But among all the grief types discussed, one stood out as particularly important in after-abortion support.
DISENFRANCHISED GRIEF AFTER ABORTION
Michele spent extra time on disenfranchised grief, describing it as one of the most common barriers to healing after abortion. This kind of grief happens when a person receives the message — from society, family, community, church, peers, or themselves — that they are not allowed to grieve.
She described several ways this can happen. Some clients share that people in their lives don’t want to hear about their experience or encourage them to move on. Others are told abortion isn’t a big deal and shouldn’t be affecting them. And in some cases, they encounter the opposite response—messages that leave them feeling judged or as though they should carry shame. In each of these situations, the result can be similar: their grief isn’t acknowledged, supported, or given space to exist.
The chat showed how deeply this landed. One participant wrote, “Disenfranchised grief is often minimized.” Sylvia added another important layer: “Grief is also very cultural and that can be tricky to spot,” a reminder for providers to be aware of how clients’ different communities may express grief.
Michele also noted that people sometimes disenfranchise themselves. Clients may say things like, “I chose this so I shouldn’t be grieving,” or “I shouldn’t be allowed to grieve.”
Michele noted that disenfranchised or unsupported grief is especially common for men, who often receive the message that they are not supposed to have feelings about abortion at all—before, during, or after.
She explained that when grief is disenfranchised, when a person doesn’t feel permission to mourn openly, the grief doesn’t disappear. Rather, it gets pushed inward. It gets redirected, hidden, or stuck.
For providers, this makes validation especially important. Michele offered simple examples of what that can sound like:
“This matters.”
“This is real.”
“You’re allowed to feel whatever you feel.”
“It’s okay to talk about this.”
In a context where grief has been denied or minimized, those responses can begin making the invisible visible. And that, she said, can let the grief start flowing.
HOW TO HELP SOMEONE MOVE FROM STUCK TO HEALING AFTER ABORTION
From there, Michele turned to what can help people’s grief begin to move. Drawing on grief expert David Kessler’s Six Needs of the Grieving, she highlighted two core needs of the grieving.
The first is having pain witnessed. For many clients, she said, a provider may be the first place where their experience is truly seen, heard, and allowed.
The second is being able to express what they are feeling. When grief stays invisible or silenced, it tends to remain stuck. When it is seen and expressed, it can begin to move.
Michele described this as movement toward integration — a place where pain and moving forward can exist together without the pain taking over everything.
When participants were invited to reflect on whether their own grief had been supported, the responses were mixed. Some simply wrote “supported,” while others wrote “not supported.” One participant shared that her grief was “not supported until I went through abortion recovery.” Another wrote, “Not supported. I didn’t realize I had anyone to express my grief with.”
Nyles offered an important distinction from his own experience. For him, it was not so much that support was absent, but that he did not know whether support would be there. Only after a breakdown did he realize how many people cared and were willing to hold space for his grief. He said he had to allow them into that space.
That distinction matters for providers. Sometimes grief remains stuck not only because no support exists, but because the grieving person does not yet know where it is safe to bring their pain.
BECOMING A COMPASSIONATE MIRROR
Michele highlighted a common idea that providers should remain emotionally blank in order to stay objective. Yet when someone is sharing something deeply personal — like their abortion experiences — a flat or unreadable response can feel unsettling. Rather than creating safety, it can activate a person’s fight, flight, or freeze response.
Instead, Michele encouraged providers to be a compassionate mirror. When a client shares something vulnerable, the provider reflects it back in a way that shows understanding. In that moment, the person’s body can begin to relax. They feel a little safer, a little less alone, and their nervous system may begin to regulate.
That felt sense of you’re with me in this can open the door for healing.
EMPATHY, COMPASSION, AND THE RISK OF BURNOUT
The webinar then shifted to the provider’s internal experience. Michele acknowledged that abortion healing work can be heavy, and that clients’ stories often stay with providers long after a conversation ends.
She introduced a key distinction: the difference between empathy and compassion—and why that difference matters for both the client and the provider.
To make this more concrete, she introduced a simple image: the fan switch.
Imagine a fan with two settings: intake and exhaust.
- Intake represents empathy as absorbing—pulling in another person’s emotions and holding them internally.
- Exhaust represents responding with compassion—offering care and presence while allowing the person’s pain to move around you rather than into you.
Michele encouraged providers to notice, in real time, where their “switch” is set. That awareness can help them stay grounded, support the client more effectively, and reduce the risk of burnout over time.
This distinction clearly resonated with the audience. One participant wrote, “Empathy can feel burdensome, heavy, while compassion can feel hopeful.” Another shared, “Absorbing the grief leaves me drained. Responding allowed both me and the client to make progress.” Others noted that the shift made it possible to “hold the space but stay lighter,” and to remain present without carrying the weight of the interaction afterward.
FIVE TOOLS TO HELP PROVIDERS SHIFT FROM EMPATHY TO COMPASSION
To make the distinction between absorbing someone else’s pain and staying compassionately present with them practical, Michele offered five concrete, in-the-moment tools for moving from intake to grounded compassion.
The first was a physical anchor technique. When a provider notices themselves getting pulled into a client’s pain, they can press their feet into the floor or gently pinch the webbing between thumb and forefinger. The purpose is to remind the nervous system: I am here in this chair, and they are there in that story. One participant noted that this was “a great example” because it can be done while still being fully present and “isn’t distracting to the person sharing.”
The second tool was to visualize the flow. Returning to Kessler’s river metaphor, Michele invited providers to imagine the client’s words and emotions as water moving toward them. Rather than soaking it up like a sponge, they can picture it flowing around them and continuing on. She offered a simple internal reminder: I am the bank, not the river. I’m here to support, not take this. I can stay steady while this moves past me.
The third tool involved shifting from emotional absorption into curiosity. When a provider notices intake — a tightening chest, overwhelm, or the sense of getting pulled under — they can quietly ask themselves a question about the client, such as: What does this person need most right now? or What’s the bravest thing they just said? Michele explained that curiosity interrupts absorption and creates just enough distance to respond intentionally.
The fourth tool was the exhale boundary. When a client is sharing something painful, the provider can breathe in while silently acknowledging the pain, then exhale more slowly, releasing the weight from their own body. That longer exhale helps activate their body’s calming response and can reduce overwhelm or freeze.
The fifth tool was responding with validation rather than identification. Michele noted that providers can sometimes say or think things like, “I know exactly how that feels—that’s so devastating,” out of care, but this can unintentionally pull them into the client’s experience. Validation sounds different: “I can see how much weight that puts on your shoulders. It makes sense that you feel stuck right now.” In that kind of response, the provider acknowledges what is real for the client without absorbing it into themselves.
Together, these tools give providers a practical framework for remaining open-hearted without becoming overwhelmed.
👉Handout: A summary of these 5 Tools for Moving from Empathy to Compassion
FOUR TOOLS TO HELP CLIENTS MOVE FROM STUCK TO HEALING
Michele then turned to practical tools for helping clients move out of the eddy of stuck grief and integrate healing into their lives.
The first was a facts versus narrative exercise. Michele explained that when people experience something painful, they do not simply remember the event — they build a story around it. The fact might be, I had an abortion last year. The meaning attached to it might become, I’m a horrible person, I can never forgive myself, God can never forgive me, or I don’t deserve to feel better.
The goal is not to dismiss emotion, but to help clients create some space between what happened and what they have come to believe about themselves because of it. Michele said providers can invite clients to list facts without interpretation so that they can begin noticing the difference between the event, the story, and the emotions underneath.
She also demonstrated a visual activity that can accompany this work. A client writes the meaning or harsh narrative they have attached to themselves on water-soluble paper and places it into a bowl of water. As the paper dissolves, the person can see that lie disintegrating. Michele described it as a powerful exercise and noted that it can be adapted for virtual use by sending paper to participants ahead of time and asking them to have a bowl of water nearby, without telling them in advance what will happen. She shared the type of paper she purchased on Amazon, noting that you can cut each sheet in half, yielding 60 participant sheets for only seven dollars.
The second tool was reframing “what if” into “even if.” Michele offered examples such as turning What if I had spoken my real feelings? into Even if I didn’t feel able to then, I can grow my voice and strength now, or changing What if I went through it alone? into Even if I went through that alone, I don’t have to carry it alone now. Or, reframing “What if I didn’t have the abortion? into “Even if I did, I am still capable of healing and purpose today.” This “what if” to “even if” shift helps move a person from past-focused rumination toward acceptance and possibility. Or as Michele said, it can help them “move out of that eddy—where thoughts keep circling—and back into the flow of the river, where movement and healing can begin again.”
One participant wrote, “I like the what if to even if. Powerful and easy.” Others described it as helpful for shifting perspective and something they wanted to begin using right away.
The third framework, growing around grief, drew on Dr. Lois Tonkin’s idea that healing is not necessarily the shrinking of grief, but the expansion of life around it. Michele used the image of a tree growing around a knot or scar in its trunk to help normalize why grief may still be present years later. One practical question she suggested asking clients was: What might help your world feel a little bigger this week?
The fourth tool was meaning making. Michele noted that for many clients, healing after abortion includes finding some personal way to remember and honor their child. That may look like writing a letter, planting something, getting a tattoo, honoring a meaningful date, or simply saying, This mattered. Even small acts of meaning, she said, can help someone move from stuckness toward healing. As one participant noted in the chat, recovery facilitators offer “an amazing gift by helping people build a grief ritual of some kind.” She recommended this article on Healing Through Memorialization: A Powerful Step After Abortion for those who would like to delve into this idea more. And she shared that the new Activity Guide for Facilitators includes a section with several ideas for memorialization.
Throughout this section, Michele also reminded participants that healing often happens in layers. Different emotions, memories, and meanings may surface at different times. The goal is not to fix grief or erase it, but to keep helping people move out of looping and into processing, layer by layer.
👉Handout: A summary of these 4 Tools to Help Clients Move from Stuck to Healing
HOLDING HOPE, STAYING PRESENT, AND FOCUSING ON MOVEMENT TO GET CLIENTS UNSTUCK
Michele shared that most people reaching out after abortion are looking for someone who can sit with them in their pain and help them work through their grief.
“There will be moments,” she said, “when they can’t see a way forward.” In those moments, the provider’s role is “simple, but not easy”: to hold hope without forcing it, stay present without rushing, and remind the person that movement is always possible.
She returned one last time to the river image, saying providers are not there to fix the stormy river or force someone out of the eddy. Sometimes they are walking alongside them; sometimes they are simply sitting with them on the bank. Either way, what providers offer matters.
ABORTION HEALING PROVIDERS TAKEAWAYS THIS WEEK
Michele invited participants to share one takeaway they wanted to try with a client that week.
Several attendees named the “what if” to “even if” reframe. Others mentioned the water-soluble paper exercise, the distinction between absorbing and responding, and the fact-versus-narrative framework. One attendee wrote, “Such great activities — thank you so much!”
Kylee highlighted one of Michele’s reflection questions in particular: “What might help your world feel a little bigger this week?” She said the question immediately sent her into “this other space of thinking,” a response that captured the strength of this webinar’s best tools — simple language that opens meaningful movement.
Q&A
Q: How should I handle it when a client keeps circling the same story over and over?
A: Nyles connected this to the “eddy” described earlier—when someone keeps looping back to the same place. He shared that when he notices this happening, he pays attention to what keeps coming up and shifts away from asking “why” questions, which can feel pressuring or assume the client already has insight. Instead, he suggested simple, curious questions like: “What about this is bringing you back to this?” or “What feels so heavy about this?”
He emphasized the importance of tone. Rather than pointing out the repetition in a frustrated or corrective way, he approaches it with compassion:
“I see this coming up for you, and I’d love to understand what’s going on. I want to be there for you.”
Kylee added an important perspective: repetition can be a sign of safety. Clients often “shop around” their grief, sharing pieces in different places as they look for somewhere it can land. When a client repeats themselves with the same provider, it may be because they feel safe enough to stay with the experience and explore it more deeply.
Q: Can you expand on prolonged grief?
A: Michele explained that prolonged grief refers to grief that remains intensely present months or even years later, leaving the person feeling deeply stuck. She noted that it can be a tricky term and one she would not suggest using directly with a client—because it can sound like a judgment that they are taking too long. She encouraged providers to recognize the pain, validate the stuckness, and support the person through their grieving process.
Q: What if a client doesn’t want to talk about their abortion at all, but clearly seems stuck?
A: Michele’s guidance was straightforward: “If someone isn’t ready to talk about their abortion experience, don’t force it.” Instead, providers can follow what the client is willing to talk about — often relationship struggles, anger, anxiety, or unhealthy coping behaviors — while staying curious about patterns and emotional themes. The goal “isn’t to try to uncover it quickly and get to abortion because we’re in abortion healing. The goal is to build safety and trust so that, if and when that part of the story is ready to surface, there for it.
Q: How do I know when to refer someone to a licensed therapist?
A: Michele described this as a very important question. She said referral may be appropriate when grief is significantly impairing daily functioning, when a person seems overwhelmed by their reactions, or when they are experiencing panic, shutdown, or intense emotional swings. She also emphasized that referral is especially important when there are safety concerns, including self-harm or suicidal thoughts, particularly if there is a plan or intent. While those are not the only indicators for clinical care, they are an important starting point. Expanding a client’s support system, she noted, can be a key way of ensuring they receive the level of care they need.
Q: Do you have any tips for working with clients who don’t identify their experience as grief at all, but they’re struggling in some way?
A: “It’s okay not to say the word grief,” Michele said. What matters most is helping the person engage what is surfacing, whether that appears as emotions, behaviors, body cues, or something harder to name. Sometimes the word grief comes later, and sometimes it doesn’t. Just as providers don’t need to define a client’s experience as “loss” for them, they also don’t need to label it grief. She noted that “sometimes that can be distressing to somebody; they might feel less distressed to not call it grief.
Kylee added that people often imagine grief only as crying, when in reality it may look like overworking, staying busy, shutting down, avoidance, or becoming more activated around birthdays, due dates, holidays, or other milestones. She encouraged providers to help clients explore what seems to heighten their emotions and to ask about triggers, unspoken parts of the story, and moments that bring feelings closer to the surface.
Michele added that some triggers can be unexpected. While holidays like Christmas may come to mind first, she noted that people have mentioned struggling around other holidays—for example, Halloween is painful for some people after abortion because of children and families coming to the door.
The discussion also made room for nuance around naming grief. A participant suggested that, for some clients, having a name for what they are experiencing may help them move forward. Kylee agreed that this can be true, but emphasized the need for case-by-case care to avoid labeling the experience for the client, but helping them to grow into their own understanding in a way that feels safe and fitting.
CLOSING
To close the webinar, Michele returned to the same simple practice that opened it: naming one word for how participants were leaving. This time, the chat reflected a noticeable shift. Participants shared words like “smarter,” “thankful,” “hopeful,” “energized,” “equipped,” “informed,” “encouraged,” and “empowered.” One person wrote that they felt “better equipped, for others and myself,” while another said they were “looking forward to serving clients with these valuable points.”
That closing moment reflected the arc of the webinar—what began with noticing internal experience ended with participants leaving with more language, more tools, and a clearer framework for supporting grief after abortion. It also surfaced something deeper: this was a conversation about client care and the kind of presence that helps grief move — steady compassion to make room for what has been carried alone.
© Support After Abortion