How Loss Changes Who We Are: Grief, Identity and Meaning After Death

This article explores how grief can affect not only our experience of bereavement, but also our sense of identity, belonging, and place in the world—and how continuing bonds can help us understand what it means to carry a relationship forward after death.

When someone important to us dies, we are not only adjusting to their physical absence. Our lives are deeply relational: the people closest to us shape our values, roles, routines, beliefs, and understanding of who we are. When that relationship changes, our sense of self can change with it.

Grieving often involves a kind of double awareness: adapting to life without the person’s physical presence while discovering how aspects of the relationship may continue through memories, values, traditions, stories, or other meaningful forms of connection.

Based on the teachings of Celina Carter, PhD, MN, RN, instructor of Supporting Adaptive Grieving and Loss: A Continuing Bonds Approach, this article explores how relationships shape identity, why loss can disrupt our sense of self, and how continuing bonds and meaning reconstruction can offer another way of understanding what it means to move forward with grief.

Contents:

1. How Loss Changes Who We Are: Grief, Identity and Meaning After Death
2. Grief Can Involve Changes to Identity
3. Carrying the Relationship Forward
4. Meaning Reconstruction After Loss
5. Supporting Clients With Openness and Curiosity
6. Learn More: Supporting Adaptive Grieving and Loss: A Continuing Bonds Approach

How Loss Changes Who We Are: Grief, Identity and Meaning After Death

Because our lives are deeply relational, loss can affect our sense of identity, roles, values, routines, and belonging.

As Celina describes, who we are is relational. When a significant relationship changes through death, family dynamics may shift, familiar ways of moving through the world may feel different, and our understanding of ourselves may be reoriented. 

For helping professionals, this broader view of grief invites another question alongside “How are you coping with the loss?”:

What has changed in your sense of self?

Grief Can Involve Changes to Identity 

Part of adapting to the reality of a person’s physical absence after death,  may  involve taking on new roles (e.g., cooking, banking, planning), entering new relationships, and reorienting to everyday life without the person physically in it. 

 For much of the twentieth century, grief was often understood as requiring people to “let go” and sever emotional ties with the person who died. Bereavement scholars including Dennis Klass and Phyllis Silverman began challenging this assumption, observing that people often continued the attachment in an altered form. Their work helped establish Continuing Bonds Theory: the understanding that adaptation can happen alongside an ongoing relationship with the deceased. 

This can invite two questions:

Who am I without this person?

How does this relationship continue to be part of who I am?

Carrying the Relationship Forward

How each person adapts and remains connected after a death is a creative and deeply personal process, shaped by beliefs, values, culture, spirituality, and the relationship itself. There is no one right way to do it. 

Continuing connection might involve:

• Telling stories or keeping memories alive
• Writing letters or speaking to the person
• Visiting meaningful places or marking anniversaries
• Carrying forward values or traditions
• Creative expression, acts of service, or sensing the person’s presence

The invitation is not to prescribe how the relationship should continue, but to explore what feels supportive and meaningful for that person.

Meaning Reconstruction After Loss

Meaning reconstruction, associated with the work of grief researcher Robert Neimeyer, is not necessarily about making sense of the death itself. It can involve exploring the confusion and disorientation after  the loss, renegotiating who we are in relation to it, and exploring what the relationship means in our lives now and in the future. 

A person might reflect on:

• What from this relationship remains important to me?
• What values or qualities do I want to carry forward?
• How has this relationship shaped who I am?
• What meaning does this relationship hold for me now?

Exploring these questions can create space for new understandings about identity, the world, and relationships to be built. 

For some people, continuing connection may feel supportive; for others, it may not resonate. These are possibilities, not requirements, and what feels meaningful will differ from person to person. 

Supporting Clients With Openness and Curiosity

Helping professionals can approach continuing bonds with openness and curiosity, meeting clients within their own beliefs and experiences.

A useful starting point is to explore the relationship as it was and what may continue:

• What values, activities, or beliefs did you share?
• What rituals or practices feel meaningful to you?
• What helped you feel connected now?

These conversations do not require a particular belief about death or an afterlife. Connection may be spiritual, or it may be rooted in memory, stories, values, or shared experiences. 

Because ongoing relationships with the deceased are not always openly discussed, some people may feel shame, secrecy, or embarrassment about how they remain connected. Helping professionals can help normalize these experiences and create space to explore them at a pace that feels right for the client.

At the same time, continuing bonds do not always lead to greater ease or adaptation. It can be helpful to notice whether the relationship is offering comfort, meaning, and support for continued living. Or whether it may be contributing to avoidance, ongoing distress, withdrawal, or difficulty engaging with life after the loss.

Questions to Carry Into Practice

• What from this relationship remains important?
• What helps this person feel connected to the relationship now?
• How can the relationship evolve while honouring both love and loss?

Grief can involve holding two realities at once: adapting to the person’s physical absence while finding ways to carry the relationship forward.

The relationship does not necessarily disappear. It can change—and continue to shape identity, meaning, and how we live.

Learn More: Supporting Adaptive Grieving and Loss: A Continuing Bonds Approach

In our workshop, Supporting Adaptive Grieving and Loss: A Continuing Bonds Approach, Celina Carter, PhD, MN, RN, explores continuing bonds in greater depth and guides participants through loving-kindness, guided imagery, and reflection practices for working with grief and ongoing connection after loss. The focus is on translating the theory into client support that honours each person’s beliefs, values, culture, and evolving relationship after loss.

The workshop includes high-definition video lessons with professional transcripts, an expert-led live session with experiential practice and Q&A, and practical guidance for integrating continuing bonds into client conversations and clinical work in thoughtful, flexible, and individualized ways.

Feel free to share this post with friends, family, or colleagues. Thanks for your ongoing interest and support!

Celina Carter, PhD, MN, RN, is a clinical nurse scholar, currently practicing as a Nurse Psychotherapist and Advance Care Planning specialist. She is also a Adjunct Lecturer in Social and Behaviour Health Sciences at the University of Toronto and a Scientific Associate at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre where she conducts research on psychedelic assisted psychotherapy for people living with advanced illness.

Sarah Kraftchuk, MSc, RP (qualifying), is Head of Learning at the Mindful Institute. She is a licensed clinician, certified mindfulness facilitator, art therapist, and children’s book author. 

Michael Apollo, MHSc, RP, is a licensed clinician, mindfulness educator, and Founder of the Mindful Institute. With over 15 years of experience, he specializes in practical, evidence-based mindfulness training for helping professionals. Formerly Director of Mindfulness Programs at the University of Toronto, Michael has collaborated with organizations like the World Health Organization, the UK NHS, and the Canadian Parliament to support mental well-being and resilience in diverse settings.

Resources:

Gillies, J., & Neimeyer, R. A. (2006). Loss, grief, and the search for significance: Toward a model of meaning reconstruction in bereavement. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 19(1), 31–65. https://doi.org/10.1080/10720530500311182

Klass, D. (2023a). Continuing bonds in the existential, phenomenological, and Cultural Study of Grief: Prolegomena. OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying, 92(3), 1411–1436. https://doi.org/10.1177/00302228231205766

Schut, M. S. (1999). The dual process model of coping with bereavement: Rationale and description. Death Studies, 23(3), 197–224. https://doi.org/10.1080/074811899201046

Disclaimer

The content in our blog articles is not intended to substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your health provider with any questions you may have regarding your mental health.