Free grief tool
The two streams of grief
People in grief almost always worry they're doing it wrong. Crying too much — or not enough. "Moving on" too fast — or not at all. Modern grief science has a reassuring answer: healthy grieving isn't a straight line through stages. It's an oscillation between two streams — facing the loss (missing them, crying, remembering) and tending to life (cooking dinner, working, even laughing) — and the moving back and forth between them is the healing. Psychologists call this the Dual Process Model.
Think about your last week or so, and check whatever happened — there are no right answers.
Completely private: everything happens on this page, in your browser. Nothing you check is sent or stored anywhere.
Facing the loss
Tending to life
Your two streams
Checking in like this every few weeks shows you something no single day can: the oscillation itself. Many people bring the picture to a therapist or a friend who worries about them — it's a kind way to say "this is where I actually am."
Both streams are grief
The Dual Process Model (Stroebe & Schut, 1999) reframed everything: the moments you're not actively grieving — paying bills, watching a show, laughing at a joke — aren't avoidance or betrayal. They're restoration, and grief needs them the way swimming needs breaths. Equally, the waves of missing them aren't "being stuck." A grief that lives entirely in one stream for a long time is worth talking about with someone; a grief that moves — however unevenly — is doing what grief does.
This exercise is reflection, not assessment — no checklist can judge a grief. If your grief feels frozen, or life has felt unlivable for a long stretch, please talk to a professional. In the U.S., if it ever tips into feeling unsurvivable, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) — someone is there around the clock.
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