Grief Is Normal, Natural, and Healthy: An Honest Conversation with Nicola Reed of Cruse Scotland

What does it really mean to support someone through grief? What goes on behind the closed door of a bereavement counselling session? And why do so many of us still feel so uncomfortable talking about death and loss?

In this episode of Grief Unedited, I sat down with Nicola Reed, Director of Client Services at Cruse Scotland Bereavement Support, for one of the most honest and wide-ranging conversations I've had on the podcast.

If you've ever wondered what grief support actually looks like in practice, or if you've been navigating your own loss and wondered whether what you're feeling is "normal", this conversation is for you.

Grief Is Normal, Natural, and Healthy - So Why Are We Still Scared of It?

When I asked Nicola what unexpected lesson from her professional experience she most wished people knew about grief, her answer was clear: grief is normal, natural, and healthy; and it shows up everywhere.

We tend to associate grief primarily with the death of a loved one. But Nicola pointed out that grief surfaces in friendship breakdowns, career changes, relationship endings, and shifts in health. It's woven into the fabric of being human. The problem, she suggests, is that we've never really been taught to recognise it, talk about it, or sit with it.

"We're not great as a nation at talking about death, dying, and bereavement. We shy away, or we're a bit scared of grief - so we forget that it's normal, natural, and healthy."

This resonated deeply with me. As a therapist, one of the first things I try to communicate to clients is that there is often nothing wrong in grief. We're not there to fix anything. A death has occurred; the work is about adapting, making sense of it, and figuring out how to move forward — not about changing how someone feels.

Should Grief Education Be Taught in Schools?

One of the most striking threads in our conversation was the question of grief literacy or rather, our collective lack of it.

We teach children about algebra, biology, and consent. We offer sex education so young people can navigate their bodies and relationships. And yet grief, something every single human being will encounter, again and again throughout their life, is almost entirely absent from our school curricula.

Nicola highlighted the missed opportunities in children's literature and film. Disney movies are full of bereavement narratives. Stories of loss, love, and change surround young people. But we rarely use these as an opportunity to pause, name what grief looks like, and have a conversation about it.

The result? Adults who reach bereavement and feel, for the first time, that they don't know how to carry this. Who stop talking to friends and family about their grief because they're worried about burdening them. Who feel that their emotions are somehow wrong, or too much.

We've become, a nation of chronic fixers. We struggle to simply be alongside someone in their pain without wanting to solve it, to suggest remedies, or to redirect them toward positivity. Sometimes, people just need space to be sad. They need someone to say: this is okay, this is hard, and it makes complete sense.

What People Get Wrong About Working in Bereavement

Nicola shared the single most common response she gets when she tells someone what she does for a living: "Oh, that must be really hard."

And yes, some of the stories she encounters are extraordinarily difficult. Deaths that are sudden or traumatic, losses tangled up with complicated relationships. There's no denying that weight.

But Nicola was quick to offer a fuller picture. Many of the conversations she has are rich, intimate, and even joyful, not in spite of the grief, but because of what grief opens up. In the counselling room, she gets to hear stories that clients have often never shared with anyone else. Stories about people who have died: who they were, how they loved, what they meant.

She described a particularly moving moment when a client, at the end of their work together, showed her a photograph of the person they'd been talking about for weeks. That, she said, is the preciousness of this work, being trusted with someone's most treasured memories.

She also described a client who came to sessions wearing a piece of clothing given to them by the person who had died, and how the relationship between the client and that garment shifted, visibly, over the weeks. Another client shared small pieces of artwork they were creating at home, and Nicola watched it grow and change session by session.

These are the moments that affirm why people choose this work. Not despite the difficulty - alongside it.

Continuing Bonds: Keeping the Connection Alive

We spent time exploring the concept of continuing bonds in grief. The growing body of research that suggests maintaining a relationship with someone who has died is not unhealthy, but deeply human.

Nicola brought this to life with a beautiful personal example. She deliberately chose a robin mug for our conversation - a gift from her sister - because robins are connected to the memory of her father, who died twelve years ago. A particular robin used to visit their garden every year, recognisable because of its gammy wing. In January, the month her dad died, she can hold that mug, think of him fondly, and feel a warmth that wasn't always there.

"There probably was a time, ten years ago," she reflected, "when it would have been really difficult to see a wee robin with a gammy wing."

Grief shifts. The bonds remain, but they change texture. What was once raw becomes something softer. And the counselling room, she observed, is one of the few places where clients are given permission to keep talking about the person who died and to say their name, share memories, and not feel like a burden.

Does Short-Term Grief Counselling Actually Help?

One of the most practical and reassuring parts of our conversation was about the value of time-limited bereavement support.

Cruse Scotland typically offers around six sessions of support. I'll be honest: I've often grappled with the tension between that kind of brief, focused work and the reality that grief is lifelong. How do you meaningfully support someone through a lifelong process in six weeks?

Nicola reframed this beautifully. She referenced a metaphor from a training session connected to Cruse Scotland's partnership with the University of Edinburgh on the My Grief, My Way project: the work of a grief counsellor is like the work of a gardener. For those six sessions, you're there to tend to a particular part of the garden with care, with focus, with skill. The garden doesn't stop needing attention once you've finished. There will be other seasons, other maintenance. But what you do in that concentrated period matters, and the effects are felt years down the line.

Nicola also noted something that challenged my own assumptions: the intense, grief-focused nature of short-term bereavement work means it often achieves something that longer, more diffuse therapy does not. When the whole room ,every session, is dedicated to this loss, clients can go deeper, faster.

What Affirms the Work — The Small Moments, Not the Big Ones

When I asked Nicola what has most affirmed her commitment to this field, I expected her to describe a dramatic turning point. Instead, she pointed to something quieter: the everyday aha moments.

The participant in a training session who says: "Oh! I didn't know that was grief."

The person who finally feels permission to name what they've been carrying.

The client who says: "I didn't want to say that out loud because it seemed like the wrong answer."

These small moments of recognition, of normalisation, are what sustain this work. And they're not limited to the counselling room. As Nicola put it, when you work in grief, you become a kind of magnet. You start to see grief pop up everywhere, in everyday life, in friendships, in family and you know how to be helpful, how to be alongside, how to bring that understanding into the room.

About Cruse Scotland

Cruse Scotland provides free bereavement support to people across Scotland. Their services include a helpline, one-to-one support by phone, online, or in person, group support, and community walks and talks. They also offer training for organisations and individuals working with bereavement. Full details, resources, and their My Grief, My Way self-directed website can be found at www.crusescotland.org.uk.

Listen to the Full Episode

This blog is a summary of a rich, wide-ranging conversation and there's much more in the full episode. You can listen to Grief Unedited wherever you get your podcasts.

If this post has been helpful, please share it with someone who might need it. And if you'd like to connect with me directly, you can find me on Facebook and Instagram at @ContinuumCounselling, or visit my website at www.continuumcounselling.com.

Karen Lafferty is a specialist grief counsellor and the host of Grief Unedited. She works with individuals navigating loss and bereavement through Continuum Counselling.