Reacting vs. Responding in Grief — Life After Suicide Loss

Today I’m “down the rabbit hole,” teasing apart reacting vs. responding after traumatic loss—not to shame reactions (they’re human), but to widen the space where we can choose. We’ll touch nervous-system patterns (fight/flight/freeze/fawn/flop), how to spot activation in real time, and how tiny, honest choices build a life aligned with values.
If you’ve been listening to October’s Daily Nuggets, this pairs with Hope → Healing → Becoming very well

Reaction: fast, automatic, discomfort-ending; urgent; body running the show.
Response: chosen, value-aligned; includes feelings; checks context/impact.
After suicide loss, we’re not “broken,” we’re activated. The work is creating a small gap between impulse and action so love gets a say.

Five protection styles (no shame, just data): Fight • Flight • Freeze • Fawn • Flop
Tiny mantra: “My body is loud. I don’t have to obey it.”
How to tell you’re reacting (so you can pivot):
Body (jaw/chest/gut, heat/cold, tunnel vision, fatigue) • Thoughts (catastrophe, always/never, fixing others) • Behavior (fast texts, ghosting, auto-yes).
Common activators: the day they died (aka 'the worst day'), songs, smells, certain phrases, etc—treat as green lights to pause.

I give a real, recent example in the episode of how this concept shows up for me now that I am more practiced at responding over being on autopilot and just reacting.... AND here are two grounded general (common) examples:

• The Hot Text: Phone face-down → 3 breaths → “This is fight” → normalize → draft, don’t send → after sleep, keep 2 lines, delete 10. Relationship and nervous system preserved.
• The Family Invite: Values check (honesty, tenderness, capacity) → two-liner: “Thanks for including me. I’m keeping things gentle this month and won’t make it, but I’m sending love.”

Top 5 tools (details in the PDF inside the Lighthouse Community Library)

Thread back to Hope → Healing → Becoming
Hope = capacity (not cheer). Healing = nervous-system literacy. Becoming = the widening gap between impulse and action—where love, truth, and capacity meet.

“When the wave lifts, I do not argue the sea. I plant my feet, name the water, and choose the next breath.” 💜

Community
Soon you will find the Download with examples in the Library inside The Moms Lighthouse Community (link below)

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