Tenderoni Hotline #24: Grief Over Losing Objects + Injustice In The Workspace
Welcome back to the Tenderoni Hotline, our warm and cozy corner of The Feminist Wellness Podcast, where we talk nervous system healing, somatic tools, and reclaiming your self-worth, one question at a time. If you've got something tender on your heart and want my support, write to me at podcast@beatrizalbina.com and I’ll answer you in a future episode. Let’s dive in.
Why Grief Over “Things” Feels So Hard to Make Sense Of
You lose something you loved. A piece of jewelry, a journal, a bag you saved up for, something from your childhood, a home, something irreplaceable that broke or got lost or stolen. And it hits you harder than you expect. There’s that initial wave of grief. A drop in your stomach, a sense of absence, maybe even panic. And then almost immediately, the second wave comes in. Why am I this upset about a thing?
And that second wave is what tends to make everything worse. Because now you’re not just feeling grief. You’re judging yourself for feeling it. You’re layering shame on top of loss. But here is the truth that most conversations miss. Grief does not measure worthiness based on what was lost. When you understand that, the entire experience starts to soften.
What This Kind of Grief Actually Is
Grief over objects is not shallow or materialistic. The object was never just the object. It held memory, meaning, identity, relationship. That ring held your grandmother. That journal held years of your inner world. That home held a version of you that no longer exists in the same way.
Your nervous system is not reacting to “a thing.” It is responding to the loss of connection, continuity, and lived experience. These losses are real losses. Your body is tracking something true. This is grief.
The Layer That Makes Grief Heavier
What makes this kind of grief especially painful is the shame that follows it. You feel sad, and then you feel ridiculous for feeling sad. You try to talk yourself out of it. You minimize it. You tell yourself it shouldn’t matter this much.
This is how emotional outsourcing deepens. Because instead of allowing your internal experience, you turn against it. You make your feelings the problem. Now your nervous system is holding both grief and self-judgment at the same time. Of course it feels heavier. Of course it lingers.
Why Losing “Things” Can Feel So Deep
We’ve been taught that objects are just things. But that’s a very modern and very limited way of understanding our relationship to the world. Your lived experience already tells you otherwise.
There is no clean line between you and what you have loved. Not in your body. Not in your memory. Not in your nervous system. So when something meaningful is lost, your system registers it as a rupture. Not symbolic. Not dramatic. Real.
And that’s why grief shows up the way it does.
Why Grief Doesn’t Need Your Permission
One of the most harmful habits we have is trying to justify our feelings. We rank losses. We compare. We decide what should or should not matter.
But grief does not respond to logic like that. You do not need to build a case for why you are allowed to feel what you feel. The feeling is already here. That is enough.
Grief moves when it is allowed. It gets stuck when it is judged.
What You Might Actually Be Mourning
Sometimes you are grieving the object itself. And sometimes you are grieving something deeper. The version of you who had it. The chapter of life it represents. The person connected to it. The sense of safety or identity it held.
This is why the grief can feel bigger than the loss seems to warrant. Because it is layered. And those layers deserve your attention, not your criticism.
When Grief Feels Bigger Than It “Should”
If your grief feels intense, it does not mean you are overreacting. It may mean your nervous system is touching something older. Loss has a way of opening doors. Sometimes what comes through is not just this moment, but other moments where something meaningful was lost or taken or unavailable.
This is not something to judge. It is something to meet with gentleness.
The Real Work Is Letting Grief Move
Healing here is not about convincing yourself to care less. It is about allowing yourself to feel without turning against yourself. Let yourself be sad without explanation. Let the grief exist without shrinking it.
Because the moment you stop arguing with your experience, your nervous system gets a new message. That your feelings are allowed. That you are safe to feel them.
A Simple Way to Support Your Grief
Grief needs somewhere to go. So give it form. Write about the object. Look at photos of it. Draw it. Say out loud what it meant to you, what it held, what you miss.
You can even speak to it. That might feel unfamiliar, but your body understands expression far more than it understands suppression. Grief moves when it is expressed. It stays stuck when it is silenced.
This Isn’t About Detaching From What You Love
It can be tempting to minimize the loss. To tell yourself it didn’t matter. To detach. But that kind of disconnection comes at a cost. Because the more you disconnect from what you love, the more you disconnect from yourself.
Grief is not the problem. Grief is evidence of relationship. It is evidence that something mattered. And that capacity to love and attach is not something to shut down. It is something to honor.
Safety, Belonging, and Worth Inside Grief
At the core of this work are three experiences. Safety, belonging, and worth. Safety is letting your feelings exist without shutting them down. Belonging is not abandoning yourself for having those feelings. Worth is not making yourself wrong for caring deeply.
When those are present, grief becomes something you can move through instead of something you have to fight.
The Work Happens in Small Moments
This is not about doing grief perfectly. It unfolds in small moments. Moments where you let yourself feel instead of dismissing it. Moments where you speak kindly to yourself instead of criticizing. Moments where you acknowledge that something mattered.
Each of those moments teaches your nervous system something new.
Final Thoughts
If you are grieving something others might call “just a thing,” there is nothing wrong with you. Your nervous system is tracking meaning, connection, and love. And losing what you love will always create grief.
You are not dramatic. You are human.
And the more you allow yourself to honor that, the more you come back into relationship with yourself. Because you can grieve what you lost and stay connected to who you are.
And that is where real healing begins.
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Tags: grief, grief healing, emotional processing, nervous system regulation, somatic healing, emotional outsourcing