Why am I feeling so anxious? Understanding anxiety as a natural part of grief

How Couples Therapy Helps New Parents Manage the Pressures of Starting a Family

Becoming parents brings both excitement and unexpected challenges for couples. Many find the pressures of parenthood, sleepless nights, and changing roles can strain their relationship. Couples therapy for new parents provides a supportive space to navigate these challenges, strengthen the relationship, and prepare for the emotional ups and downs of becoming parents.

Healing Through Feeling: Integrating Mind, Body, and Emotions

Healing isn’t just about thinking or analyzing—it begins with feeling. Our emotions influence how we communicate, behave, and relate to ourselves and others, often in ways we don’t fully notice. By integrating mind, body, and emotions, we can reconnect with our inner experiences, release trapped emotional energy, and cultivate deeper awareness, balance, and wellbeing.

The Body Remembers: A Somatic Healing Approach to Emotional Pain

The mind and body are deeply connected, and emotions we ignore or suppress do not simply disappear—they often get stored in the body. Over time, these unresolved feelings can manifest as physical tension, discomfort, or illness, signaling the need for healing. Individuals who are disconnected from their emotions or who carry past trauma may notice these feelings emerging somatically, revealing the profound link between emotional and physical health. By recognizing how unprocessed emotions show up in the body, we open the door to deeper healing, resilience, and overall well-being.

Just Breathe—Or Is It Deeper? How Breathwork Helps You Heal and Reconnect

Modern life can leave our nervous systems in overdrive—especially if we’re carrying unresolved trauma or chronic stress. Breathwork for trauma healing offers a gentle yet powerful way to reconnect with your body, calm your mind, and begin releasing what no longer serves you—one conscious breath at a time.

Discovering Autism at 50: My Journey to Late Diagnosis and Self-Acceptance

In this deeply personal piece, the author reflects on the experience of being diagnosed with autism at the age of 50. Through moments of recognition, grief, and ultimately self-acceptance, they explore what it means to reframe a lifetime of experiences through the lens of neurodivergence—and the freedom that can come with finally understanding yourself.

The Mind-Body Connection in Therapy

The mind-body connection is a powerful and often underutilized tool in therapy. By understanding how mental and physical states are intertwined, therapists can help clients achieve deeper healing and overall well-being. This article explores the significance of the mind-body connection in therapeutic practice and offers insights on how integrating this approach can enhance the effectiveness of treatment.

From Fear to Confidence: Managing Maths Anxiety Effectively

Math anxiety is a common challenge, but it doesn’t have to hold you back—especially when it comes to exams. Recognizing the signs of math anxiety is the first step toward overcoming it and building confidence in your skills. With the right strategies and support, you can break the cycle of fear and approach math with a more positive mindset. Whether you’re preparing for a test or looking to improve your relationship with numbers, there are ways to manage anxiety and succeed.

Is my therapist racist?

Race and racism can be particularly difficult topics to address and assess within the therapeutic relationship. Although all therapists are expected to reflect on and minimise their own biases, racial or otherwise, it’s not possible to entirely mitigate them.

Embracing Neurodiversity: How I Practice a Neuro-Affirming Approach to Counselling

As a late-diagnosed AuDHD (autistic and ADHD) counsellor, I completed my training before there was much awareness of neurodivergence. My own therapists did not pick up on my neurodivergence, and so, for many years, I put all my social anxiety, overwhelm, black and white thinking, boom and bust ways of working etc down to a dysfunctional upbringing.

How to calculate counselling fees? A guide for counsellors.

There are various ways businesses decide what the price should be. Some companies check the competition to see how much others charge, some calculate their counselling fees by costs and add a profit margin on the top…

Psychological Resilience – why it’s important and ways to build it

I find human beings ability to change and grow fascinating! I became interested in the topic having had my own reserves tested through a particularly challenging time, so I started…

Bereavement, loss and grief

Bereavement, loss and grief are universal human experiences Although grieving is a natural process and a natural response to bereavement, loss and grief still affects everyone differently. Sometimes the anguish…

What is Psychoanalysis?

It’s a shame the father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud, has become somewhat of a mockery in popular culture. The Freud cartoons are often very funny, but serve to add ridicule to his ideas; those very ideas that have profoundly influenced and changed our society…

Marketing for counsellors: How writing counselling profiles may be similar to tinder?

Marketing for counsellors is an underexplored subject within our profession and even less explored when it comes to advertising online…

How to survive the coronavirus isolation when living alone?

Self-care is important in every day-to-day life, but especially when we find ourselves in isolation. With the Coronavirus spreading, isolation is becoming the norm for the elderly and vulnerable…

Are counselling and psychotherapy practices safe for face to face work after the pandemic?

The current pandemic has impacted various areas of our lives including how and where we access counselling. Although initially, the majority of sessions moved to the online domain…

Eye Movement Desensitization (EMDR) in West London

Our psychotherapists offer EMDR in West London, a treatment that was proven by research and welcomed by clients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

What is cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy and how can it help?

You may have heard of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT); a foundation of modern psychological therapy which empowers you to tackle unhelpful thinking and improve your wellbeing

TRAVMA DEDEKTÖRÜ ‘EMDR’

TRAVMA DEDEKTÖRÜ ‘EMDR’ Dünyayı nasıl gördüğümüz, çevremizdeki insanlarla kurduğumuz ilişkiler büyük ölçüde bellek ağlarımızda saklı olan yaşam deneyimlerimizle şekillenmektedir.

Counselling for Anxiety

All people experience anxiety at different times in our lives, whether about making a big decision, dealing with an unexpected event or being exposed to a threatening situation. Whilst unpleasant…

Fiona Turnbull

Biography:

Fiona Turnbull is an experienced psychotherapist and supervisor, practicing from two welcoming locations in Clapham and Pimlico, London. Her therapeutic approach is gentle, grounded in kindness, compassion, and consistency. Fiona strives to offer a relationship built on trust, respect, genuine connection, and hope, working in an anti-oppressive manner and welcoming clients from diverse communities.

She has a particular affinity for supporting individuals dealing with anxiety, grief and loss, or feelings of low self-worth. She also works with clients navigating significant life events, crises, and transitions, as well as those interested in exploring the impact of different life stages—including early trauma and neglect—on their present experience.

While Fiona does not promise transformation, she provides a quiet, thoughtful space in which change can begin to feel possible. Trained in Gestalt psychotherapy, her work is also informed by feminist, existential, attachment, and trauma-informed approaches. In addition to her therapeutic practice, Fiona is a relational supervisor and facilitates staff reflection groups within the funeral sector.

For more information or to book a session, contact her via details provided below.

Date updated: 29.08.2025

Grieving for someone close to us evokes a wide and powerful array of emotions which can often feel bewildering and are sometimes quite unexpected. One emotion that can often catch us unawares in grief is anxiety – especially as it’s not so commonly talked about. Yet it’s a completely natural feeling in response to such a life-altering experience and many of us can feel a sudden or gradual rise in anxiety after a bereavement. People often refer to feeling like they’ve had the rug pulled from under them when someone close to them dies or that their grief can take their breath away.

So how can anxiety manifest as a part of grief?

Existential anxiety

It’s an immensely challenging aspect of being human that we live with the knowledge that our lives are finite and that we and people we love will inevitably die. Typically in the course of everyday life, we tend to firmly squirrel that awareness away at the back of our minds. Yet a bereavement brings us right up close – terrifyingly so sometimes – with the reality of death. When we’re grieving, we can become all too aware of the fragility and transitoriness of life. The worst did happen. Our fears did come true. Quite understandably we can feel existential anxiety as a result.

Change and uncertainty in everyday life

At the same time, at an everyday level, we’re often having to grapple with a period of great change and uncertainty, often quite unwelcome and sometimes deeply unsettling. We might lose financial security as a result of our loss, for example; we may have to move house, especially for people living in social housing or with care needs or health issues of their own; or we may find we’re living alone for the first time. No wonder we might feel anxious.

Facing bureaucracy and systems

Tragically, even today, utility companies, official bodies, employers and other organisations by no means always get it right in terms of how they support people going through a bereavement, though there have been patchy improvements in recent times. This can cause us untold anxiety if we find ourselves battling with and feeling powerless in the face of bureaucracy and insensitive processes.

Living with absence

When we’re grieving, we’re also confronting the deeply unsettling experience of our person’s absence – the reality that they are no longer alive and that we cannot be physically present with them any more.

It could be the comfort you got from your partner giving you a hug when you got in from a tough day at work that you miss. Or the friend you could relax and be completely yourself with. Or a parent you could rely on and turn to for advice in times of need. Or sometimes it can be those more complicated feelings of an unresolved or damaging relationship that leave us feeling uneasy and anxious as we grieve.

Identity anxiety: Who am I now?

For many bereaved people, the question ‘who am I now’ without that person is at the heart of their anxious feelings. Who am I now that I’m a widower rather than a husband, for example? Or who am I now that both my parents have died?

When someone close to us dies, we not only lose the person, we lose who we were in that relationship. Many people describe feeling like they have had a limb amputated, like they have lost part of themselves. This loss of identity can be hugely destabilising. It’s no surprise it can leave us feeling anxious.

Responding to our anxious feelings

I do not for a minute want to offer trite solutions or suggest there are quick fixes and easy answers. If you’ve found yourself feeling anxious as part of your grieving process, that’s a natural response. What I’m offering here are some encouragements to build up your support in this tough time.

Is there someone you can talk to? This can be someone you know and trust among friends and family. Or if that’s not available to you, how about approaching your local bereavement service, finding a grief therapist, or reaching out to national charities. I know for myself that the more I hold on to anxious feelings, the more they can intensify and how much sharing can help.
Can you share the load? If your anxiety is being generated by the mountain of paperwork, the tasks on your to-do list or the upheaval in your living situation wrought by your bereavement, tell people what you need help with. Much as we’d like them to, they may not always know and this is a time when you can allow yourself to ask for what you need.
What helps soothe and ground you when you feel anxious? I know nothing can take the pain, grief and anxiety away completely. But it can help to find ways, even for a moment, to give yourself respite and soothe yourself. This will be very personal but for some people it might be: taking time to be on your own, being in nature, being in company, walking/moving/being physical, doing a breathing exercise, writing your feelings in a journal.

For anyone reading who wants to support someone they know who is grieving, it can help to be aware that they may be feeling anxious too as part of their grief. You can support them by offering to talk, making concrete offers of practical help and creating opportunities to soothe and restore.

One final aspect that I’d like to share is the idea of what American psychologist Kirk Schneider calls life-enhancing anxiety. That when we’re confronted with death or another kind of major life crisis, it can open up a wider perspective and steer us towards choices of greater meaning and connection with our values. From my own personal experience, my path to becoming a therapist, having felt I’d reached the end of the road with my first career, was catalysed by the death of my very beloved grandmother. It was by no means instant but her death really helped me discern over time what I really wanted from my career and my life.

Your unique experience

I believe each and every experience of grief is as unique as a fingerprint. It’s my experience, too, that anxiety can emerge as part of grief, irrespective of who the person was and how they died.

What you’ve read may have resonated with you or it may feel that it didn’t connect at all. Or you may be thinking that you do feel anxious as part of your grief but in a different way from how I’ve described it here. That is OK! There is no right or wrong in grief and there are as many shades of grief as there are relationships in the world.

CS Lewis opens his moving memoir A Grief Observed with the line: “No-one ever told me grief felt so like fear.” I think he’s right and if that is what you’re feeling too, you are not alone.