Free grief & change tools
20 short exercises on grief & change, 2 to 10 minutes each, free and with no account needed. Open one and it runs right in the page.
The 20 tools
After a big change: where you have landed
Set a dial for how settled you feel in each area of life since a major change: a move, a loss, a breakup, a new role, hard news about a family member's health.
Grief in waves: a week
Each day, note how heavy the grief was, how close the person or thing felt, and how much you let yourself feel it. It does not move in a straight line.
What you carry from them
Write about someone or something you have lost: what you miss, what you keep, and what you would say now. A quiet, private exercise.
Ways of remembering
Build a small set of rituals for staying connected to someone or something you have lost: daily, on hard dates, and when a wave hits.
How you handle transitions
Rate how often a set of experiences has been true during a recent period of change: disorientation, second-guessing, unexpected relief, grief for the old version.
What sets off a wave, and whether you see it coming
Sort the things that bring the loss back by whether you can plan for them, whether they ambush you, or whether you go looking for them. All three are normal.
The shoulds of grief
Turn over cards that show something grief tells you that you should be doing or feeling by now, and another way to see it. Keep the ones that ease something.
Leaving a place
For a move, a leaving, or a home that is no longer yours: write about what the place knew about you, what you will miss, and what you are taking with you.
What ended when it ended
After a breakup, choose what you actually lost: the person, yes, but also the routine, the future you pictured, their family, the nickname. Then rank them. The heaviest is often not the obvious one.
What the job was giving you
After losing or leaving a job, divide 100 points across what it was actually providing: money, yes, but also structure, identity, people, a reason to get dressed. The biggest bar is what needs replacing first.
When a good change still hurts
For changes you chose and wanted, a baby, a marriage, a move for love, retirement, recovery, coming out: rate how often the grief inside them has been true. Wanting it and missing what it replaced are not in conflict.
When grief finds you in the week
Mark the days and times when the loss comes closest. Grief has a timetable: the quiet before sleep, Sunday afternoons, the hour you used to call. Knowing it helps you meet it.
Five minutes with a wave
A short guided exercise for when a wave of grief hits: stop, let it be there, put a hand where it sits, name what it is missing, and then one small next thing.
Who you can talk to about it
Place the people in your life on a grid of how close they were to what you lost against how easy it is to talk to them about it. The two rarely line up, and that is useful to see.
What you need from people right now
Rank what you most need from the people around you during this loss or change: to be asked, to be left alone, practical help, distraction, permission to laugh. People want to help and often guess wrong.
Endings that never got marked
Tick the small and medium endings you have been through that nobody held a ceremony for: a friendship that faded, a body that changed, a plan that quietly did not happen. They count.
A breath for a heavy chest
Four seconds in, six seconds out, seven times. Grief often sits in the chest; this is not to move it, only to make a little room around it.
The first weeks after a breakup
Build a plan for the raw first stretch after a relationship ends: their things, the phone, who you tell, and what to do with the hours you used to spend together.
What comes with you
For a move, a new job, retirement, or any change of life: sort your habits, people, roles, and routines into what comes with you, what stays behind, and what you are not sure about yet.
Relief and grief at the same time
For an ending that brought relief as well as loss, after a long illness, a hard relationship, a job that was wearing you down: write about both, without choosing between them.
What these tools are, and are not
Every tool here is free and works without an account: choose cards, move dials, sort a list, follow a paced breath, or keep a seven-day log, and read back what you noticed at the end. They are built to make a vague feeling more specific, which is often the first useful step.
None of them diagnoses, screens for or treats anything, and nothing you see at the end is a score or a label. If something you notice worries you, a licensed therapist is the right next conversation, and the directory is free to browse.