When someone you didn’t like dies, grief can feel messy and confusing. You might sense a flicker of sadness, followed by relief, and then guilt about the relief. You may feel nothing at all and judge yourself for it. You don’t need to force your heart to fit a script. Learn to meet what is here—kindly, clearly, and without pretending. Your task is not to manufacture a “proper” response, but to respond skillfully to whatever is present now—with mindfulness, compassion, and wise intention.
Grief isn’t one emotion: it’s a changing stream of mind-states. These states are conditioned phenomena—arising and passing due to causes such as memories, family expectations, and old hurts. When you see this clearly, you’re less likely to take each feeling as “me” or “mine” and more able to meet it with steadiness.
You might notice:
Numbness: the mind’s way of pausing when things feel too full.
• Irritation or relief: signaling that the relationship brought stress.
• Sadness for what never was: grief for lost possibilities, not only for the person.
• Guilt or shame: often learned responses to how you think you “should” feel.
Please do not debate whether your reactions are “right,” bring attention to your experience:
• Name what’s present: “sadness,” “tight chest,” “numbness,” “relief.”
• Feel it in the body. Let the breath be gentle and natural.
• Soften around the feeling with kindness (Pali: metta): “This is hard, and it’s okay to feel this.”
• Remember: “This, too, is impermanent.”
Acknowledgment is not approval; it’s honest seeing. Acknowledging what you actually feel—without fixing or fighting it—is the first skillful step. Meet your mind as it is: pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral feeling, all changing. If sadness, relief, or numbness is present, let breath and awareness hold it gently.
The question is: Is this state skillful (Pali: kusala) or unskillful (Pali: akusala)? Does it lead to clarity and compassion, or to contraction and harm? Relief, for example, isn’t wrong; it may simply reflect the end of a difficult bond. What matters is how you hold that relief. Does your relief come with wisdom and kindness? “Of course, I am glad that difficult bond has been severed. I hope that he died peacefully.” Or does your relief come with harshness? “It’s about time.” Or “I win, I outlived him!”
Guilt can be intertwined with “shoulds” you absorbed from your family or culture. What matters most is how you relate to your experience now. Painful guilt that fixates on “I am bad” is unskillful; a gentle conscience that asks, “What is the wise thing now?” is skillful.
When guilt is mostly self-punishment, meet it with metta and perspective. Remember impermanence and not-self: this mood is not your identity. Offer simple phrases: “May I be kind to this pain. May I learn what is helpful.” Extend goodwill to the deceased without denying the hurt: “As you are, may you be at peace.”
Regret often surfaces as a wish that the past had unfolded differently—words left unsaid, boundaries never set, chances for reconciliation missed. Regret is a conditioned mind-state, not a verdict on who you are. It arises because of causes and conditions and then passes. Your work is to know it as regret, feel it in the body, and discern whether it’s leading toward clarity or more suffering. When regret is held with mindfulness and kindness, it can mature into wisdom rather than sink into self-attack.
It is useful to distinguish between two kinds of regret. One is skillful: a clear-eyed recognition that something harmful occurred, paired with a sincere resolve to do better. The other is unskillful: looping self-judgment and agitation, counted among the hindrances, which only tightens suffering
If the mind keeps replaying scenes, you may be meeting the hindrance of restlessness and remorse. Name it softly: “Remorse is here.” Feel your feet on the ground; let the breath lengthen and settle. Widen awareness to include sounds, contact, and space so the loop loses its grip. Remember: all mind-states are impermanent. You don’t have to fix the past in this moment—only relate wisely to what’s here now.
If regret carries a truthful lesson, let it become a resolution. You might strengthen the five precepts, commit to kinder speech, or tend current relationships with more presence and honesty. You can write a compassionate letter you won’t send, name your part in the difficulty, and set a clear intention not to repeat harmful patterns. In this way, regret is transformed into kusala action—steps that lighten the heart and benefit others.
Make merit and dedicate it. Offer generosity (Pali: dana), keep precepts (Pali; sila), and cultivate meditation (Pali: bhavana), then share any goodness with the departed (Pali: pattidana). You might quietly say, “Whatever goodness I have cultivated, may it be for your welfare.” If it feels right, ask forgiveness in your heart: “If I have harmed you in thought, word, or deed, knowingly or unknowingly, please forgive me. I also forgive you.” This doesn’t erase the past, but it cleans the heart now.
You can honor the truth of the past without romanticizing it. You can extend goodwill without denying harm. You can make merit and dedicate it to the departed, not because the relationship was perfect, but because freeing your heart is a noble path.
May you be well and happy, at ease, and free from suffering.
Margaret Meloni
