Good morning! Sorry if you got whiplash from the dark title to the uppity intro, that’s really my bad.

Today we’ll be talking about a grief that we don’t often think about with the help of Sigmund Freud. Burning that off, we’re going to do a thought exercise called the Release Check. Wrapping up, we’re going to look at a quote from Freud’s Mourning and Melancholia.

Have a seat, Thought Breakfast is served!

Grief is not limited to people or events. We also quietly grieve things like plans, missed opportunities, and versions of life that we expected and maybe even anticipated. Disillusionment exposes the unseen losses of life. One might say we grieve possibilities just as deeply as realities.

When expectations break, a future disappears. The future we were waiting for felt real because we believed in it so firmly. Once that future doesn’t come to be, we lose a direction we thought we had, a sense of certainty, even an imagined version of our very selves. These “lost futures” hurt because they are psychologically real.

Freud distinguishes between mourning (healthy grieving and release) and melancholia (clinging to what is lost). He asserts that the mind struggles to detach from people, ideas, and identities, especially when the loss is unclear or abstract. This unresolved grief keeps us tied to things that no longer (or never did) exist.

Letting go of that grief is a whole other issue. Letting go feels like losing something meaningful—which no one wants to do—even if it never actually existed. We resist letting go of imagined futures because they give us hope and direction, which gives us an (albeit false) sense of certainty. We hold onto our imagined futures for dear life, because they’re the scaffolds of our lives.

Ask yourself:

“Grief is the process of withdrawing our attachment from what has been lost.” — Sigmund Freud, Mourning and Melancholia

Sigmund Freud is showing that grief lingers because our attachment doesn’t disappear when the future does. We hold onto versions of life that once felt real, even if they never came to be. The mind keeps reaching back, trying to reclaim something that no longer exists. Healing begins when we allow that attachment to loosen, and let that imagined future finally pass instead of carrying it forward.

Munch on that for today. Have a great day, and come back tomorrow for another steaming hot plate of Thought Breakfast!

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Remember to stay mindful, smell the flowers, and take it easy.

Chef Ricky - Thought Breakfast