Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth

When grief enters someone’s life, it often disrupts identity. Many people describe feeling unfamiliar to themselves: “I don’t know who I am without this person,” “Everything I thought I understood about myself changed overnight,” or “The roles I used to carry don’t fit anymore.” Tolle refers to this as the dissolution of the old self — not as a loss of value, but as a point of profound awakening.

In clinical practice, this often shows up in ways that feel deeply human:

• A parent who devoted their life to caregiving suddenly feels unanchored after a child’s diagnosis changes, a treatment ends, or a loss occurs.

• A person going through the break-up of a long-term relationship struggles with the identity of “partner,” “caregiver,” or “future planner” that no longer exists in the same way.

• Someone grieving the death of a parent wrestles with old childhood patterns resurfacing — perfectionism, self-blame, emotional withdrawal — what Tolle would describe as the “pain-body” being activated by stress and memory.

• A student far from home feels a sudden intensification of loneliness around the holidays and realizes how many of their coping strategies were tied to familiar routines, community, and belonging.

These experiences are not signs of weakness. They are indicators that the ground beneath the familiar self has shifted. And while this shift can feel destabilizing, it is also where healing begins.

At This Thing Called Grief, our work is to help individuals differentiate between what belongs to their lived loss and what belongs to old patterns — the beliefs or emotional reactions shaped long before the grief itself. Through presence-based, trauma-informed support, clients learn to notice their thoughts and reactions rather than be consumed by them. This is the opening that Tolle describes: awareness as the first step toward a new way of being.

This process is not about “moving on” or returning to who you were before. It is about integrating your experience, expanding your understanding of yourself, and allowing new meaning and identity to take shape. Grief reshapes us, often in ways we never expected, and support can simply offer steadiness and perspective as you navigate what is unfolding.

If you are navigating grief, transition, or the unfamiliar territory of becoming someone new after loss, a small space of connection can make a meaningful difference.

To learn more about our services or to book a brief consultation:

This Thing Called Grief

100 Collip Circle, Suite 245, London, Ontario

thisthingcalledgrief@gmail.com