First of all, I’m so sorry for your loss. I really hope you can find meaning in this situation and use it as a way of learning what you want more of in life.

I think the goal right now is for you to live a good life, one in which you’re the kind of person that you want to be.

When you say that you “try to sit with [your] feelings as they happen”, I’m really glad that you’re doing that. It’s not easy. But the alternative causes much more suffering and doesn’t teach you what’s meaningful in your life. Also, when you say that “[you’re] in therapy”, I’m also glad. Therapy, when it’s good, makes accepting hard realities easier.

I have also gone through losses and had nightmares immediately after the loss. In fact, this happened to me in November 2025. The night after my loss I woke up breathing intensely. My eyes were wet, almost as if I was crying while asleep. I woke up in the middle of a gasp, as if I was about to start screaming. It sucked.

Eventually, I was able to sleep normally again. And, as you mentioned, everyone is different.

There are things that you can do, but I want to emphasize something that you probably already know: the pain cannot magically go away. Why? Because you cared about her. Because now that she isn’t here, you’re reconstructing your self, your expectations, and your everyday life. And that reconstruction process is painful. As you rebuild these parts, the pain will gradually go away. But trying to avoid it will cause more suffering.

I will not dwell in this point, because you already know it. Instead let’s talk about what you can do.

You can actually work on accepting this new reality. You can be deliberate about it. I tend to suggest acceptance and commitment therapy exercises. They are evidence-based and they have worked for me and countless others. You can find some exercises here.

However, in my experience, not all exercises are the same. Some are more powerful for me. In particular, I think there’s a massive difference between experiential exercises and merely verbal exercises. The experiential ones are more transformative for me.

Which experiential exercises would I recommend? There’s a couple in Steven C. Hayes’ book A Liberated Mind:

• In defusion, there’s “Look at it as an object”.
• In acceptance and self, there’s “Applying Perspective-Taking to Acceptance”.
• In presence there’s good ol’ mindfulness, which will definitely help you right now.
• In values there’s “values writing” and “flipping pain into purpose”. Both will help you learn from this experience and help you take steps towards living the kind of life that you want to live.

In that same book, there’s an example of someone who had nightmares with a dinosaur. ACT helped them deal with those nightmares.

As always, I want to say that not everyone clicks with ACT and there are many ways of accepting tough situations and committing to who we want to become.

I hope this is helpful and feel free to ask questions.

If you’re a hug person, I send you a big ol’ hug via Lemmy. I also wish the best for you.