The 5 Stages of Grief | Illustrated Through the Story of a Fish 🐟

Have you ever Googled "the 5 stages of grief" at two in the morning and read the list, and still felt completely lost inside your own loss? This talk is about those five stages. Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. And why moving through them feels nothing like a checklist. I'm going to walk you through all five stages, but I'm going to do it through the story of a loss that some of you are going to laugh at. And some of you are going to understand completely. Because a loss is a loss. And the feelings are the same. Whether you're here because you lost a parent, a child, a partner, a friend, a pet, or a relationship that ended before you were ready... this talk is for you. Especially if you're stuck in that bargaining loop where your mind keeps going back to all the "what ifs," replaying everything you could have done differently, as if finding the right answer would somehow bring them back. You'll understand why denial feels like protection. Why anger is actually part of love. Why bargaining is the stage no one fully explains. And why acceptance doesn't mean you've stopped missing them. It means something else entirely. 💛 Stay human. Stay messy.