Navigating No-Contact During Grief: How I Held My Boundaries After Loss

Apr 27
5 min read

Grief doesn't arrive neatly.

It crashes into you — blinding, brutal — especially when you’re navigating not just loss, but old wounds too.

It’s been almost two months since my father passed.

In the blur of those first days, I wasn’t just mourning him.

I was facing the almost unbearable reality of navigating no-contact during grief — holding a boundary I'd fought hard to build, even when everything in me wanted to collapse.

Black and white moody portrait of Toni Keniston looking thoughtfully to the side. Her long dark hair falls around her face, and her arm shows visible tattoos. The lighting creates deep shadows, emphasizing emotion and reflection.

The Decision I Wasn’t Ready to Make: No Contact vs. Grief

As my sisters gathered around our mother, I was immediately faced with a choice I wasn’t ready to make:

Should I reach out to her?

He wasn’t just my father.

He was her husband of 39.5 years.

Surely, if there was ever a moment to break a boundary, it was this one.

But almost immediately, her familiar manipulative patterns began.

Family members reached out to tell me she was "worried about me," that she was "always open" to me calling her. She made sure everyone knew she was trying — painting the story that it was me who wasn’t.

None of it was real.

She never asked to see me. Never made a real effort.

(And even after we saw each other later, she never once asked if I was okay after losing my dad.)

Still, I wrestled:

What kind of person doesn’t call her mother after something like this?

What does that make me?

The deeper truth was this: if I called her, it wouldn’t heal anything. Nothing would get fixed.

It would cost me something I wasn’t willing to lose — my trust in myself.

This is one of the brutal realities of no-contact during grief: every part of you aches to reach across the divide, even when history tells you it’s not safe.

When Old Patterns Call You Back

I allowed myself time to sit in the discomfort of those questions.

It's important to know: I am a recovering codependent.

It’s not something you "fix." It’s something you live with — an impulse you learn to navigate.

My reflex will always be to ignore what I need to tend to the needs of others, collateral damage of my childhood.

For a long time, I thought codependency was only about toxic romantic attachment. It’s not.

In me, it manifests as a deep compulsion to make everyone else okay first — believing that if they’re happy, maybe I can be too.

In my grief, all my old habits roared to the surface.

They wanted to be the lifeboat I clung to.

But this time, I reached for something else:

the boundaries I had built in calmer waters, when I could see clearly.

Boundaries made not to punish, but to protect.

Choosing Boundaries in the Eye of the Storm

intage black and white photograph of Toni Keniston's father holding her as a newborn baby in the hospital. He smiles softly at the camera, wearing hospital scrubs and a surgical cap, cradling his daughter tenderly in his arms.

I hunkered down. I waited.

The intensity of losing my father was overwhelming, and every decision felt rushed.

Deep down, I knewI would only be calling to:

appease my mother, or

to make life easier for my sisters.

Neither reason was enough to abandon myself again.

So I stayed strong.

I held the line — even as fights erupted over my “disrespect.”

My sisters, impossibly understanding, supported me by remaining neutral and steady in the face of conflict. They held me in unconditional and unwavering love as I did the scary part and choose myself.

For a few days, it felt like it would never end.

But it did.

The storm clouds lifted.

I could breathe again. Think again.

When Grief Softens and Shapes You

Since my father passed away while working in Sarasota, Florida, we had to retrieve his belongings.

Within days, the four of us girls flew in from all over the country to pack his things and drive his truck home. It was a once in a lifetime experience with them.

That trip changed me.

It softened me.

It made me crave the tenderness of family — something I had spent most of my life insulating myself against.

I didn’t speak to my mother while we were there collecting his things, still refusing to abandon my boundaries. We sisters navigated it with grace and caution, passing information through others, quietly stepping out of rooms when needed.

In therapy, and with my sister’s help, I found clarity in the days following.

I had to ask myself:

What do I actually want?

After Sarasota, I knew beyond a fathomable doubt:

I wanted to attend the funeral fully, not hide in the back and slink away once it was done.

I wanted to honor my healing.

I wanted to stand in integrity, not resentment.

It was no longer about them.

It was about me.

And that changed everything.

Moving Through Grief with Integrity

Toni Keniston smiling with her father, both standing together in a warmly lit living room. Her father wears a blue Carhartt hoodie and black cap, and Toni wears a white sherpa jacket with glasses. The background features modern minimalist artwork and a cozy home setting.

In the days leading up to the funeral, I saw it clearly:

Losing my father was a collision of the Fixed and Fated Fields.

Grief is not something we manifest away.

It is written into the human experience.

But within that fixed terrain, there is still a choice — the choice of how we move through it.

The Fluid Field.

I couldn't change death.

I couldn't change my family's dynamics.

But I could choose how I showed up.

What I believed.

What I built, even in the middle of sorrow.

I stopped trying to control all the strings to avoid discomfort.

Discomfort was inevitable.

Freedom came when I allowed myself to flow with it — not fight it.

This is the power of the Fluid Field:

Not to change everything.

Not to heal everything.

But to move with life itself.

I chose my tools wisely: therapy, medication, friends, spiritual practice.

I let go of control.

I trusted myself to navigate moment-by-moment.

And because of that, I was able to get exactly what I wanted from the weekend:

a peaceful, shared grieving of the man we all loved — including, carefully, alongside my mother.

When Grief and Estrangement Collide: Final Reflections

Grief didn't erase my boundaries.

It reaffirmed them.

Loss didn’t break me open to pain alone.

It broke me open to freedom, too.

If you're navigating no-contact during grief, know this:

You are not wrong for protecting yourself.

You are not selfish for surviving.

You are allowed to honor your story, even when the world demands otherwise.

If you’re ready to explore how your own Fixed, Fated, and Fluid Fields shape the way you move through life, Fieldwork was made for you.

Inside Fieldwork, we navigate the realities we cannot change — and learn to move through them with strength, self-trust, and sovereignty.

Learn more about Fieldwork here.

You deserve to move forward in your own time, on your own terms.

And you don’t have to do it alone.

Join my email list for your FREE Fieldwork Diagnostic and learn to navigate the field with confidence.

Promotional graphic for Fieldwork by Toni Keniston featuring a woman standing in tall golden grass with ethereal designs overlaying the image. On the right side, a preview of the Free Field Map resource is displayed, offering a guide to decoding the Fixed, Fluid, and Fated Fields.