What does it mean to be “real”? For grieving children, becoming real is not a metaphor—it’s a lived experience of feeling safe, seen, and loved. When grief disrupts a child’s world, it doesn’t just cause emotional pain. It shifts their consciousness.
Grief pulls children into what some psychologists and quantum theorists describe as an “altered state of consciousness.” In this state—what I call experience consciousness—time feels different, emotions intensify, and reality becomes subjective, making how other people respond important. Children live in the now, often unable to articulate what they’re feeling but expressing it vividly through play, behavior, and energy.
The act of being seen in this altered state—gently observed without judgment—helps a child reconnect to their sense of self. Just as quantum physics tells us that observation brings particles into being, compassionate observation helps a child feel real. “Observation creates reality,” says biocentrism co-author Robert Lanza. For children, a loving gaze or quiet presence from a caring adult affirms their existence in a moment when they might feel invisible.
This process doesn’t require perfect words or expert techniques. What it does require is presence, attention, and a willingness to enter the child’s world—especially through play. Play is consciousness in motion. It’s how children create and process meaning, transforming grief into expression and despair into healing.
Grief work, then, becomes less about treatment and more about relationship. As the title of my book says, “Everything that happens is right” when we learn to move fluidly between emotional worlds. This fluid movement is a form of unconditional regard that honors the child’s inner experience without trying to fix or change it.
When we show up fully for children in grief—when we meet them where they are and reflect their emotional truth—they light up. Their eyes sparkle. They laugh. They play. They become real. In the end, our most powerful tool is not what we say or do. It is who we are when we truly see them.
Your unconditionally loving presence is the intervention.