The dominant experience is sadness, explains Bonanno, in a podcast interview with Dr. David Van Nuys, and there are also some other emotions.Theres anger, sometimes contempt, or shame, where people are having all kinds of memories and difficult experiences.So rather than this elaborate, steady state of months of deep sadness, its really much more of an in and out kind of an oscillatory state, and this sadness is punctuated at times by positive states and smiling, laughter and connection to other people. For many people, says Bonanno, these periods of sadnessgradually get less intense.

Bittersweet by Susan Cain