How to Answer “How Are You?” in Grief: 20 Truthful, Boundaried, and Protective Options

Photo by BETZY AROSEMENA on Unsplash

Recently, I received a thoughtful, timeless question from Claire, one of my students inside Life After Loss Academy.

It might be one of the most frequently shared dilemmas I hear from grieving people:

“Hi Shelby, I would appreciate your thoughts on something I keep encountering. When people I don’t know very well, like work colleagues, greet me, they often say, ‘How are you?’

If I was being completely true and honest to myself at the moment, I would say, ‘I’m bro...