It's OK That You're Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn't Understand

by Megan Devine

There are losses that rearrange the world.

When you are broken, the correct response is to be broken.

The cult of positivity we have does everyone a disservice.

Unaddressed and unacknowledged pain doesn’t go away. It attempts to be heard in any way it can, often manifesting in substance addiction, anxiety and depression, and social isolation.

The amount of pain in the world is staggering, and we work hard not to see it.

Hard, painful, terrible things happen. That is the nature of being alive, here in this world. Not everything works out; everything doesn’t happen for a reason. The real path here, the real way forward, is not in denying that irredeemable pain exists, but by acknowledging that it does. By becoming a culture strong enough to bear witness to pain, when pain is what is. By sticking together inside what hurts. By opening ourselves to one another’s pain, knowing that this, too, could be us the next time around.

That we hurt for each other shows our relatedness. Our limbic systems, our hearts, and our bodies are made for this; we long for that connection.

That you see your own potential for grief and loss in someone else’s grief? That’s beautiful. Poignancy is kinship.

Finding safety means to come together, with open hearts and a willing curiosity about everything we experience: love, joy, optimism, fear, loss, and heartbreak.

The real cutting edge of growth and development is in hurting with each other. It’s in companionship, not correction. Acknowledgment—being seen and heard and witnessed inside the truth about one’s own life—is the only real medicine of grief.

A place that doesn’t ask us to deny our grief and doesn’t doom us forever. A place that honors the full breadth of grief, which is really the full breadth of love.

If we continue to come at them as though they are problems to be solved, we’ll never get solace or comfort in our deepest pain.

Coming to your own broken heart with a sense of respect and reverence honors your reality.

Continuing to show up, continuing to look for support inside your pain, when all the world tries to tell you it’s a problem, is an act of fierce self-love and tenacity.

Grief is not a sign that you’re unwell or unevolved. It’s a sign that love has been part of your life, and that you want love to continue, even here.

But words are all we have, all I have, to reach you in this place. Please know that I’m aware of how impossible this is, how none of my words will really change anything.

Telling the story of this loss over and over—it’s like we’re looking for an alternate ending. A loophole.

It is an immense relief to be able to tell your story without someone trying to fix it. The trees will not ask, “How are you really?” and the wind doesn’t care if you cry.

everyday life is full of reminders and grief land mines that the non-grieving wouldn’t even think of.

When someone you love dies, you don’t just lose them in the present or in the past. You lose the future you should have had, and might have had, with them.

Whatever the relationship, seeing evidence of those same relationships going on in the rest of the world is brutal, and unfair, and impossible to withstand.

Someone asked me the other day if I thought my stepson had “processed” his dad’s death, or if it continues to affect him. How can it not continue to affect him? His dad is still dead.

“This hurts, and it’s OK to feel it.”

All emotion is a response to something.

Love with open hands, with an open heart, knowing that what is given to you will die. It will change. Love anyway. You will witness incredible pain in this life. Love anyway.

Insightful, self-reflective people tend to be far harder on themselves than other folks.

the mind is the root of suffering.

The way to come to pain is with open eyes, and an open heart, committed to bearing witness to your own broken place. It won’t fix anything. And it changes everything.

“Worrying about what has not happened is not useful. If something bad does happen, you will deal with it then.

Your mind becomes an exquisite torture chamber.

The brain is an internal problem-solving survival mechanism. It’s beautiful.

practice making your exhale longer than your inhale.

sleep, eat, rest, move. Addressing these physical needs first can actually reduce a lot of your anxiety.

Right now, as far as I know, everything is fine. If a challenge arises—of any kind—I trust myself to respond with skill. If there’s something I don’t know how to do, I trust that I’ll ask for help.

You cannot manifest death or health or loss or grief just by thinking about it.

Your thoughts did not create this loss.

What would kindness to self look like in response to your anxiety?

Pain, like love, needs expression.

Take another breath, and on the exhale, imagine you ask your pain this question: “Who are you?” or “Tell me who you are . . .”

Your life, and your grief, are a work in progress. There is no need to be finished.

There is only you, and the story of the love—and the loss—that brought you here. Find ways to tell your story.

a scar that I wear on my soul.

We are changed by things that happen in our lives.

We are changed by our new realities. We exist at the edge of becoming. We don’t recover. We don’t move on. We don’t return to normal. That is an impossible request.

That the devastation of your loss will always exist is not the same as saying you are “eternally broken.” It is saying we are made of love and scars, of healing and grace, of patience. Of being changed, by each other, by the world, by life. Evidence of loss can always be seen, if we only know how to look. The life that comes from this point on is built atop everything that came before: the destruction, the hopelessness, the life that was and might have been.

Caring for each other is hard. It’s all such a mess, at times. The important thing to remember is that we don’t need you to be perfect.

No matter how many times people tell you they’re here for you, no matter how well they are here for you, no one can “do” grief with you. No one can enter into your true mind and heart and be there with you. It’s not just semantics.

Everything is welcome in a community of loss. We know we’re alone, and we’re not alone in that.

after a loss of this magnitude, the world is split between those who know and those who do not.

What’s important is that you find a place where your loss is valued and honored and heard.