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

by Megan Devine

Reexamine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul.

Grieving people are met with impatience precisely because they are failing the cultural storyline of overcoming adversity. If you don’t “transform,” if you don’t find something beautiful inside this, you’ve failed.

We want to believe we have control. To maintain this belief, we’ve created—and sustained—an entire culture based on a magical thinking continuum: think the right thoughts, do the right things, be evolved/nonattached/optimistic/faithful enough and everything will be OK. In chapter 3, we talked about the cultural storyline of redemption and transformation. That, too, is part of this survival safety mechanism.

pain in the hearts of most activists. It’s as if we are afraid the full force of our sadness would render us mute, powerless, and unable to go on. That unacknowledged pain results in burnout, disconnection, and a distinct lack of empathy for others who hold seemingly opposing views.

We can never change the reality of pain. But we can reduce so much suffering when we allow each other to speak what is true, without putting a gag order on our hearts.

Love with open hands, with an open heart, knowing that what is given to you will die. It will change. Love anyway.