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

by Megan Devine

Spiritual practices in any tradition, including mindfulness in its many forms, are meant to help you live what is yours to live, not make you rise above it. These tools are meant to help you feel companioned inside your grief. They’re meant to give you a tiny bit of breathing room inside what is wholly unbearable. That’s not at all the same thing as making your pain go away. Rather than help us rise above being human, teachings in any true tradition help us become more human: more connected, not less attached. So much of what we now call spiritual bypass is the age-old split between the head and the heart—trying to surpass being human by becoming more intellectual. We do this because being human hurts. It hurts because we love. Because we are connected to those around us, and it’s painful when they die. It hurts when we lose what we love. Being a spiritually minded person makes you more open to pain and suffering and hardship—which are all parts of love.