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

by Megan Devine

When we’re afraid of loss, we cling to a system of right and wrong, of well and unwell, to safeguard our connections to those we love. We think barricading ourselves against pain and suffering will help us survive. Our deeply embedded aversion to pain and hardship—to acknowledging pain and hardship—keeps us from what we most want: safety. Safety in the form of love, connection, and kinship. We defend ourselves against losing it, but in doing so, we keep ourselves from living it. The tricky thing is, true survival never exists in a world where we have to lie about our own hearts, or pretend we’re more in control than we are. It just makes us desperately more anxious and more rabid in our attempts to make everything work out in the end. The most efficient and effective way to be “safe” in this world is to stop denying that hard and impossible things happen. Telling the truth allows us to connect, to fully enter the experience of another and feel with them. Real safety is in entering each other’s pain, recognizing ourselves inside it. As one of my oldest teachers used to say, poignancy is kinship. It’s evidence of connection. 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.