I've been thinking about grief a lot lately.
Not that that's necessarily new for me. And I know I've written about grief here before.
But I think that's actually the thing with grief...it's not a "one and done" thing.
It repeats. Circles back. Shows up again and again, even if it—or you—might look or feel different within it each time.
While all emotions and experiences hold incredible nuance, fluidity, and complexity, I often find that "grief" and "non-linear" are so intimately connected they're almost the same thing.
And we largely don't have a lot of good systems or support to navigate grief.
When others experience it, we can feel awkward. We don't know what to say or do.
When we feel it, it can wash over our entire lives. Show up unexpectedly. Live in our bodies as a chaotic mixture of anger, fear, regret, frustration, emptiness...or a sometimes confusing both/and of sadness and gratitude, sorrow and celebration.
We hold grief in our bodies. It can impact our internal systems, our health, our sensations.
And yet, we're often just expected to pick up, move on, be productive, heal as soon as you possibly can.
The thing with grief is that "healing" doesn't necessarily look like the absence of it.
There often isn't an end point to reach. Usually, it's a journey to be on.
A journey that perhaps we wouldn't have chosen, if we had the choice.
Partly, I think, the work is in getting to know the grief. Where it lives in the body. What sensations it brings up. How we can nurture ourselves around it.
It shapes us. And we shape it.
And, grieving is not meant to happen in isolation. But how things often are set up, that's what we end up doing.
The saying that's gone around a lot lately, "It's ok to not be ok," is all well and good, except that if that's going to be true (and I fully believe it is), we need systems that actually honor that not ok-ness.
And while that's a bigger dream we're still building, in the meantime, I hope that you're able to honor your grief with radical tenderness.
I hope that you remember that grief ebbs and flows like water, shifts its shape, rushes and settles and rushes again.
It is all ok, and valid, and important.
Because it's your unique lived experience, as you partner with your grief along this journey.
And also, you are not alone in it.
Grief is both wholly individualized and also deeply collective.
It is an experience felt by those before us and beside us.
And, I think, allowing more space to speak to, process, and honor grief can help us to connect more with what it has taught us.
What it will continue to teach us.
And how we can find the ways to move through it and with it, together.
Grief has no expiration date