It's OK That You're Not OK
Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn't Understand
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Summary
Grief is not a problem to be solved; it is love’s fiercest expression, insists Megan Devine in her transformative work, "It’s OK That You’re Not OK." Shattering the myths that grief is an illness needing a cure, Devine draws from her own heart-rending experience as a therapist who lost her partner in a tragic accident. Her book is a clarion call to honor grief as a sacred, albeit painful, journey. Through poignant stories and practical wisdom, Devine dismantles the unrealistic societal expectations of “moving on” and offers a compassionate framework for living alongside loss. For those who grieve and those who wish to support them, this guide provides tools to nurture resilience and empathy, celebrating the authenticity of each individual's path through the shadows of sorrow.
Introduction
When devastating loss enters your life, the world doesn't just change—it shatters into pieces you never knew existed. You find yourself navigating a landscape so foreign that your previous understanding of pain seems laughably inadequate. Yet everywhere you turn, well-meaning voices offer solutions for something that isn't meant to be solved, timelines for something that follows no schedule, and encouragement to "move on" from something that has fundamentally altered who you are. The truth that no one wants to acknowledge is both simple and profound: some experiences cannot be fixed, only carried. In a culture obsessed with healing and moving forward, there exists a revolutionary act of recognizing that your pain is not a problem requiring repair, but a testament to the depth of your love. This journey isn't about returning to who you were—that person no longer exists. Instead, it's about learning to companion yourself through the impossible terrain of loss, discovering that within the wreckage of your former life lies the possibility of a different kind of wholeness, one that honors both your pain and your capacity for continued love.
Understanding Grief: It's Not a Problem to Fix
Grief is not a medical condition requiring treatment, nor is it a temporary inconvenience to be quickly resolved. It is the natural, healthy response of a heart that has loved deeply and lost what it cannot bear to lose. Yet our culture treats grief as though it were a broken bone that must be reset, a disease that must be cured, or a puzzle that must be solved with the right combination of positive thinking and forward motion. Consider the story of Megan, a therapist who thought she understood grief until her partner Matt drowned on an ordinary summer day. Despite her professional training and years of helping others through emotional challenges, Matt's sudden death revealed an entirely different universe of pain. She discovered that none of her therapeutic tools, none of her carefully constructed understanding of emotional healing, applied to loss of this magnitude. When she reached out for support, she encountered the same platitudes and problem-solving approaches she had once believed were helpful. What Megan learned through her own devastating experience was that grief operates by entirely different rules than other forms of emotional distress. Grief doesn't respond to solutions because it isn't a problem—it's a process, as natural and necessary as breathing. When we approach grief as something to be fixed, we inadvertently add suffering to pain that is already unbearable. We create shame around a response that should be honored. The first step in living well with grief is recognizing it for what it truly is: love with nowhere to go. This recognition allows you to stop fighting against your own natural responses and instead create space for grief to exist without judgment. You begin to understand that your tears, your anger, your longing, and your disorientation are not signs of weakness or failure, but evidence of a heart that has been brave enough to love completely.
Supporting Yourself Through the Pain
Self-care in grief looks nothing like the gentle bubble baths and meditation retreats often prescribed for stress relief. When your world has been torn apart, caring for yourself becomes an act of radical defiance against a culture that would rather you quietly heal and return to normal. It requires learning the difference between pain that must be felt and suffering that can be eased. Sarah's story illustrates this distinction perfectly. After losing her young son in an accident, she found herself caught in relentless cycles of self-blame and "what if" scenarios that tortured her mind day and night. While her grief over losing her child was natural and necessary pain, the mental loops of self-recrimination were additional suffering she could address. She learned to recognize the difference between honoring her loss and punishing herself for circumstances beyond her control. Through gentle experimentation, Sarah discovered that certain activities helped reduce the unnecessary suffering while allowing her natural grief to flow. She found that writing letters to her son eased her need to maintain connection, while limiting news consumption prevented her anxiety from spiraling into overwhelming fear about other potential tragedies. These weren't cures for her grief—they were supports that made carrying her grief more manageable. The practice of self-compassion in grief begins with treating yourself as you would a beloved friend facing the same loss. This means speaking to yourself with kindness rather than criticism, allowing yourself to rest when exhaustion overwhelms you, and refusing to apologize for the time your heart needs to process this magnitude of change. It means creating boundaries with people who demand your emotional energy while giving little in return. Start by asking yourself one simple question each day: "What would kindness to myself look like right now?" The answer might be as basic as drinking water when you've forgotten to eat, or as significant as declining social obligations that feel too overwhelming. Trust that you know what you need, even when others insist they know better.
Building Your Circle of True Support
One of grief's cruelest revelations is how quickly you discover who in your life can truly companion you through darkness and who cannot. Loss has a way of rearranging your entire social world, often leaving you feeling more isolated just when you most need connection. The key to survival lies not in trying to educate everyone around you, but in identifying and nurturing relationships with those who can sit with your pain without needing to fix it. David learned this lesson painfully after his wife died suddenly from cancer. Friends he had known for decades either disappeared entirely or showed up with an endless stream of advice about how he should be grieving differently. Meanwhile, his neighbor—someone he barely knew beyond casual greetings—began quietly leaving homemade soup on his doorstep once a week, never knocking, never requiring acknowledgment or gratitude. This simple, consistent gesture of care without expectation became one of his strongest sources of support. The neighbor understood intuitively what David's longtime friends could not grasp: that presence matters more than words, consistency more than grand gestures, and acceptance more than advice. She never asked how he was doing or suggested ways he might feel better. Instead, she simply showed up, week after week, with tangible evidence that someone was thinking of him. Building your circle of true support means learning to distinguish between people who want to help you and people who want to feel helpful. The first group will ask what you need and respect your answers. The second group will tell you what you need and become frustrated when you don't appreciate their efforts. Give your precious emotional energy only to those who earn it through their willingness to learn how to love you well in this transformed life. Start by having honest conversations with the people closest to you about what helps and what doesn't. Many people genuinely want to support you but simply don't know how. Those who respond with openness and willingness to adjust their approach are worth investing in. Those who become defensive or dismissive when you share your needs have told you everything you need to know about their capacity to support you.
Moving Forward with Love as Your Guide
Moving forward after profound loss doesn't mean leaving your grief behind or returning to who you were before. It means learning to carry both your love and your loss as you build a life that honors what has been broken while remaining open to what might still be possible. This is neither the triumphant recovery our culture demands nor the eternal despair it fears, but something far more complex and beautiful. Rachel's journey exemplifies this delicate balance. Five years after her teenage daughter's death in a car accident, she found herself facing a choice about whether to pursue a new romantic relationship. The guilt felt overwhelming—how could she open her heart to new love when her daughter would never experience first love, marriage, or children of her own? Yet gradually, Rachel realized that loving again wasn't a betrayal of her daughter's memory but rather a testament to her daughter's influence on her capacity for love. She began to understand that healing didn't require forgetting or minimizing her loss. Instead, it meant expanding her heart to hold both grief and joy, loss and possibility, the past she cherished and the future she couldn't yet imagine. She learned to speak about her daughter in present tense, keeping her memory alive in conversations while also allowing space for new experiences and relationships to develop. Moving forward with love as your guide means making decisions based not on what others expect of you, but on what honors both your loss and your continued existence in this world. It means refusing to choose between remembering and living, between honoring the past and embracing whatever future unfolds. Love becomes your compass, helping you navigate choices about work, relationships, where to live, and how to spend your time. The practice begins with small daily decisions made from love rather than fear, obligation, or others' expectations. Ask yourself: "What would love have me do right now?" Sometimes love will guide you toward rest and solitude. Other times it will encourage you toward connection or new experiences. Trust that your heart, even in its brokenness, knows the way forward.
Summary
The path through devastating loss cannot be mapped by anyone but you, walked by anyone but you, or completed according to anyone else's timeline but your own. What this journey offers is not the restoration of your former life, but the possibility of building something entirely new from the wreckage—a life that honors both your capacity for deep love and your resilience in the face of profound loss. As one who has walked this path observes, "Some things cannot be fixed. They can only be carried." Your task is not to heal from your grief but to learn to carry it with grace, surrounded by those who understand that your pain is not a problem requiring their solutions but a sacred space requiring their witness. Begin today by offering yourself the same compassion you would give to anyone facing the impossible, and trust that love—in all its forms—will light the way forward.
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By Megan Devine
