Laura

“Let your pain stretch out, take up all the space it needs. When so many others tell you that your grief has to be cleaned up or contained, hearing that it has enough room to spread out, to unfurl, it’s healing. It’s a relief. The more you open to your pain, the more you can just be with it. The more you can give yourself the tenderness and care to survive this. Your pain needs space; room to unfold.”
― Megan Devine, It's OK That You're Not OK

“That hole torn in the universe will not just close back up so that you can go back to normal. No matter what happens next in your life, it will never be adequate compensation. The life you lost can’t come back. That loss can’t be regained. By definition then, there is absolutely no point in time when you will “recover” from such a loss. And that makes it tricky. If there is no “healing” in terms of being as good as new, if we can’t “recover” any more than someone who has lost their legs can simply will them to grow back, how do we go on?”
― Megan Devine, It's OK That You're Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn't Understand

“They want the “old” you back, not understanding that that old you can’t come back. That self is gone.”
― Megan Devine, It's OK That You're Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn't Understand

“Our culture sees grief as a kind of malady: a terrifying, messy emotion that needs to be cleaned up and put behind us as soon as possible. As a result, we have outdated beliefs around how long grief should last and what it should look like. We see it as something to overcome, something to fix, rather than something to tend or support. Even our clinicians are trained to see grief as a disorder rather than a natural response to deep loss. When the professionals don’t know how to handle grief, the rest of us can hardly be expected to respond with skill and grace.”
― Megan Devine, It's OK That You're Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn't Understand