When my therapist or friends or family members met me inside the depths of my sadness or rage or confusion and didn’t try to fix me, the connection we shared in those dark places deepened our relationships with each other.

Loss is brutal... Grief is agonizing ... and when you’re grieving, everyone has an opinion about how you’re supposed to make your way through the experience of loss. #Yourgriefisyourown #DEEPtherapist

What is true is that our society is #death-phobic, and our collective fear of facing death and loss perpetuates some hurtful #falsehoods about grief, like “grief takes a certain amount of time,” or you need to do specific “grief work” to be okay.

I believe that every millimeter any of us can move the needle toward making this world a more #compassionate, grief-literate place #MATTERS!

#Accurate information about working with #grief from a perspective of nonjudgmental acceptance is almost impossible to find.

In the humility of accepting your helplessness [with loss], you’ll be able to join with your friend in the darkness of the pain that simply is. #connection #grief #deeptherapist

It is not sufficient that empathy, care, love, or help be given: to work their potent magic, they must be taken in. For empathy to count, the client must receive and experience that empathy. #DEEPtherapist #empathy #experience #connection

Disappointment can manifest with the other feelings like outrage, longing, despair, etc. and it helps to understand that those emotions are flavors of disappointment as well as of bereftness. #grief #disappointment #healing #trueself #wellbeing #goodtherapy #emotion #deeptherapy

I believe that every millimeter any of us can move the needle toward making this world a more #compassionate, grief-literate place #MATTERS!

Yes, #loneliness is painful. Yet, if the emotion of loneliness is expressed and understood, the pain might be intense and long-lasting, but health problems don’t arise. It’s when we’re left alone with loneliness that problems arise. That is, when no one understands our loneliness

In my personal and professional experience, if you don’t name&soothe what you’re really feeling, all the tools are simply band-aids. We all need band-aids when we’re bleeding. But we also need help to see the #wounds clearly, so we can accurately tend to them and help them heal.

Needing Help Is #Normal This healing journey through the darkness is long and hard and at times unbearable. So we need help. - We need #support from loved ones and community to reassure us they will be with us as #long as it takes.

Every single one of us will experience #loss. It’s part of being alive; part of being #human. #Grief, as painful as it is, is a natural force that is wired into us because the #wound of loss is so great.

Somehow, we'll find it. The balance between whom we wish to be and whom we need to be. But for now, we simply have to be satisfied with who we are.
― Brandon Sanderson buff.ly/3Yrci6B

We have no name for the sharp prick of gratitude that pierces the heart in the midst of sorrow. The devastation itself is not beautiful. But the beating heart at the middle of the anguish is a blessed, living thing that continues to pulse, to love, even through the worst of times