It’s okay to be not okay, and it’s okay to be okay, and it’s okay to be both

Grief is highly personal and different for every person and every relationship. Whether you are grieving the death of a loved one, or you are facing your own death, or you are simply grappling with the nature of mortality, grief can arise with its many emotions. They are all valid. However you feel, it is valid and it is okay to feel how you feel.  

Let me repeat: however you feel, it is okay to feel how you feel.

We most commonly associate negative emotions with grief. Fear. Anxiety. Guilt. Anger. Loneliness. Heartache. And much more. These emotions can be debilitating, feeling as if you are stuck and alone, and that your feelings or situation are permanent. So dark can the dark be, that even the thought of light can be elusive.

Here this now: 

Your feelings are valid. Although your emotions feel negative, they are born out of love. Love for the person that love was embodied in. Love for yourself. Love for life itself. And it is okay. It is okay to feel sad. It is okay to feel guilt and anger and loneliness and every other challenging emotion you might feel. It is okay to be not okay. Feeling such emotions is part of the process of healthy grieving. Don’t deny or suppress or hide from them. Feel them in their entirety, for they are actually your love.

It’s okay to be not okay. 

Sometimes, even more challenging than emotions we consider negative, are emotions we consider positive. These include happiness, joy, serenity, gratitude and excitement. Positive emotions such as these are also common in the grieving process. Too often, when such emotions arise we feel guilty for having them. Guilty for not being sad and distraught, or for not being only sad and distraught. Or we worry about how others will perceive us if we do not feel or appear somber or broken. We worry that somehow feeling positive emotions means we don’t care, don’t love, or that we are in denial, or that we are not grieving properly.

Here this now: 

Your feelings are valid. Feeling positive emotions during the grieving process is normal and healthy. If you are grieving for someone else, you may be remembering the many shared moments of laughter and joy and delight and curiosity you shared with that person. They brought you happiness while alive - how amazing that they continue to bring you happiness after their death! You may also be noticing within yourself how many lessons you learned and how much growth you found because of your relationship. You are stronger, clearer, more diverse and more capable because of your relationship. It is okay to feel into these emotions, to remember the goodness of the past and to feel the goodness of this moment. 

If you are grieving for your own upcoming death, it also normal and healthy to feel optimistic, joyous or curious about life and death. Put aside any guilt you feel. You don’t need it and it need not be welcome. Embrace your positive emotions. Laugh, play, sing and cry beautiful tears. It is healthy and it is okay. 

If you feel from others that your positive emotions are not okay, that you should be grieving in some other way, understand that what you are receiving is that person’s own fear and insecurity, often born out of what they were taught by others. They have not yet understood and accepted the complexity of grief, and of human emotion in general, so they project onto you. They want you to fit into a box that they understand and feel comfortable with. Know that these projections are not yours and you need not take them in. 

It’s okay to be okay. 

Perhaps most of all, know that it is normal and healthy for you to experience a wide range of fluctuating emotions. It’s okay to be light and joyous one day, sad and deflated the next, angry the next, silly the next, or any combination of emotions that may last from mere seconds to many weeks. There may also be times where you feel both positive and negative emotions at once. Optimism and pessimism at once. Guilt and humor. Bittersweet tears. A rainbow within you. It is all valid, and it is all okay. 

For those around you, these fluctuations may be the most challenging for them to accept. They may have a preconceived notion of how you should be feeling (usually this is negative emotions), and they may desire that you feel consistent emotions. For example: if you are feeling optimistic and upbeat about a terminal diagnosis, they may not understand why you are not sad and depressed, as they project that they themselves would be in your situation. Conversely, if you feel alone and depressed, they may want you to stay in that mode as it is easier for them to relate to you. Know that this desire on their part is born from one of two causes, or from both: it is either an expression of their love for you that they want to know how to best engage with and support you, which is easier when you are in a known and consistent state, and/or it is their own fear and incapacity to engage with the depth and complexity of human emotions, which can be at their peak during times of grieving. 

Here this now:

Your job right now is not to make life easier for those around you. Of course you want to be considerate and loving, but your primary job is to process your grief, and that is best done by fully experiencing the range of emotions, positive and negative, that will come and go in any combination. It is all okay. It is all healthy.

It’s okay to be both okay and not okay. 

Lastly, know that there is no normal amount of time to greave. Without feeling pressure of any kind, from yourself or anyone else, the only measure should be whether you feel you are making healthy progress, and this should only be evaluated over long periods of time. I recommend no less than monthly. Evaluating too often can lead you to feel either that progress is not being made, when it is but more slowly than you are measuring, or that more progress has been made than in actuality, which can also be problematic. 

Lean towards whatever assists you making what you consider healthy progress. Push away, as possible, whatever hinders you. The fact you are reading these words means you recognize progress is possible. It is. And you are doing great.