As life happens, so do very difficult things. For me, this feels fresh, and as I move through heartbreak, I notice both what works and what does not. In these moments—particularly in American secular culture—we are bad at being with suffering and tend to rely on the old tagline: “Tell me how I can help.”

This, of course, is a generous sentiment but may need to be removed from our repertoire. I don’t know anyone in pain who knows how to answer this question well, and so it lands hollow—or worse, performative. The last thing I am able to do when struggling is be decisive and know what I need or want—let alone be able to ask another person for that thing. It’s all too much. It’s all too vulnerable.

It’s better to try to put yourself in their shoes (most of us know this baffling feeling and touching into that place may be the best guide for your brand of helping). Show up. Make food. Say how helpless you feel to help. Even acknowledging the depth of feeling feels sacred and tender. There is no moving grief much by anything but time.

A dear friend sent me a beautiful piece of writing on grief and so I want to copy that here, both to share and to remember myself, in hopes of it becoming etched in my heart for the next time it gets broken:

“Many years ago, when I worked as a clinical director in substance use treatment, I always wondered why in the ‘Serenity Prayer’, grief was never mentioned. Most of what we endure, overcome, or accept, comes with deep grief in some way. It’s the unnamed bridge we must cross. Because, you cannot genuinely accept what you’ve lost without grieving it first.

This applies to all our losses.

And, there’s a very particular kind of grief that lives in the space between fighting and accepting. It doesn’t always announce itself with tears or rage, or any fanfare, really. It moves quietly within us, like fog settling into valleys before dawn.

Sure, we call it “acceptance”, but I understand that word feels too clean, too final… because acceptance isn’t a destination you arrive at once and stay forever.
It’s something you do again and again, in different rooms of your life, on different days, wearing different versions of yourself.

The grief of accepting things you cannot change, is about the monumental strength required to stop breaking yourself against immovable things. To release your grip on the rope you’ve been pulling for months, years, Maybe a lifetime. Your hands are tired. Your heart is tired.

Here’s what they don’t tell you: accepting what you cannot change doesn’t mean you stop wishing it could have. It means you’re finally brave (maybe exhausted) enough to redirect your finite, precious energy toward what can still grow.
Toward what still asks for your attention, tending to.
Toward yourself.
This kind of grief is holy.
It means you cared enough to fight, and now you’re honoring yourself enough to let it rest.
Some doors close.
Some stories end mid-sentence.
Some people and things stay exactly who and what they are.
Some situations don’t have a resolution we may wish for.
But, it doesn’t mean you have to carry the weight, and pain of it forever.

This [Instagram] post is just a jumping off point in exploring the possibility that you can heal/work through/understand differently, something that’s held you in a painful place for far too long. And, that’s a really powerful new path to explore, with your own pace, in your own time…” -Gina Moffa, LCSW (https://ginamoffa.com/)