Grief Is Not Your Enemy

Grief has a way of sneaking in quietly,
like smoke beneath a door you thought you'd sealed shut.

You’re laughing with a friend.
You’re folding laundry.
You’re scrolling social media—
and suddenly there it is. That tightness in your throat.
That unexpected tear.
That ache you can’t quite name.

Maybe you’ve tried to shove it down.
Maybe someone told you that you shouldn’t feel grief.
That it was your choice, after all.
That you should be fine by now.

But here’s what I’ve learned:

Grief isn’t your enemy.
It’s a gate.

A gate to your depth.
To your tenderness.
To the parts of you still longing to be seen, held, and honored.

You don’t grieve because you’re weak.
You grieve because you love.
Because you feel.
Because something sacred happened—and your soul knows it deserves to be witnessed.

Grief is not here to punish you.
It’s here to guide you.
To walk you through the landscape of your experience
so you can begin to reclaim yourself on the other side.

Let it come.

Let the tears rise.
Let the anger speak.
Let the numbness thaw.

Grief isn’t trying to trap you.
It’s trying to set you free.

Not in a single moment, but in slow, spiraling waves.

When you honor your grief, you honor your humanity.
You honor the complexity of what it meant to make that choice.
And you give yourself permission to heal—not just from what happened,
but from the silence and shame that followed.

Grief doesn’t mean you regret your decision.
It means you're human.

And healing begins when we stop fighting our humanity
and start listening to what it’s been trying to say all along.