You don’t have to slap a smile on your face because the calendar says “celebrate.”

You don’t have to cheer for a kind of freedom that feels so out of reach. 

You don’t have to pretend that that crack of the fireworks feels fun and comfortable. 

No one teaches you how to live after death.  No one tells you that you might crave a relationship before your heart feels ready. 

That laughter might feel like betrayal. 

That kissing someone new might leave you sobbing in the shower after. 

They were your home. Your person. The one who saw you in your quiet moments, who finished your sentences, who made you feel like you could exhale in a world that never seems to let up.

There’s this moment after someone dies where everything goes strangely quiet. The world has stopped spinning and life feels like it’s paused. Your heart is numb and raw.

Grief anniversaries don’t announce themselves. 

They don’t send a reminder. 

Even if you have them marked on the calendar, they still crawl into your chest when you least expect it.

Let’s get one thing straight: Grief doesn’t come with an expiration date.

We’ve all heard the phrase that “time heals all wounds,” but anyone who’s actually been cracked open by loss knows the truth: time changes grief. 

Of course it’s okay. It’ more than okay.

Oftentimes, people say these phrases and words when a loved one dies — they are automatic and built into our language. But, they aren’t helpful.

We're fed a misleading idea: grief as a tidy process with clear phases and stages. But our lived experience never matches that convenient narrative. Our grief doesn't follow a predictable path toward some predetermined resolution.

Say Their Name.

A Lot.

Say it to strangers. Say it in the car.

Say it to yourself.

Don’t let silence erase them.

Start here: Show up. Gently. Consistently. Without fixing.

Grief doesn’t need solutions — it needs presence.
It needs someone who can sit beside the wreckage without rushing to rebuild it.

Acceptance might look like a feeling of lightness in the body, a sense of understanding and acceptance of the reality of what happened (even if it isn’t something you would have chosen to happen), feeling a connection to your person.

Depression might look like feeling heavy, unmotivated, uninterested in life, believing nothing else matters, believing life cannot go on, feeling unable to get out of bed, move, or do life

BARGAINING might look like pleading with self or others for things to be different than how they are, ruminating on “what ifs”, believing things “should” be different than how they are, making resolutions, a sense of “grasping” in the body.

Anger might look like having harsh or unrealistic expectations for self or others, lashing out at self or others, tension in the body, inability to relax the body, feeling like you might explode at any moment.

Denial can look like: feeling stuck, an inability to say what happened, pretending as if nothing happened, not changing anything in your life to accommodate the loss, refusing to talk about the person or what happened, physical feeling of being small or hidden.

Please know that the stages of grief are not linear, and are not exclusive.  By this I mean that you probably will experience each stage of grief, but you won’t experience them in order, you won’t experience them once, you will never “complete” them, and you will also experience a lot of other emotions. 

Know that it’s ok to dread upcoming days. And there is no right or wrong way to celebrate, or even acknowledge, significant dates. I have found that for many people I have worked with, the anticipation of the day is actually worse than the day itself, although for you that might be different. You are allowed to say no to anything that doesn’t feel right to you.

Not a lot of people know this (I even forget it myself), but in 2006 I had big goals of working in the fashion industry.  I had completed a program in Merchandise Marketing, I was working at a then-little-known company called Lululemon, and I saw myself working as a buyer for some oh-so-cool clothing company.

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali define Yoga as “the stilling of the fluctuations of the mind.” What if this isn’t just a definition, but an invitation to a revolution in the way we understand grief?

In the quest for peace amidst the chaos of grief, the concept of Santosha, or contentment, offers a gentle path forward. Santosha doesn't urge us to be complacent or to ignore our pain but invites us to find joy in the life we have now, even in its most imperfect and challenging moments.