It's Ok That You're Not Ok: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn't Understand

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I have friends who were similarly expected not to need to grieve a loss, and I know it can really add layers of devastation to the experience. This approach is perfectly sensible and quite common in many books on difficult subjects such as grief and cancer. Yes, I am different, but I have neither the willingness nor the ability to become happy ever after; however differently happiness may be redefined.

This was a helpful and comforting book in many ways, but I have to admit I was really offended by Devine’s grief hierarchy in the beginning. c) The beauty of other grievers and the community/tribe they form: I have participated in discussions with other grieving people, have felt compassion for them, and learned from them. Many people wanted details about her illness and about her risk factors (she had none of them by the way; no family history of cancer and no other known risk factors). Our culture sees grief as a kind of malady: a terrifying, messy emotion that needs to be cleaned up and put behind us as soon as possible”. She calmly and lovingly explains what well-meaning people in our culture do with grief and she does it without blame or shame.But many, many, many therapists have dealt with their own grief and trauma; often bringing them to their own therapeutic journey and their own desire to become a therapist. I also wondered if Devine could have dedicated more space to exploring or naming how other cultures process grief. This is where the book and I part company as the ‘different, but not better’ message becomes ‘different and happy ever after”. Not OK, Megan Devine offers a profound new approach to both the experience of grief and the way we try to help others who have endured tragedy. Today on It’s OK, we discuss the ways grief has upended her life, and the ways that both movement and community have kept her alive - willing, at least most days, to lean into the full experience of life.

It's OK That You're Not OK is a permission slip to feel what you feel, do what you do, and say what you say, when life finds you in a place of profound loss and the world seems hell-bent on telling you the right way to get back to being the person you'll never again be. b) The beauty of the life that a grieving person can eventually settle into, by integrating, rather than forgetting, the devastation experienced. Through "It's OK That You're Not OK," I learned concepts for living with the death of my daughter and how to build "a life around the edges of what will always be a vacancy.The best-selling book on grief in over a decade, Megan’s It’s Ok that You’re Not OK, is a global phenomenon that has been translated into more than 25 languages.

The book ten sheds light on all the ways in which this approach to grief is counter-productive and often does more harm than good to the grieving person. Thank you to Netgalley for my ARC, I will be recommending this book to other family members who are also struggling to make sense of their own grief. Still, I’m glad that Devine’s book may shift or expand how we talk about grief, to promote more compassion and emotional awareness. Watch the documentary The Wisdom of Trauma exploring Gabor Maté’s work to understand the connection between illness, addiction, trauma, and society. I also recommend this to everyone, because at some point you or someone you love will be bereaved, and the information in this book is worth knowing ahead of time.With It’s OK That You’re Not OK, Megan Devine offers a profound new approach to both the experience of grief and the way we help others who have endured tragedy. It's not an easy read -- it acknowledges and touches all the sore spots, very gently, but they're still sensitive, and I found myself crying a lot -- but that acknowledgement and understanding flow off every page like a soft, warm blanket.

This book treats everyone, both mourners and the often clueless and lost friends who'd like to help but don't know how, with great kindness and empathy. It helps the grief-stricken cope with well-meaning attempts to "fix" them, and points out that death isn't fixable. Mark's work is widely accessible and used in spiritual retreats, healing and medical communities, and more. Megan Devine shows us that rather than treat grief as an illness to recover from, we can approach it with warmth and understanding. Unfortunately, many of her points are partly lost in the background noise of the book, which could easily have shed a third of its content and be none the worse for it.Megan Devine’s book is powerful, honest, and necessary in this culture that doesn’t understand or know how to tend to grief.