The Encyclopedia of Grief is an archive of the kinds of grief that shape our lives quietly, often without anyone noticing. Take what you need and leave the rest.

When was the last time you logged out of work and headed to the forest?

After a long day in front of screens and under fluorescent lights, you leave it all behind and enter into the hush of the trees. The moment you cross the threshold, something shifts. The light is softer here. The air smells alive, like rain and bark and breath. You start to hear things: a twig snapping, a bird announcing its presence, the wind moving like a lullaby through the leaves.

You feel yourself return to your body. Your shoulders drop, and your breath deepens. Your body, which operates as a machine of performance and posture, becomes a body again.

There was a time in my life when I didn’t realize I’d lost my connection to nature. I was working a corporate job, ticking every box that was supposed to mean I had “made it,” and yet something always felt off.

I lived in the city, spending most of my waking hours inside of my cubicle or my apartment, staring at a screen. Eventually, it started to take its toll. Not in some dramatic collapse (that would come later). In a way, I felt flat, joyless, and strangely not real.

Once I had this realization, I started to make small shifts. Sneaking away in the afternoon to spend some time in the Boston Public Library’s courtyard, just to see the sky and feel some wind on my face.

I picked up a volunteer shift on a goat farm outside the city. Every Friday, I cleaned stalls, hauled hay, and let goats nibble my sleeves. I’d come home smelling of sweat and soil. It was fantastic.

I didn’t have the language for it yet, but what I was recovering was a lost intimacy with the natural world. It’s easy to think of this kind of grief as sentimental. The world doesn’t exactly encourage us to take our longing for the wild seriously.

We’re told nature is something to visit on weekends or preserve in distant national parks. But for most of human history, we were a part of it. We belonged to the forest, to the soil, to the seasons.

Even if we’re forgotten that, our bodies haven’t. That heaviness we carry? It’s homesickness. For the living world we were never meant to leave.

Modern life has made this disconnection seem normal.

Desirable, even. We measure success by how little we need to touch the earth: food delivered to our door, workouts done in carpeted gyms. Meetings held in airless rooms.

We might not notice the damage, but our nervous systems sure do. They are ancient systems that require sun on skin and the sounds of birds in our ears. The longer we go without those things, the more we suffer—not because we’re doing something wrong, but because something essential has gone missing.

We heal this grief slowly.

Most of us don’t want to leave society behind completely. Instead, we seek out small returns. Barefoot on grass Watching the moon without reason. Many have started to befriend the trees in their backyard, telling them their secrets and worries as if nature can take some of the burden off our backs.

These gestures won’t fix everything. But they help us remember. The first step in belonging. If you feel the quiet ache of disconnection, let it speak. A part of you still knows what it’s like to be held by the world, and it wants you to find your way back.

Until next time,

Charlotte

Thank you for spending some time with this grief. Each entry in this library is a small act of remembrance for the parts of us that were never given space to feel, question, or break apart. For additional support, the Grief Resource Hub is here for you.

Leave a comment

Before commenting, check out our Community Guidelines. If this grief resonated with you and you’d like to contribute to future seasons of the project, you’re invited to take our Share Your Story of Grief Survey. The goal is turning this into a community-led project, and I’d love for you to get involved.

The first time I experienced a sudden death in my life, I wasn’t sure if I could call out of work.

I remember staring at the message I was about to send, rereading it over and over. A friend had died. Not a family member. Not someone my boss would know. Would it count?

My brain stopped working right. I missed deadlines. I forgot words. My brain stopped working right. I missed deadlines. I forgot words.

No one outside of the affected circle of friends seemed to notice. Or maybe they did, and didn’t know what to say. Friends invited me to parties. Asked why I was so quiet. Wondered why I stopped showing up for the things I used to love.

I started running toward distractions. Filling my days with noise. But the grief kept finding me. Late at night, I’d sit in bed and wrestle with something I had never truly thought about before: even the brightest people disappear.

And one day, so will you.

✾ This grief lives at the edge of our hyper productive culture.

It is the sharp, surreal ache of trying to function after something irreversible happened. While everyone else just… keeps going.

Capitalism does not pause for grief. Emails don’t know someone died. Algorithms don’t grieve with you (even though an alarming number of people now rely on AI for therapy).

The “acceptable” losses that earn time off are narrow and impersonal: parent, spouse, child. As if friendship, chosen family, collective loss, or personal devastation don’t count unless HR can categorize it.

There is not public ritual for the ordinary devastations in the United States. No built-in stop. So most of us keep moving while broken. We smile through those meetings. We answer, “I’m good!” whenever someone asks. Confusing numbness with resilience, because we don’t know what else to do.

Many traditional cultures made space for repture. The Celtic’s practice keening, a traditional form of wailing, once an integral part of Irish funeral rituals. Ancient civilizations mourned with their clothing, dawning all black attire as a sign of respect for the deceased. Others hold mourning periods that lasted weeks, months, even years.

But modern life devours grief. It leaves no room for it to unfold.

In Jewish tradition, there is a period called shiva—seven days of intention pause after death. Mourners don’t work. They are surrounded by their communities, delivered meals, and supported through the journey. Mirrors are covered. And time seems to bend around loss.

Imagine if we let each other stop like that. Not just for funerals, but all the smaller endings too. The breakups. The betrays. The moment that rearrange your soul.

✾ The Tarot of the Tower

The Tower card is one of the most feared in the tarot deck.

It arrives without warning. Lightning strikes. Foundations crumble. A structure you thought was solid begins to fall. But the Tower doesn’t destroy just to destroy. It creates space for new light and energy to rush in.

Within that bliss, comes a whole mountain of grief. Sudden Shocking. Exposing what was always fragile. And yet… in the rubble, something honest remains. The lie is gone. What’s left is real. You have time to rebuild—not in the same shape, but in something far more aligned.

Subscribe now

✾ Three ways to work with this grief.

The Tower doesn’t just fall… in the rubble, strange new rituals and ways of being can take root. You don’t have to rush to rebuild.

1. Create a mourning space.

Find a place in your home to carve out space for mourning. Write about your disappointments on notes and bury them in the dirt of your favorite plant. Cover mirror, windows. Wear black. Cry when needed. Light candles and sing if it feels right.

2. Attend a session of ecstatic dance.

Many cultures rely on somatic release to process their grief. One place to find that feeling in the United States is at an ecstatic dance night, where sober movement to rhythmic music provides the perfect backdrop for healing.

3. Watch second line videos on YouTube.

New Orleans continues to lead the charge in collectivist celebration and mourning with their tradition of second line funeral marches. Even if we can’t experience this in person, listening in goes a long way.

Thank you for spending some time with this grief. Each entry in this library is a small act of remembrance for the parts of us that were never given space to feel, question, or break apart. For additional support, the Grief Resource Hub is here for you.

Leave a comment

Before commenting, check out our Community Guidelines. If this grief resonated with you and you’d like to contribute to future seasons of the project, you’re invited to take our Share Your Story of Grief Survey. The goal is turning this into a community-led project, and I’d love for you to get involved.

✾ You grew up believing that the path was clear: show up, work hard, be kind, follow the rules.

No shortcuts. You just wanted a fair shot. A level playing field.

Maybe you went to school, earned the degree, submitted the job applications, smiled at the interviews. You pull and pull but the doors you were promised won’t open. The bills start to stack up. You have to move home. Every scroll on Instagram feels like a modern day torture advice, reminding you that you haven’t made it, and you probably never will.

Your dreams—the ones you thought about late at night while studying for a final—have been postponed. The worst part? You blame yourself. There must be something wrong with you.

It didn’t occur to you that the door was never going to open for you. Not without a password you were never given. Not without someone already on the inside, holding it open.

You’ve been lied to. Most of us have. The system is rigged against the majority of folks in the United States. Always has been.

The grief of watching others move through life with invisible escalators under the feet is hard to explain. It settles deep in your stomach, making you wonder why your ancestors didn’t set you up for life. Capitalism breeds hierarchy, and 99.9% of us will never have what the upper class enjoys.

I’ve grown up with immense privilege, and I still feel this grief. The grief of realizing that talent, effort, and integrity are not enough. When the playing field is slanted by inheritance, nepotism, racism, classism, ableism, and centuries of structural design, most of us never stood a chance.

This grief is economic. But it’s also spiritual.

✾ Grief often lives in the shoulders.

The heavy weight of chronic defeat can cause folks to collapse into themselves. It might appear as the clench of your jaw as you try to stay composed—again—when someone less skilled gets chosen.

They call it meritocracy, but really’s it’s a mirror maze. Where some were handed the maps, and the rest of us are blamed for getting lost.

But still, we soldier on. We find side doors, and build ladders out of broken fence posts. We share passwords, and leave the gate open for someone else.

We are not powerless. But we are grieving.

Subscribe now

✾ Before there were books, there was breath. And in that breath lived the story of Anansi the Spider.

He was the spider who spun stories out of thin air, slipping past power with cleverness and charm. In West Africa, his tales were passed from mouth to mouth, beside cooking fires and under moonlit skies.

The stories taught not just laughter, but strategy. Anansi didn’t fight the oppressor head-on. He outwitted them. Tricked the unjust kings, stole knowledge from the gods, and flipped the rules upside down.

When enslaved Africans were stolen and forced across the ocean, the stories followed, becoming a secret code. Reminding people that survival doesn’t always look like strength. Sometimes it looked like disguise. Delay. Like knowing when to wait, and when to weave a new path entirely.

These stories were resistance wrapped in a metaphor. And there are many modern writers and orators who continue to tell Anansi stories as a reminder that the system may be rigged against us, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have personal power. Check out Philip M. Sherlock’s book Anansi the Spider-Man: Jamaican Folk Tales to read some of these stories, or read Chinua Achebe’s novels that are steeped in Igbo oral traditions.

✾ Three ways to work with this grief.

If I’m being honest, this grief rarely responds to quiet introspection alone. It doesn’t want to be meditated away or politely proceed. It wants movement! Voice! Rage against the machine!

Here’s three ways to being:

1. Make Space for Rage

Find somewhere you can let it all out. A rage room, a forest, your shower, or maybe an NYC side street. Somewhere you can scream and cry and let it all out. Let your body say what your mouth was never allowed to.

2. Gather for a Wailing Circle

I haven’t actually done this yet. This is an ancient practice that has been practiced by cultures around the world. Grief was never meant to be carried alone. Invite friends, light candles, and let yourselves cry together without needing to fix or explain. You don’t need to wait for a funeral.

3. Create as an Act of Refusal

Some of the coolest art is born from rage. Paint something. Throw some clay (this is my personal favorite—something about the tactile play really lets me get my anger out) and build something that reminds you of why you’re still here, even in a world wasn’t built for you.

✾ This grief runs deeper than disappointment.

It’s a slow burning rage that wakes up when you realize that meritocracy is a myth and nothing you do will ever be enough to override centuries of structural exclusion.

And still, here you are. Spinning stories like Anansi, refusing invisibility, and transforming your rage into art. This grief cannot be fixed. But when it is witness, something holy begins to stitch itself back together.

One day we will all be free. Until then, we rage on together.

Thank you for spending some time with this grief. Each entry in this library is a small act of remembrance for the parts of us that were never given space to feel, question, or break apart. For additional support, the Grief Resource Hub is here for you. We are here to sit beside grief, not tell it what to become.

Leave a comment

Before commenting, check out our Community Guidelines. If this grief resonated with you and you’d like to contribute to future seasons of the project, you’re invited to take our Share Your Story of Grief Survey. The goal is turning this into a community-led project, and I’d love for you to get involved.

Some griefs are hard to explain because we’re taught we shouldn’t feel them in the first place.

Eight months after I started my dream job at a prestigious tech company, my entire team was laid off. Over 200 people. Here one day, gone the next. With zero warning that things were headed in that direction.

The layoffs were devastating. I’d come to love many of these people, relying on them as I adjusted to this new culture. They were my friends, mentors, colleagues.

The entire thing was confusing and stressful. It left me wondering when the same fate would come for me. Because somehow, I was one of the lucky few to be spared from the layoffs due to my transferable skills and entry level income.

My life changed drastically overnight. I went from being an analyst to an experience designer, which have overlaps but are ultimately very different positions. In a mad dash, I got certified on a new product, learned a whole new language, and dusted off my design skills.

It was clear that I could either adapt to this new life, or leave. Sink or swim style. The worst part? These layoffs were just the start. Each quarter, we lost more colleagues than the last. There was an expectation that any of us could lose our job at any time. As if a chopping block was hanging over our heads. We may have been high paid, highly skilled workers, but that didn’t seem to matter to the executive team or the board.

Eventually, I left the company all together.

We may have desires around how things are going to go, but often life has other plans for us.

Since the start of Covid-19 in early 2020, approximately 40M people have been laid off. In the first five months of 2025, there were over 84M layoffs or discharges.

Millions of folks face waves of shame and guilt over something completely outside of their control. Because there is nothing our society loves more than putting the blame on the individual rather than the system.

Layoffs have a long and painful history rooted in industrial capitalism, where workers are seen as disposable when machines broke or profits dipped. In the 20th century, moments like the Great Depression revealed how job loss could be systemic, not personal—and for a time, some works were promised lifelong employment. But that promise was never universal, and it didn’t last.

By the 1980s, mass layoffs became a regular business strategy. Today, jobs are often lost without warning, through algorithms or scripted calls, even in good times. Your company could be making record profits and still conduct quarterly mass layoffs.

The grief that follows isn’t just about income. It’s about losing structure, identity, and a sense of place in the world. But there is a part of this process that is often overlooked: the grief of losing a job you didn’t even like.

Subscribe now

Many people work jobs they don’t particularly love because it gives them the money they need to survive. Oftentimes, they get good at that job. They make friends, get promoted, and receive awards. Eventually, their self worth is intertwined with that job, for better or worse.

Until one day, it disappears into smoke. They receive the meeting on their calendar, or AI-generated email in their inbox. The house of cards collapses. Leaving them with nothing but a confusing mix of feelings and no real support to deal with them.

✾ What This Grief Looks & Feels Like

It starts small. You find yourself scrolling LinkedIn with that familiar clench in your stomach, the one that says everyone else still belongs somewhere. You click on an old Slack channel out of habit, knowing no one’s posted in weeks, but still hoping for a flicker of connection.

You remember your last day at work. Wondering if what you felt was sadness or freedom or something too complicated to name. Your mind knew something had ended. But your heart and your body wasn’t so sure what to do about it.

Because even if you didn’t love the job, it held you. It gave your days a spine. A rhythm. And when that rhythm disappears, you lose more than a paycheck. You lose the odd comfort of structure, even if it sometimes suffocated you. You lose the tiny rituals. The favorite lunch spot. The weird work friend who understood you in ways your actual friends never did.

There is shame in the loss. How dare you grieve something you claimed to hate? But there’s also relief, and that’s confusing too. It’s both. It’s always both.

✾ Mythic Mirror: Ariadne After the Labyrinth

In Greek mythology, Ariadne helps Theseus escape the labyrinth. But after he succeeds, he abandons her on a deserted island. She’s left behind with nothing. No lover, no plan, no way home.

Many remember Theseus as a hero. Few remember Ariadne’s part of the story. Even fewer remember what comes after: how, in her solitude and despair, she is found by Dionysus (the god of wilderness, ecstasy, and rebirth) who offers her a new kind of life.

Losing a job you didn’t even love can feel like Ariadne’s abandonment. You gave your labor and your loyalty to a company for years. Then they drop you.

✾ Three Ways to Work With This Grief

1. Make a Grief Resume

Not the kind you’d submit to HR. This one lists what you lost and what you learned. List the relationships, routines, inside jokes, annoying emails, and all the roles you quietly carry.

Over time, you’ll start to forget about the details that brought you a lot of joy in your role that could be part of your job search criteria.

2. Hold a “Lunch Break” Funeral

Pack the lunch you used to bring. Go to a park. Eat it. Pour out a little iced coffee for your former self. Mourn the tiny rituals you didn't know you’d miss.

3. Build a Rejection Shrine

Rejection stings. But many believe that it can be transmuted into power if you give it a place to burn. Set up a shrine with some of the tokens you have from your role: the layoff email, old ID pages, outdated sticky notes, worn journals. Arrange it somewhere silly or sacred. Let it become art.

✾ Closing Reflection

Grief doesn’t always come from love. Sometimes it comes from the end of something familiar. The shape your life took, the rhythm of your days. Even the version of you that showed up every morning. Those things mattered, even if the job didn’t

When they vanish, something quiet collapses. And that collapse deserves to be named.

Thank you for spending some time with this grief. Each entry in this library is a small act of remembrance for the parts of us that were never given space to feel, question, or break apart.

For additional support, the Grief Resource Hub is here for you. We are here to sit beside grief, not tell it what to become.

Leave a comment

Before commenting, check out our Community Guidelines. If this grief resonated with you and you’d like to contribute to future seasons of the project, you’re invited to take our Share Your Story of Grief Survey. The goal is turning this into a community-led project, and I’d love for you to get involved.

Some grief doesn’t come from failure. It comes from fulfillment.

From doing everything you were supposed to do. From building something that worked, maybe even beautifully, only to discover that you’re not at home in it anymore. Maybe you built a family. A business. A life in a city you once loved. Maybe you spent years climbing a ladder or watering a dream. And now, some quiet voice inside you keeps whispering: I can’t stay here.

On the day I realized I had to shut down my business, I remember walking through my favorite park in Brooklyn, battling myself:

“We have to shut it down. This is not sustainable.”

“But we worked so hard to get here! Look at everything we achieved.”

“I’m miserable….”

“But closing down will be so embarrassing. I can’t deal with that!”

Round and round I went, negotiating with myself on the easiest way to step away from this dream. Up until that point, all of the problems I’d had in the business were more than worth it. I’d been dreaming of going out on my own for years. Some conflict wasn’t going to stop me. My discomfort grew, and grew.

Eventually, I couldn’t keep lying to myself. It was time to shut down.

The grief that followed that decision was overwhelming. Not to mention the shame. Everyone was so proud of me! I’d started a tea company from scratch, and grown it into a nationwide brand with thousands of loyal customers. But the cracks in the foundation of the business were wearing me down. I stopped feeling excited about new customers or new branding projects. I stopped wanting to dream of the future. Every day was more of the same, and eventually I had to make the decision to let it all go.

We don’t talk enough about the grief of growth.

Modern culture rewards accumulation. Once you build something—a career, a home, a persona—you’re expected to keep it. Especially if it “works”. There is no graceful exit ramp for those who change. The storylines we’re handed say: Be grateful. Don’t mess this up. Other people would kill for what you have.

But the soul is not static. At least, mine isn’t. I’m constantly redefining what success looks like for me. Especially after I’ve accomplished a huge dream. We weren’t built to follow productivity timelines or personal brand strategies. And when we start to outgrow the container we built for ourselves, the discomfort is hard to ignore.

And eventually, just like I realized in the park that day, our bodies know what our minds refuse to accept. It’s time to go.

✾ What This Grief Looks & Feels Like

This grief often arrives after the decision has already been made. You’ve left the job, ended the relationship, packed the boxes. From the outside, it might even look like a glow-up. But on the inside, it feels like mourning.

It’s the ache of watching your old life keep moving without you. The former coworkers you still check on. The business competitors you see on the shelves, growing far beyond the success you achieved.

This grief is usually accompanied by shame and guilt. Maybe even doubt that you made the right decision. A strange kind of homesickness for the version of you that stayed. It lives in the body like a phantom life.

Sometimes it sounds like: Who am I, not that I’ve stopped pretending this fits?

Sometimes it feels like: I built all of that… for what?

Subscribe now

✾ Mythic Mirror: Eight of Cups Tarot

In the Tarot, the Eight of Cups shows a figure walking away from the eight golden chalices stacked neatly behind them. The moon lights their path. Their cloak is dark. They don’t look back.

This is the card of sacred departure. Of leaving something that once brought you fulfillment. What makes this grief so hard is that nothing is obviously broken. The cups are still upright. The life you built might still be beautiful. But some part of you knows… staying would be a kind of self-abandonment.

This card doesn’t promise clarity. Only movement.

✾ Three Ways to Work With This Grief

Set up an altar to honor what you’re leaving behind.

You don’t have to rush into the next thing. Find a small corner of your house and fill it with photos, writing, tokens of the experience. Whenever you feel grief or shame coming on, light a candle and remember the person who once dreamed of achieving this. Let the mourning happen in layers.

Tell someone who won’t try to fix it.

Find a person who can hold space for your story without giving advice. Let yourself say it plainly: “I left something I worked hard for. I’m grieving what it meant to me.” Say it loud so that it doesn’t stay stuck in your body.

Confess your fears to the ocean.

Or really any large body of water. Go for a solo walk, and whisper your fears and guilt and shame to the water. Study the way ripples or waves come and go. Let the ocean hold your grief and share your shame.

There is nothing wrong with you for needing to leave.

Despite everything we’ve been conditioned to believe, we get to decide how to respond to our lives. You are not flaky or selfish or ungrateful. You are simply alive. And one of the only guarantees of being alive is change.

If this grief resonated with you and you’d like to contribute to future seasons of the project, you’re invited to take our Share Your Story of Grief Survey. The goal is turning this into a community-led project, and I’d love for you to get involved.

Thank you for spending some time with this grief. Each entry in this library is a small act of remembrance for the parts of us that were never given space to feel, question, or break apart.

Leave a comment

We are here to sit beside grief, not tell it what to become. Before commenting, check out our Community Guidelines. If you need more support, the Grief Resource Hub is here for you.

Some of the deepest griefs don’t come from rupture, but from repetition.

From being taught the same thing so many times that it feels like truth. Be good. Be polite. Don’t upset anyone. For many of us, these weren’t just lessons. They were survival strategies. We learned to scan for danger by scanning for disappointment. We learned to love by guessing. And we learned to keep the peace by turning down the volume of our own needs.

This kind of grief is slow, quiet, and accumulative. You don’t notice it at first—not until your body starts aching from all the ways you’ve disappeared inside yourself.

Learning the Golden Rule is a rite of passage for any elementary school student in the United States. The term comes from 17th century Britain where Anglican theologians and preachers were quietly shaping the moral and ethical standing of modern life. We probably hear it a thousand times throughout our childhood, and for good reason. Self awareness is a crucial skill for thriving in any society.

We didn’t just learn this rule. We absorbed it into our nervous systems. The concept behind the Golden Rule appears in texts throughout history. The ancient Egyptians told a story known as "The Eloquent Peasant", where the ancient Egyptian goddess Ma'at instructs the readers to treat others the way they want to be treated.

If you’ve heard the Sanskrit term Dharma, the meaning is inherently linked to the Golden Rule. As it states in the ancient text Mahābhārata: “One should never do something to others that one would regard as an injury to one's own self.”

This is not a new concept. But more recently, many are beginning to ask whether the Golden Rule holds up in our modern society. You’ve probably seen this meme on social media:

It’s become a cornerstone of Internet culture precisely because it points out the inherent flaw in the Golden Rule—treating others the way you want to be treated only works if they also want to be treated that way.

People pleasers across the country almost imploded when they first saw this. They’ve been following the Golden Rule their entire lives. And who can blame them? It’s what we were taught to do! Maybe back in the olden days when everyone lived in small villages with monoculture, the Golden Rule made a ton of sense. Oh, you don’t want to step in poop on the way to your job working in the fields? Probably makes sense to pick up your donkey’s poop to ensure others don’t have that unfortunate experience. It’s a silly image—but it works.

But now? In 2025? We live in a global, hyperconnected society. Every interaction is shaped by countless sub-cultures, expectations, and lived experiences. That’s both exhilarating and exhausting—especially for those trying to relate to others by using the only rule they were given.

What do we do when we discover that our people pleasing isn’t actually pleasing anyone?

That is where the Platinum Rule comes in—a subtle remix that shifts the emphasis from projection to preference.

I learned about this concept in my end-of-life doula course I’m taking through UVM. We were discussing the Hospice Bill of Rights, which emphasizes honoring the unique preferences of the dying. The Golden Rule just doesn’t work in this environment. Every person has a different idea of what respect looks like.

Our job is figuring out what that looks like, and respecting it no matter our preferences. After all, you can’t know something until you ask.

This is a subtle shift with huge positive impact.

If you’re a chronic people pleaser, it’s understandable to feel frustrated. You’ve behaved exactly as instructed, and it’s probably pissing a lot of people off. Unlearning the Golden Rule and inhabiting the Platinum Rule have been a huge shift for me, and will be a muscle I’ll continue to strengthen for many years to come.

✾ What This Grief Looks & Feels Like

This grief shows up quietly. In the yes you didn’t mean. The dinner you cooked without being asked. The silence you held when something inside of you wanted to scream. It’s in the way you double-check every text for tone. In the way you wait for someone to notice how much you’re carrying—and feel crushed when they don’t.

It feels like resentment with no place to go. Like your kindness has been mistaken for availability. Like you’ve been performing goodness for so long, you can’t remember what your own desire sounds like.

This grief lives in the body. In the throat that tightens when you want to say no. In the jaw that clenches through smiling. In the shoulders that round forward, hoping to take up less space.

It’s the ache of realizing that care without clarity becomes confusion.

✾ Mythic Mirror: Echo & Narcissus

One of my favorite Greek myths is the tale of Echo and Narcissus.

Echo was once a voice of her own. A mountain spirit, wild and expressive. But after crossing the wrong god, she was cursed to only speak the last words she heard—never her own. She fell in love with Narcissus, but when she tried to reach him, she could only echo his voice. Never her truth. Never her need. And he left her behind. Eventually, she faded into the hills.

This myth holds up a mirror to the people pleaser. The one who hopes that if they can just reflect their needs through their actions, they’ll finally be chosen. But all that mirroring doesn’t make you seen. It makes you disappear.

Echo teaches us the cost of shaping yourself around someone else. Narcissus teaches us what happens when we only seek ourselves in others. Together, they show the heartbreak of asymmetry.

✾ Three Ways to Work With This Grief

• Practice asking before offering.

When the impulse to help arises, pause. Breathe. Ask: Do they want what I’m offering? Let the question interrupt the reflex. Let consent become part of your care.

• Speak aloud what you want, even if no one hears.

In the quiet morning or the hush of a car ride, ask yourself what you want in that very moment. I want rest. I want to be chosen. I want a snack. Whatever bubbles up, honor it. Let your voice begin to know itself again.

• Reclaim your power.

Go into your closet and find a piece of clothing you wear when you are seeking approval from others. Put it on, stand in front of the mirror, and say out loud: This is who I thought I had to be to stay safe. Then take it off—slowly, like peeling back an old skin. Don’t rush. Feel the air touch your bare arms. Then put the item somewhere where you can revisit it when you are feeling the impulse to people please.

You don’t have to keep contorting yourself to be loved.

You don’t have to disappear to make others comfortable. There is nothing wrong with you for wanting to be received more clearly, for wanting love that doesn’t require guessing. And the relieving part is that others feel the same. You’re allowed to learn a new way. One question, one breath, one honest answer at a time.

If this grief resonated with you and you’d like to contribute to future seasons of the project, you’re invited to take our Share Your Story of Grief Survey. The goal is turning this into a community-led project, and I’d love for you to get involved.

Thank you for spending some time with this grief. Each entry in this library is a small act of remembrance for the parts of us that were never given space to feel, question, or break apart.

Leave a comment

We are here to sit beside grief, not tell it what to become. Before commenting, check out our Community Guidelines. If you need more support, the Grief Resource Hub is here for you.

There is a form of grief that arrives when you realize you no longer have the answers. When your knowledge, your confidence, and your well-built plans all begin to dissolve beneath you. This is a grief of losing certainty, not because you were wrong, but because life outgrew the neat containers you once used to understand it. What rises in its place is not a new solution, but a frustrating form of humility.

For me, this grief arrived slowly like fog rolling in. I believed that I had to have everything figured out from a young age. Which isn’t surprising, considering most of us had that message forced onto us throughout our time at school. I still cringe thinking about my college major that was completely wrong for me looking back. But I truly believed that if I just read enough, worked hard enough, stayed alert enough, I could stay ahead of life.

Slowly, things started to unravel. I no longer aligned with my past definitions of success. My driving forcedMore questions were arising than the answers. The systems that didn’t work for me no matter how well I played the game, questions that refused easy answers, and a sinking feeling that it was time to finally turn toward the abyss and accept that I had no idea what I wanted to do with my one wild and precious life. It was crushing.

Of course, all things travel in cycles. Six months later and I have a completely new and unexpected path I’m excited to travel. But damn, was it frustrating to have no answer to the question “what’s next for you?” that every single family member asked me during that period.

✾ What This Grief Looks & Feels Like

This grief often shows up quietly. At first, it might feel like doubt or a sense that something no longer fits. What used to feel solid begins to feel slippery. You might recognize it in moments like these:

• Realizing the path you worked is hard to build no longer feels right

• Losing confidence in a spiritual belief or tradition that once gave you meaning

• Questioning everything after a diagnosis, job loss, or unexpected betrayal

• Feeling like the advice and mentors that once guided you no longer apply

This grief doesn’t always look like heartbreak. Sometimes it looks like silence or standing in a room full of people and wondering how you ever felt sure of anything at all.

It often lives in the upper body, where thought, voice, and breath intersect. You might feel mental fog, confusion, or spinning thoughts. You may be caught between intuition and doubt, your through tight, and chest heavy. Even if no one else can see it, your body knows something has shifted.

✾ Where This Grief Comes From

This grief is everywhere. When I was experiencing this grief earlier this year, I started to search out to my friends and family to see if any of them had experienced this. And boy, was I surprised to find out that they’d all been through this phase.

You see it in the burnout of overachievers, in the therapist who no longer trust her own tools, in the spiritual seeker who questions whether the rituals ever really worked We live n a world that praises certainty and quietly punishes the ones who lose it. We are taught to trust the expert, the five-step plan, the algorithm. It’s what we were conditioned to do since we first entered school. But when our questions get too big for those frameworks, there is little room to unravel.

In a society that worships certainty, not knowing can feel like failure. But this isn’t new! Throughout history, people have entered what mystics call the “cloud of unknowing” or the “dark night of the soul”. Losing certainty wasn’t a crisis—it was a rite of passage for any person taking full responsibility for their lives.

After realizing that everyone around me had gone through this phase, I started to realize that knowing how things are going to unfold is not the goal. The goal is figuring out what brought me joy and excitement, and going toward that thing without clinging to the outcome.

Subscribe now

✾ Mythic Mirror: The Fool’s First Step

In the tarot, The Fool is the first card of the Major Arcana. Numbered zero, it represents both nothing and everything, a beginning that hasn’t yet become defined. The Fool stands at the edge of a cliff, eyes lifted, heart open, belongings light.

There is no plan. Only the invitation to step forward.

This is not the recklessness of someone unaware. It is the quiet bravery of someone who knows they no longer belong to the story they were living. The old truths dissolve. And still, the next step calls.

This is the grief of The Fool: the ache of leaving behind a former self without knowing who will take their place. And sometimes, the most sacred journeys begin not with knowing, but with trust and surrender.

✾ Three Ways to Work With This Grief

1. Read: The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer. A powerful companion if you're exploring how to live without control. It offers a real-life story of what becomes possible when you start learning to trust.

2. Create: A note in your phone where you can collect the big, unanswered questions you have about your future. Don’t rush to solve them. Just let them live there. Over time, come back and jot down how each one unfolds. You may be surprised by how often the answers arrive in ways you never could have imagined.

3. Challenge Yourself: Each day for one week, reach out to someone in your life and ask them how they dealt with uncertainty or confusion over their future plans. You’ll be surprised how many others have gone through this and have advice on how to navigate it with care.

If you stop needing to be certain, who might you become?

I asked myself that question six months ago when I was desperately begging for clarity on where I was meant to go next in my life. I let the question linger, allowing it to echo through the places where my old beliefs once lived. I kept a note of all of my unanswered questions, and updated it weekly when things seemed to magically work themselves out.

And without much input from me, the questions started to answer themselves. I eventually stumbled onto my new path, with all the unexpected and glorious projects popping up in my future. This Substack is no exception! I never could’ve imagined writing a column on modern day grief and how our unwillingness to discuss them is keeping us isolated and disconnected. But here we are, and I’m so glad that I found you here.

If this grief resonated with you and you’d like to contribute to future seasons of the project, you’re invited to take our Share Your Story of Grief Survey. The goal is turning this into a community-led project, and I’d love for you to get involved.

Thank you for spending some time with this grief. Each entry in this library is a small act of remembrance for the parts of us that were never given space to feel, question, or break apart.

We are here to sit beside grief, not tell it what to become. Before commenting, check out our Community Guidelines. If you need more support, the Grief Resource Hub is here for you.

Leave a comment