I DON’T HAVE TO FIX WHAT I FEEL

By Lisa R. Conner

Yesterday, I became a Certified Grief Coach.

Today, I am grieving.

The timing isn’t lost on me.

Yesterday, I shared that grief isn’t only about death.

Grief can accompany divorce, illness, an empty nest, retirement, moving from a longtime home, changes in our bodies, changes in our relationships, and the quiet realization that life no longer looks the way we thought it would.

And today, I am sad.

Not the kind of sad I need to understand.

Not the kind I need to coach myself through.

Not the kind that needs a lesson attached to it.

Just sad.

So today, I am letting myself be.

I’ve spent much of my life believing uncomfortable feelings needed a response.

Fix it.

Understand it.

Move through it.

Make meaning from it.

Do something.

But Grief doesn’t always need something from us.

Sometimes she simply needs room.

I’ve been thinking about Grief today as a passenger in a motorcycle sidecar.

Grief can ride quietly beside me without driving.

I don’t have to throw her out of the sidecar.

I don’t have to pull over and wait for her to leave.

I don’t have to pretend the sidecar is empty.

And I certainly don’t have to hand Grief the handlebars.

I can keep driving.

Some days, Grief may sit quietly beside me.

Some days, I may feel her weight when I lean into a turn.

Some days, I may barely notice she is there.

And some days—like today—I may simply need to sit beside the motorcycle for a while and let myself feel what I feel.

There is nothing wrong with that.

Tomorrow, I have work to do.

There will be calls to return.

Decisions to make.

People to meet.

Life will continue asking me to participate.

And I will.

Grief may come too.

That’s okay.

She has a seat.

She just doesn’t get the handlebars.

Maybe that’s one of the things I’m learning about Grief.

Moving forward doesn’t require leaving Grief behind.

And allowing Grief doesn’t require surrendering my life to her.

We can travel together.

Maybe healing isn’t always something we do.

Maybe sometimes healing happens when we stop trying to make a feeling leave.

When we stop asking:

How do I get over this?

How do I make this stop?

How do I get back to normal?

And instead say:

You can come with me.

There’s room.

Today, I don’t need to solve my sadness.

I don’t have to fix what I feel.
I can let it move through me.

Yesterday, I received the credential.

Today, life handed me the practicum.

And perhaps that’s exactly as it should be.

Today, Grief gets a seat beside me.

Tomorrow, we ride.

Living in Curiosity,

Lisa

Lisa R. Conner is a writer, coach, REALTOR, and entrepreneur based in Alaska. She is the author of Casa Renae: Outgrowing Your Story & Coming Home to Yourself and writes Fireweed & Flannel as a place for honest reflections on reinvention, courage, identity, grief, real estate, and the wild beauty of becoming.