Ten years ago, I lost my dad. A whole decade. In some ways, it feels like it happened just yesterday; in others, it feels like a lifetime ago. For years, I thought "coping" meant fighting the grief whiles of pushing my way through the pain so I could appear "okay" to the rest of the world. If you are currently trying so hard to cope that you feel like you’re breaking, I want to share a few things I learned over the last ten years. My hope is that my journey can offer a little bit of breathing room for yours.
Here is the brutal truth I learned: You cannot outwork grief..
The harder I fought to keep the sadness below the surface, the more exhausting it became. Grief isn’t a test you can pass by trying harder; it’s an experience you have to live through. When I stopped fighting the waves and just let them wash over me, the drowning feeling finally started to ease. Sometimes you just have to allow your body to heal naturally rather than doing it for others.
Thank you for sharing something so raw and honest. In a world where people feel pressured to appear "okay", reminders like this give others permission to breathe, to feel and to understand that they are not alone in what they are carrying.
Your words will resonate with more people than you may realise. Grief has a way of making us feel like we have to stay strong for everyone else, as though showing the weight of our pain somehow means we are failing. But the truth is, surviving loss is not about hiding the hurt, it's about learning to carry it with kindness toward yourself.
What you said about not being able to "outwork grief" is incredibly powerful too. So many people exhaust themselves trying to silence emotions that simply need to be felt. Healing is rarely linear and there is no deadline for missing someone you love. Some days the waves are calm and some days they crash without any warning. However, neither makes you weak ❤️