Mark: Everything you’ve been taught about comforting a grieving friend is probably wrong. Those well-meaning phrases like 'they're in a better place' or 'at least you had them for so long'? They might be doing more harm than good. Today, we're tearing up the script on grief. Michelle: Whoa, that's a bold claim! You’re saying my entire go-to condolence playbook is flawed? I feel like I’m about to be called out. Mark: We all are, and that’s the point. We're diving into a book that has completely reshaped the conversation around loss: It's OK That You're Not OK by Megan Devine. Michelle: And what's so powerful about her, Mark, is that she's not just a psychotherapist writing from a clinical distance. She wrote this after her own partner, Matt, drowned in a sudden, tragic accident. She lived this. Mark: Exactly. She says that in that moment, she wanted to call every client she'd ever had and apologize for her ignorance. She found that all her professional training was useless in the face of her own pain, which is what makes this book so raw and revolutionary. Michelle: Wow. Okay, so she’s speaking from the heart of the wound itself. That changes everything. Mark: It does. And that's the first big idea we need to tackle: our culture's entire model for grief is broken.

Michelle: Broken how? I mean, people are trying to be kind. When I say something like, "I'm so sorry for your loss," I genuinely mean it. Mark: Of course. The intention is almost always good. But Devine argues that our culture treats grief like a problem to be solved, an illness to be cured as quickly as possible. And our language reflects that. She tells this story about a friend whose father died. The friend was getting all these beautiful, sweet condolence cards, and she was just filled with rage. Michelle: Rage? At sweet cards? That seems counterintuitive. Mark: It does, until you see it through Devine's lens. The friend texted her, "Why does this make me so enraged? Even the nicest words seem mean." And Devine realized it’s because every card, in its own way, was trying to fix her pain. It was skipping over the reality of the situation, which is just: this hurts. Michelle: Huh. So the kindness feels like a dismissal of the actual pain. It’s like someone is saying, "Here's a band-aid for your severed limb." Mark: That’s a perfect way to put it. Devine calls it the "implied second half of the sentence." When someone says, "At least he's not in pain anymore," the grieving person hears the unspoken part: "...so you should stop feeling so bad." It’s a subtle correction. It’s a form of cheering someone up, and cheering someone up is a way of asking them to feel differently than they do. Michelle: Okay, but what about the big one: "Everything happens for a reason"? People find so much comfort in that, don't they? It feels spiritual, like there's a grand plan. Mark: And that’s one of the most damaging ones, according to Devine. Because what does it imply? It implies that you needed this catastrophic loss to learn a lesson, to become a better person. It suggests you were somehow deficient before, and this tragedy was the universe's way of teaching you something. It's profoundly insulting. Michelle: I've never thought of it that way. It reframes a platitude as an accusation. Mark: Precisely. And this is where Devine’s own story is so potent. As a therapist, she thought she knew the landscape of pain. But after Matt died, she realized the maps she had were useless. The cultural script—the stages of grief, the pressure to find a silver lining, the expectation of recovery—it all felt like a lie. She says our culture is emotionally illiterate. We simply don't have the skills to talk about pain, so we reach for these empty, fix-it phrases. Michelle: And in doing so, we isolate the very people we're trying to comfort. We leave them feeling like they're "grieving wrong." Mark: Exactly. We make their grief about our own discomfort. We want them to feel better so we can feel better. And this cultural pressure to 'fix' pain is exactly what creates the second layer Devine talks about: the difference between pain and suffering.

Michelle: Okay, pain versus suffering. That sounds like a subtle distinction. Aren't they the same thing? Mark: Not at all, and this is one of the most powerful and practical ideas in the book. Devine says pain is the inevitable, natural, and healthy response to loss. If you love deeply, you will grieve deeply. Pain is the price of love. You can't get rid of it, nor should you want to. It's the testament to the connection you had. Michelle: Right, the pain is the hole that's left. It's real. Mark: It's real. But suffering... suffering is the extra layer we add on top. Suffering is the shame you feel for still crying a year later. It's the isolation when friends stop calling because your grief makes them uncomfortable. It's the self-blame, replaying the "what ifs." It's the exhaustion from pretending you're okay to make everyone else feel comfortable. Michelle: Okay, I think I get it. So the pain is the deep cut from the loss. You can't avoid that. But the suffering is the infection you get because people keep throwing dirt on it or telling you to just walk it off. Mark: That is a fantastic analogy. Exactly. You can't fix the pain, but you can absolutely reduce the suffering. And our culture is a massive suffering-generation machine. Devine shares the story of a woman from her writing course, Beverly Ward. Six months after her partner died, she went to therapy. Michelle: Which sounds like a healthy, proactive thing to do. Mark: You'd think. But the therapist diagnosed her with moderate to severe depression and high anxiety. She was prescribed antidepressants and told she was "failing grief." The system itself pathologized her normal, human response to a devastating loss. That's suffering. The message was: "You are not grieving correctly. You are broken." Michelle: That's heartbreaking. The very place she went for help became another source of her suffering. It just layered more shame on top of her pain. Mark: And that’s the core of it. The book argues that so much of what we call "grief" is actually this secondary suffering. The pain of missing the person is one thing. The suffering of feeling crazy, alone, and judged for that pain is another. And that's the part we can change, both for ourselves and for others. Michelle: So if we're not supposed to fix it, and platitudes are out, what are we supposed to do? It feels like we're left with nothing. It’s like you’re telling me to just stand there and watch my friend drown in sadness. Mark: That’s the million-dollar question, and it leads directly to Devine's new model. The answer isn't to do nothing. The answer is to do something completely different.

Mark: The new model starts with one of the most profound quotes in the book: "Some things cannot be fixed. They can only be carried." The goal isn't to take the pain away. The goal is to help the person carry it. Michelle: Okay, "help them carry it." What does that look like in practice? Mark: It looks like witnessing. It means being willing to stand beside someone in their pain without flinching, without offering solutions, and without trying to cheer them up. It's about acknowledgment. Simply saying, "This is awful. I'm here with you." That's it. That is the most powerful medicine. Michelle: Just being present. Not fixing, just being. That sounds so simple, but I can feel how hard it would be. To just sit in that discomfort with someone. Mark: It is hard. Our brains are wired to solve problems. But grief isn't a problem. Devine tells this beautiful story about her friend Chris, whose young son died. Everyone felt helpless. So Devine shared an analogy from her own therapist: "Be like the elephants." When an elephant in the herd is wounded, the other elephants don't try to fix it. They just form a circle around it, protecting it, being present. Michelle: Oh, I love that. Mark: Chris shared that analogy with her friends and family. And soon, people started leaving little elephant figurines on her doorstep. They sent cards with elephants. It became their shared language. It was their way of saying, "We can't fix this, but we are here. We are circling you." Michelle: Wow. That gives me chills. It’s a way of showing up that’s about solidarity, not solutions. Mark: Exactly. And that's where the 'Tribe of After' comes in, right? Finding those other elephants who just get it. Michelle: Yes! That’s what she calls it. The community of people who have also been through devastating loss. It's like you're no longer speaking a foreign language; you've found people who are fluent in your new reality. Mark: You've found your tribe. People who won't tell you to look on the bright side, because they know that sometimes, there isn't one. They won't tell you you'll "get over it," because they know you don't. You learn to live with it. You build a new life around the hole that's been left. And that tribe, that companionship, is what makes the pain bearable. It doesn't erase the pain, but it drastically reduces the suffering of isolation.

Mark: Ultimately, Devine's message is that we've tried to sanitize one of the most fundamental human experiences. We’ve made grief a medical condition, a personal failing, a problem to be solved in five neat stages. But it’s none of those things. Michelle: It’s just… a part of love. Mark: It's evidence of love. Grief isn't a detour from a happy life; it's an integral part of a meaningful one. The real work isn't to erase the pain, but to build a life that's big enough to hold it. To learn how to carry what cannot be fixed, and to help others carry it too. Michelle: It makes you wonder, how can we each be a better 'elephant' for someone in our own lives? What's one small way we can show up without trying to fix? Mark: That’s the perfect question to leave our listeners with. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this. What's the most helpful—or unhelpful—thing someone said to you in a time of grief? Share with us on our socials. Your story might be the 'elephant' someone else needs to see today. Michelle: This is Aibrary, signing off.