Stop Blaming Grief.

I have been taught to think of grief as the wound itself, the thing that broke me, the reason I can't move forward, the source of all this heaviness.

Lately I have been thinking that that is not quite right.

What if grief isn't creating something new within me, but revealing what was already there?

Think about it this way: grief is less like a bulldozer and more like a magnifying glass. It doesn't build new walls in my life, it shows me where the cracks already existed. It doesn't create my patterns of avoidance, perfectionism, or self-abandonment. It just turns up the volume on them until I can no longer ignore what I've been living with all along.

That voice that whispers "you're not doing enough"? Grief makes it boom. That tendency to put everyone else's needs before my own? Grief puts a spotlight on it.

Those relationships that were always a little one-sided? Grief makes the imbalance impossible to miss.

This is actually good news.

Because if grief is a magnifier rather than a creator, it means I’m not broken by loss, I’m just finally seeing clearly. The patterns that feel unbearable right now? They were there before. I was just better at managing them, distracting myself from them, or convincing myself they weren't that bad.

Grief strips away our ability to pretend. It removes the buffer between me and my own life. And yes, that's uncomfortable. But, it also means that the work I do now, the patterns I choose to address, the boundaries I finally set, the truths I finally speak, that work was always needed. Grief just made it urgent.

I'm not stuck because of grief. I'm aware because of grief. And awareness, however painful, is always the first step toward something different.

What pattern has grief been magnifying in your life?

Go with Power,

Jason

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Try this Simple Practice:

The Magnifier Check-In

This week, try this:

When you notice yourself feeling overwhelmed, stuck, or heavy, pause and ask: "What pattern is grief magnifying right now?"

Is it:

• The way you say yes when you mean no?

• The voice that says you're not doing enough?

• A relationship that takes more than it gives?

• The habit of numbing instead of feeling?

You don't need to fix it. You don't need to change it yet.

Just name it. Write it down if that helps.

Because once you can see that grief is the magnifying glass and not the actual problem, you can start to ask a different question: "What do I want to do about this pattern now that I can finally see it clearly?"

That's where the real work begins. And that's where healing lives.