Say no: Setting boundaries when you're grieving

Therapists love to talk about boundaries and I am no exception. Boundaries are wonderful! There are so few things we can control in our lives; setting limits with others is one of them. That being said, knowing we can make our own rules in this way is easier than actually doing it.

Setting boundaries can be frustrating, to say the least. That’s because most frequently, the response you get from others when you set a limit with them is not ideal. It is not, “oh, thank you for telling me! I will honor your request with good humor!” Instead, setting a boundary or a limit with someone in your life often leads to hurt feelings and frustration. Asking someone to give you space or not bring up a certain topic or whatever can be difficult for a number of reasons: you’ve never said no before; or the situation has been the same for so long, it seems weird to suddenly ask for a change. Likewise, the person who is being asked to step back or stop a behavior often feels defensive: what’s wrong with the way things are? Why are you suddenly changing the game on me?

But life is always changing (which is out of our control) and we need to be able to make changes that suit us (which is in our control). This is especially true when we are grieving.

Grief is exhausting. It takes up so much of our energy, mentally, physically, and emotionally. In a grieving period, we need to be able to tell others (who may be well meaning) what we need. Most often, what we need during our grief is to say no.

I don’t mean you should hide away in a cave until you feel better (though there may be days when that sounds appealing). Rather, I mean you don’t have to go on as if everything is normal. It isn’t, for you. Your life has changed and you need time to adjust and figure out how you want to move forward. People in your life may not understand this; they may want you to show up in the ways you used to, at work, in your family, in your social life. I’m giving you permission to sometimes say no, without guilt. Your grief deserves your full attention. You deserve to honor it by asking for what you need.

Grief before loss: Anticipatory grief

Most of the time, we think about grief in terms of a death loss. After a death, your grief may be all consuming but it’s also clear: someone you love is physically gone and their absence is painful. But sometimes we lose someone before their body dies. That grief—the more ambiguous, murky loss of loving someone who leaves us by degrees—is called anticipatory grief.

Just as it sounds, it’s the anticipation of a loss before the loss itself. Perhaps the person you love is still physically present but they’ve had a major change in their functioning. I don’t just mean dementia, although that has its own devastation. It can also be that your loved one has cancer or ALS or some other illness that is changing their mind and body over months or years. It can be that you’ve lost the person you knew to their addiction or a traumatic brain injury that’s changed their personality. The person you love is technically alive but they aren’t themselves anymore.

In some ways, anticipatory grief is even more difficult to deal with than the grief that follows a death. When someone dies, there is a clear date to point to as the “beginning” of your grief. There are milestones to mark: one month without them, six months, a year. When your loved one slowly leaves you, it’s harder to name your grief and figure out how to cope with it.

That naming is the first step. Acknowledging anticipatory grief will help you move through it. Remember, we don’t “get over” grief, no matter what kind it is; instead we learn to grow around it. Rather than trying to ignore it or avoid it, speak it aloud; share it with others; carve out the space and time to honor it. Anticipatory grief is normal, even if it’s hard to wrap your mind around, and it deserves your attention. Reach out for support; you don’t have to do this alone.

How to talk to someone who is grieving

The prevailing reaction from people when I tell them what I do for a living is, “ugh, how do you do that?” Which, I get: listening to people talk about their grief all day sounds like it would be depressing. It certainly can be at times. But it’s also an honor to hear people’s love stories, which is what grief pretty much amounts to: ongoing love for someone who has left us.

That being said, I realize not everyone feels the same comfort when talking about death, grief, and loss. So if you aren’t a grief therapist, what on earth are you supposed to say to someone who is grieving?

First, let me release you from the idea that you are capable of curing someone else’s grief. You are not. Grief does not have a cure, nor does it have an expiration date. This is not to say you should throw up your hands in despair and ignore someone else’s grief entirely. Rather, I want you to let go of the idea that you are responsible for fixing someone’s grief by knowing the exact right words to use on them. There are no exact right words.

There are, however, some less right words. By this, I mostly mean stay away from cliches like “she’s in a better place” or “it’ll be ok.” I know those phrases are tempting to use; they’ve become cliche for a reason after all. But that doesn’t mean they’re particularly helpful. You may sincerely believe in your heart that someone is “in a better place” but you don’t have to say that out loud to the bereaved. Likewise, you don’t have to say that “everything is going to be ok” or that “they wouldn’t want you to be sad.” Again, those things may be true but they aren’t useful to someone who is grieving a loss.

What is useful for grievers is to be truly heard. This means listening without trying to come up with an answer. You aren’t fully listening if part of your brain is working on a response. There’s also no rush to reply immediately with a profound and heartfelt speech. “That sounds so hard,” is enough. Or, “I wish you didn’t have to go through this.” Both of those statements convey that you hear what the bereaved is saying and that you aren’t going to try to convince them of anything. You’re just going to let them be sad. And if they’ve said something that you really don’t know how to respond to, admit that! “I don’t know what to say” or “I don’t know how to help” are both completely reasonable responses to someone’s grief. Sometimes there are no words.

That doesn’t mean we are powerless to help. When someone is grieving, even if you can’t think of the right thing to say, you can sit beside them and help shoulder their burden for a little while. That, I think, is far better than talking.

Grieving together as a family

Grief is easier to navigate when we share it with others.

That’s easy for me to say: I share everything with everyone. I realize not everyone has this particular… gift. For some people, sharing their grief (or any tough emotion) is simply terrifying. It’s not just the vulnerability of talking about their pain with someone; it’s also a fear that the other person won’t be able to handle it. Naturally, we want to protect the people we love from pain, especially if they're also suffering. This is especially true inside families. My clients often tell me that they don’t want to burden others (usually their adult children) with their grief. Their reasoning is, “what if they’re having a good day and I ruin it because I start crying?” To which I respond, yeah, what if they do? What if you both start crying? What if they’ve been waiting for you to bring it up so they don’t have to? What will happen if you share your grief with each other?

For some people, sharing like that is just too big a risk. After all, families are complicated. The dynamics between parents and children and siblings and extended relatives are deeply set over years, sometimes generations. Every milestone, be it a birth, a graduation, a wedding, a divorce, an illness, or (especially) a death impacts each member of the family in a unique way. And because the same loss can be experienced differently by each member of the family, their grief can also be expressed in distinctly different ways.

These different grieving styles can be hard to understand and accept from each other. Some people (myself included) are external processors: we want to talk (and talk and talk and talk) about our feelings. On the opposite end of the spectrum, internal processors need solitude and silence to work through a loss. And of course, a great many people fall in the vast middle between. Different expressions of grief and different expectations for each other after a loss can cause conflict in the family during what is already an extremely difficult time.

All that being said, none of this has to be avoided or even just endured. Families can shore each other up after a loss and gain new understanding and appreciation for each other. This can be a time to say out loud, “I am having a hard time” without fear of ruining someone else’s day. The fact of the matter is, when someone dies, the people left behind are sad. It doesn’t have to be a secret. In fact, bringing your grief to the other people who love you can increase intimacy and belonging. Understanding that you may be dealing with this loss in different ways—and accepting that no one is right or wrong—can strengthen your family bond. Take this moment to trust yourself (and the people you love) enough to grieve together instead of alone.

Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash

Therapists don't give advice

I love advice columns. I always have; even as a kid, they were my favorite part of any magazine. My Google tiles are mostly suggestions for Dear Amy and Dear Abby and Dear Prudence. I have a subscription to the Savage Love newsletter. I am addicted. I love that the problems are concise and (mostly) straight forward and that the answers are the same: here’s what to do!

But as a therapist, I don’t get to give advice. Don’t get me wrong, it’s sometimes tempting to just tell someone what to do. As your therapist, I have the benefit of objectivity; you may not know why you’re having such a hard time but it’s usually rather clear to me. I’m able to clarify and reflect back what you’ve told me so that you can decide how you want to move forward. It’s not advice but a different perspective.

This difference can be a tough distinction for clients to make. Often at the end of a session, my client asks, “so do you have any advice for me?” Of course the short answer is yes! I have very strong opinions about many things! As I said, the temptation to tell my clients what to do is sometimes very powerful. But advice is often best for the person giving it, not the one who receives it. Tempting as it may be, as right as I think I am, therapy is not like an advice column. The goal of therapy is to help my clients come to their own conclusions and make their own path.

You may not get advice in therapy but I think what you end up with is even better: trust in yourself to figure out how to change or move forward or let go. You know the answer; you just need someone to help you see it. Even Dear Abby agrees.

The Grief Wishlist

When my mother was dying, I was pregnant with my first baby. As you can imagine, there were a lot of complicated feelings swirling around: joy and relief (it was a process for me to get pregnant; this was a very wanted kid) mixed with grief and anxiety and also hope that my mom would be alive when the baby came. As close as we were, it was almost impossible for us to talk about the idea of her dying before I became a mother. Mostly we didn’t talk about it at all. Then one day she suggested that I write down a list of questions for her about babies and she would write down the answers. Just in case.

I never did it.

Not because I didn’t want her answers; I wish I could go back in time and write down a hundred questions for her. But at the time I didn’t know what to ask and honestly, I didn’t want to admit to her or to myself that she wouldn’t be with me when I had the baby.

I wish I had written down something.

I’m sharing this story because it is typical of grief. “I wish” can be followed by any number of should have’s or could have’s, if we had only known that the person in question was going to die. I hear it from my clients: “I wish we had spent more time together” or “I wish I was more patient.” The grief wishlist can be unending if we let it be. There is always some regret when we lose someone we love.

The question is, what to do with those feelings? When I hear my clients say they wish they hadn’t spoken sharply to their loved one, or they wish they had been more present, I don’t wave it away and say it doesn’t matter. Instead, we sit together with the sadness and the regret and the guilt. We acknowledge all the things that can’t be fixed or changed once someone is dead. We talk about what the wish really means, which is usually, “I miss this person. I want them back. I wish they hadn’t died.”

Feeling our grief is the only way through it. When you find yourself saying, “I wish” or “I should have,” don’t run from that feeling. Tell someone you trust (ahem, like a therapist!). Write it down. Acknowledge that your grief is complicated and nuanced. Consider your grief wishlist as a tender, loving tribute to the person you miss. Personally, when my grief wishlist feels heavy, I talk out loud to my mom. It’s a private conversation so I won’t share it with you but I will tell you that doing that helps me. There’s something that will help you too; you just have to find it.

Can I swear in therapy?

If you’ve ever wondered if you can swear/curse/cuss in your therapy session, I have great news for you: the answer is (mostly) yes!

I’m not suggesting you walk into your therapy session ready to use every foul or vulgar word you’ve ever heard. But there is evidence—actual scientific research!—that cursing can be helpful when we are in pain. Sometimes other adjectives fail us and the only way to explain how we’re feeling—the depths of pain we find ourselves in—is to switch to the four letter words.

Additionally, therapy is not the place to censor yourself. Therapy is meant to be a safe space to say whatever you are thinking, however it gets best expressed. For some people (myself included), cursing is a key component of that expression. Sometimes the only words that can accurately describe our pain are the “bad” ones. As a therapist, it’s a relief to me when my clients drop a swear word here and there because it shows me that they’re comfortable with me. The relationship between my client and me is the most important part of our work together; being able to express yourself naturally, without apology, is key to the foundation of that relationship.

Not everyone needs to express themselves this way, of course. Personally, I grew up with an Irish Catholic mother who could make a sailor blush if she was really on a streak; cursing was normal in my house. As with all therapy-related topics, your mileage may vary. But if you’re in a room with me and you want to explore your feelings by swearing, go nuts. I’ve heard (and said) all the words before. I may even join you.

Doorknob communications

The first time I heard the phrase “doorknob communication” was from a student I supervised. She was a little shaken when she brought it up, having just had a client confess something major to her at the end of their last session together (get it? The therapist’s hand is on the doorknob when suddenly the client says the most important thing). That original blog post still exists but it was time for an update. Now that I’m in private practice, I have a much deeper understanding of what the phrase means, why it happens, and what it feels like for both therapist and client.

Let’s begin at the beginning: my therapy sessions are 45 minutes long. Both the client and I know that from day one. That being said, the first few sessions we have together can run a little longer. Some people come to therapy ready to absolutely spill their guts; that 45 minutes flies by when someone starts talking and can’t stop until they get the entire story out. A new client is often on the brink of something—the depth of their grief; the physical and mental toll of a lengthy illness; the weight of caregiving—making those first few sessions a kind of stream of consciousness. And it’s quite often that it isn’t until around minute 43 that a client gets to the really juicy stuff.

This is partly my fault: once someone starts to get close to an important point or a long-held secret, I really don’t want to cut them off. But when I don’t, I’m left scrambling at minute 46, telling them that while I appreciate we’ve just opened a door, we have to slam it shut again until next week; our time is up.

Extend your session time, I bet you’re thinking. But here’s the thing about the doorknob communication: it happens right before the clinician wraps up the session, no matter how long the session is. When clients do this, they're giving themselves a way out. If they decide they don’t want to deal with whatever it is, they don’t have to; they haven’t left enough time to talk about it. There’s nothing forcing them to come back next week. For some people, they had to tell the thing and then they have to bail out, like they’re on a sinking ship.

But most people do return (one of my clients warmly reminds me every session to write down where we left off so we can continue in that same spot next time, like one long conversation split up into weekly installments). And as they keep returning and the relationship continues to grow, the doorknob communications lessen. It becomes less scary to say the Big Thing(s) to someone you trust.

So if you are just starting out in therapy and you find yourself only getting to the Big Thing(s) at the end of the session, hang in there. As you get to know your therapist, the harder stuff will come up more easily, leaving you more time to dive in. And, best of all, you get to tackle it together, in however much time it takes.

"I don't know what to say in therapy."

Let me begin with a small personal confession: this is the longest I’ve ever attended therapy as a client.

Maybe that doesn’t seem like such a big deal. But as someone who has made a living explaining why everyone should attend therapy actually, it feels mildly embarrassing, like forgetting the name of an acquaintance at a cocktail party. “Therapy is wonderful!” I’ve told people over and over for more than a decade while also not actually going myself for longer than 3-5 sessions. I’m a hypocrite, is what I’m saying.

I’m confessing my hypocrisy because I suspect a lot of people are like me: an acute crisis or some other event occurs that leads them to a therapist. They attend anywhere from one to maybe even ten sessions. The crisis passes; things get a little better. And they think, “well, I guess there’s nothing else to talk about.” So they stop seeing their therapist.

I hear this from clients sometimes: “I don’t know what else to say.” Or, “I don’t know what to talk about today.” Or, my least favorite, “what do you want me to talk about?” At that last one, I usually smile and reply, “that’s up to you.” I imagine my clients are not fond of this response but it’s the truth! I can’t see inside your brain. You have to tell me what’s in there that you want to explore.

All that being said, I get it: sometimes I struggle with what to say to my own therapist. She asks me how I am and I say, “I’m good!” and then immediately wonder if that means I should stop going to therapy. The crisis that brought me back to the proverbial couch almost a year ago has passed; I am good. But that doesn’t mean there’s no more work to be done.

The other week, when I really did feel ok, I felt myself about to say those dreaded words “I don’t know what to talk about today.” Instead, I told my therapist that sometimes I’m afraid that I won’t have anything to say and she’ll tell me I don’t have to come back. She laughed (kindly but still, she did laugh because it was ridiculous). She assured me that she wouldn’t say such a thing. And that was all I needed to find a new place to begin. The storm that brought me in has passed but now is the perfect time to do some deeper mining: when I feel well enough to really explore the deeper stuff.

So if you find yourself in therapy at a loss for words, that’s ok. In fact, it’s good! It may be the beginning of a new phase of your work in that space. Hang in through the lull and you may find you can feel even better.

The pain and comfort of shared grief

This is not what I wanted to write about today. In fact, I had started a totally different post yesterday. But this morning, whatever I had written before seemed pointless in the face of yet another senseless tragedy.

When a tragedy occurs—a mass shooting, for instance, or a racist murder—we experience grief, even if we haven’t been directly impacted. I don’t personally know anyone who was killed yesterday in Texas, or in any of the other violent tragedies that have taken place over the last several years, but last night I found myself crying in my husband’s arms, thinking about the devastation of those families and communities.

I’m not a big fan of the five stages of grief (the most commonly cited and probably most poorly understood theory of grief but that’s a discussion for another day). Despite my rejection of the five stage model, those first three stages describe my feelings at the moment: stage one, denial (this cannot have happened again); stage two, anger (why does this keep happening, what is everyone doing, someone should DO SOMETHING); and stage three, fear (we are not safe. My children are not safe).

I am rattling around between these three stages, both drawn to the news and social media and also wanting to hide from it. I want to talk about it at length with others but also can’t bring myself to discuss it out loud. I am alternately disbelieving, furious, and terrified. I want to do something useful but also feel paralyzed and useless. I am, in short, experiencing grief.

I know I’m not alone. So many of us who are parents talk about holding our babies close after this kind of event and that’s certainly something I did last night: I watched my children sleeping peacefully and thanked God they were safe. In my sadness and fear, I imagined parents all over the country doing the same thing. And I imagined all of us reaching out to hold each other up, clasping our hands together and sitting with the enormity of this tragedy and all the others that preceded it.

When something does not directly impact us, it can be easy to turn away from it (denial again, right? “That will never happen to me, ignore ignore ignore”). And there can be some turning away: we cannot sit only with pain all day, every day. But there can also be some turning toward each other. We can grieve together. We can hold space for each other in moments like this, acknowledging that witnessing suffering and tragedy is nearly as bad as experiencing it for ourselves. We can call what we are experiencing grief, even if it is not our personal loss to bear. We can be still in this moment and feel the wave of anguish, of anger, of fear. It won’t swallow us if we hold on to each other. It brings me a measure of peace to believe this; I hope it does for you as well.

How to Mark the Anniversary of a Death

I have never found the right word or phrase to describe the date of someone’s death. Anniversary sounds like something to celebrate; death day sounds flippant for some reason. Still, I can’t think of another way to say it so we’re going to stick with anniversary, which is technically what it is: an annual marker of an important date. And anyway, whatever you call it, the date of a loss is important and needs to be acknowledged.

A lot of people hang on to the idea that after that first anniversary passes, they will somehow be on the other side of grief. And although it’s true that time heals, there is no “other side” to grief. Which is not to say it never gets better; of course it does. But it doesn’t end. You don’t get to the other side so much as enter a new phase of grief. During holidays or birthdays or death anniversaries, our grief can grow again. As I've written before you haven’t had a setback when you feel your grief. Rather, you are continuing to experience normal, typical, regular grief. It ebbs and flows, like the tides.

Paths, tides, other sides: forgive my tortured metaphors. Let’s get more concrete: how should you mark the anniversary of a death?

The short answer is: however you like.

The longer answer is: it depends.

It depends on what will make you feel… not better, but comforted. What will make you feel that the day can pass without you white-knuckling through it? For some, the routine of every other day is paramount. I’m not recommending you ignore the day, but if it brings comfort and solace to get up and do your normal stuff, then that’s what you should do. For others, the day needs to be honored and ritualized and marked somehow. In my family, one of us texts the group chat with the number of years that have passed. It’s a small thing, but it helps to remember that we have suffered our losses together; that we are not alone in our grief. It’s a ritual, albeit a small one.

That’s the thing about rituals: they don’t have to be epic. You can choose to mark the day in a small, quiet, safe way. In fact, that may be the only way you can mark it. You can also choose something big and loud and intense. Your mileage may vary, as they say on the internet.

What’s important is that you figure out what works for you. There are no rules to grief and there are no rules about how to mark a death day. But I encourage you to mark it in some way: to write a note, share a photo, text or call someone you love who remembers. Tell a favorite story, take a walk in the woods, speak out loud to your person. Perform an act of service, sing a song, cry in public or in private. Find the thing that makes the day go by. Because it will go by. More days will come, some better and some worse. And on the worse days, I encourage you to lean in; let yourself feel. The only way out is through.

Talking to kids about death

I grew up in a house of death.

Which is not to say it was a sad or morbid place. On the contrary, my childhood was full of joy and happiness. I only mean that talking about death and grief was normal in my house. This was partly because my dad is a doctor, from a family of doctors. And it was partly because my mom had lost her father very young and she kept him alive for us with stories and memories. Later, our family suffered more tragic loss—a blog post for another time—and so talking about death and grief and loss doesn’t really stress me out. On the contrary, it feels like a natural part of conversation.

It turns out that this isn’t typical for everyone. I can tell because of the way people’s faces contort when I casually start talking about death and dying. It kind of freaks them out. And if adults are so freaked out or uncomfortable talking about death, it stands to reason kids would be as well.

But the thing is, kids are remarkably unphased by death. There are a few reasons for that. First, most of early childhood is a time of pure self-centeredness; kids can only understand the world and its events by how they are directly affected. (I don’t mean this derisively; it’s an appropriate developmental step). Second, and I would argue most importantly, kids take their cues from the other people around them. They don’t always listen to our words (as any parent can attest) but they do often mimic what they see us do. How we model big emotions—and grief is a big one—means more than the words we use to describe it.

We do also need words, of course. There’s a tendency to talk around the mystery of death, to use flowery metaphors instead of using the real words: dying, death, dead. Euphemisms may feel safer but they can be confusing and misleading. Shrouding death in secrecy like this isn’t fair to kids. We don’t have to tell them everything but we have to tell them something. We have to use the words: this person that we love, their body died. And listen, there will be follow up questions; namely “why?” (The whys are endless). And also, how? And—this one can be really tough—what happens when we die?

I know that all sounds intense. There’s a fear that of scaring kids or making them sad. But death is generally sad! Part of our job is to show kids how to handle big feelings. Basically, kids need to see that it is ok to discuss death and it is ok to grieve. I give you permission to cry in front of your kids; to say “I miss our person;” to explain that bodies die and to offer them a space to ask questions about that.

Talking to kids about big stuff—and death is one of the biggest—can be daunting. But I assure you, you won’t scar them for life by being honest and clear. You don’t have to make your home a house of death (not everyone is as cool as my family or origin). Start with the basics, don’t over explain, and most of all, let there be space to have big, tough feelings. For yourself, too.

The 6 month grief slump

“Shouldn’t I be further along now?”

This is a common question from the bereaved: however much time has passed, they wonder if it’s been long enough. The implied concern is, am I moving in the right direction? Will I get out of this? There is a fear of being forever stuck in the beginning, acute phase of grief. Additionally, there is a general idea that grief is a path you walk from the beginning (your loss) to the end (feeling “better”). But grief isn’t a straight line; it’s ocean waves. It’s peaks and valleys. It’s never gone; it only changes, from sometimes sharp to sometimes dull. And sometimes the wave or the valley or the sharpness can be unpredictable.

For a lot of grievers, the six month slump is one of the unpredictable times. The first round of holidays after a death or the first birthday without someone are expected to be tough. But around 6 months, a lot of people are shocked by a sudden wave of grief. It feels like a setback. For awhile there, they were feeling like things were getting back to normal: the funeral is over, they’re back to a routine, they are beginning to see what their new life is like. When their grief confronts them again, it is destabilizing. They feel they’ve gotten off track somehow.

But grief is not on a track, or a timeline, or a calendar. It is an experience that changes over time. We learn how to grow around and with our grief instead of trying to get away from it. The six month slump isn’t going backwards; it’s part of the process. Remember, you’ve been here before and you know the only way out is through.

Using Emotional Intelligence to Thrive

Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of presenting to a group of professional women about emotional intelligence. They had chosen the topic and while it’s not my typical area of expertise, the idea interests me. At its core, emotional intelligence is about examining how we understand and interpret our feelings, our motivation, our interpersonal interactions. I think this is one of our lifelong jobs as human beings: to grow through self reflection and introspection.

So how does that growth occur? First, we need to have a basic understanding of how much emotional intelligence we already possess. As with all psychological concepts, there’s some debate in the psychological community about how measurable EI is. (There’s debate in the community about literally everything, to be fair). That being said, it’s pretty well accepted that emotional intelligence can be higher or lower depending on a number of factors: empathy, for instance, as well as motivation, social and self awareness, and self regulation. There are tests you can take online to get a feel for where you land in each of those aspects. Or you can take a moment and just consider: how well do you know yourself?

The reality is, honest self assessment can be tough. We all want to believe we’re naturally empathetic and intuitive, etc. But actually looking inward takes a little more work and a lot more humility than a standard, “how nice a person do you think you are?”. It takes effort to honestly face yourself and ask, how empathetic am I? How much do I let my emotions dictate my actions? What would others say about me?

A lot of my work as a therapist is encouraging people not to be so hard on themselves for having difficult feelings. So don’t get me wrong: this shouldn’t be an exercise in self flagellation. Rather, I want to encourage you to consider measuring your EI as one more way to grow. It’s all grist for the mill, as my brilliant clinical supervisor told me recently. How we understand and manage our emotions impacts our lives in numerous ways, big and small.

And if you aren’t ready to look further right this minute, you have permission to leave it alone until you are. Part of being emotionally intelligent is setting limits, even (especially) with yourself. When you are ready, I encourage you to investigate with curiosity and empathy. The path to growth doesn’t need to be all thorns. Celebrate the parts of yourself that bring and spread joy and tend to the parts that want to grow with love and compassion.