Things I No Longer Lie to Myself About
Grief breaks the line. Focus draws the map.
I was standing in my kitchen the other day, talking with a friend after picking up her kids from hanging out with mine. We were both sipping sparkling waters out of a can and nibbling on our kids' half-finished snacks when she said,
“I think I’m doing okay… but everything just feels so much heavier than it used to.”
And I said, without thinking,
“That’s because you’re finally paying attention.”
Not in a judgmental way. In a grief-knows-grief way.
Grief doesn’t just take. It clarifies. And I’m not just talking about losing people or things. Being human means dealing with loss of time, of innocence, of imagined futures, of the version of you who kept pushing through.
We lose beliefs. We lose illusions. We lose the luxury of pretending certain things don’t matter.
We’re all walking around a little heavier now. It’s not just the news. It’s not just the schedules. It’s the weight of knowing better.
Because once you’ve lost something or someone, or even just a way of being, you see differently. The fog lifts. The performance ends. And suddenly the things you used to tolerate make you feel physically sick.
The fake small talk. The emotional labor. The hustle for approval. The pretending.
Grief is a scalpel disguised as sadness. And what it leaves behind is a version of you that can no longer participate in the lie.
So here it is, some of what I no longer pretend not to know:
1. Not everyone deserves access to the softest parts of me.
Before, I gave away my emotional energy like samples at Costco. I let people “pick my brain” when my brain was barely holding. I answered texts while knowing it was way past my bedtime. I stayed in conversations that cost me peace.
Now?
If it doesn’t feel mutual, I don’t engage.
If it feels extractive, I walk away.
Grief made me fiercely protective about my capacity.
2. “Strong” isn’t the goal.
You know what’s actually strong? Sobbing in your car instead of shoving the sadness down. Saying, “I can’t hold this right now.” Letting someone in. Being brutally honest even when you know it’ll cost you something. Grief taught me that being “strong” was often just code for emotionally unavailable.
3. There’s no badge for surviving silently.
I used to think grief was something to manage privately.
Something noble about carrying it well. But pain metabolizes faster when it’s witnessed.
Now I don’t hide it. If I’m grieving, I say it. If i’m mad or sad, I talk about it. If I’m not okay, I don’t dress it up with fake gratitude just to keep the peace.
4. Being liked is wildly overrated.
Loss stripped the people-pleaser right out of me.
When you’ve been cracked open, you lose the ability to shape-shift for comfort. If liking me requires me to abandon myself, then no.
Just… no.
5. Joy without depth feels fake.
Pre-grief, I could enjoy things on the surface.
Post-grief, I crave joy that has roots. If the room can’t hold my rage, my reverence, and my sarcasm about the mortality and fleetingness of life, it’s not joy. It’s a curated performance. I want full-spectrum living. The wild contradictions. The grief-soaked laughter. The awkward silences. The sacred rage.
Anything less feels like Styrofoam.
6. If I’m tired, I rest and/or reboot. That’s not negotiable.
Grief showed me what happens when I don’t listen to my body. Now, when I’m tired, I stop. Even if it’s just for a moment. Even if it’s inconvenient. Even if I disappoint someone. I no longer override the signal. I trust the data in my bones more than the pressure in my inbox.
7. Not everything deserves a comeback.
People talk about bouncing back which really bothers me.
I don’t want to bounce back. I want to build forward.
I’m not “returning to normal.” That version of me died with the loss. And thank God.
Because what’s left?
It’s truer.
Less polished.
More sacred.
Grief didn’t just break me. It rearranged me.
And now I’m someone who won’t trade presence for politeness. Who protects peace like it’s a child but won’t contort herself to keep it quiet. Who doesn’t apologize for feeling too much. Who has no interest in pretending she’s fine when she’s clearly not. And who can no longer stomach shallow company, people who show up halfway, edited, or only when it’s easy.
If you’re in the middle of it: I see you.
And when the dust starts to settle, don’t be surprised if your clarity comes back louder than your pain.
Because grief doesn’t just take.
It tells the truth.
And once you start living inside that truth, you realize something else: distraction isn’t just about your phone. It’s about living split in a thousand invisible directions. It’s about carrying grief in one pocket, pressure in the other, and pretending you can still walk in a straight line.
That fracture, between what hurts and what’s demanded of you, between what you long for and what you perform, steals more than time. It steals presence. It steals clarity. It steals the chance to actually live the life you’re surviving.
And that’s why focus matters.
Not the kind that’s about grit-your-teeth productivity. Not about to-do lists or squeezing more hours out of your already depleted days.
But the kind of focus that stitches you back to yourself. That draws your attention away from the noise and back to what is real, what is life-giving, what is yours.
Focus is how we refuse to let grief (or exhaustion, or chaos, or endless striving) become our only story.
It’s how we reclaim a center when the world, and our minds, keep fracturing us at the edges.
This is what the practice of focus makes possible:
To let rest be a right, not a luxury.
To measure worth in presence, not output.
To stop auctioning off your attention to the loudest bidder.
To stop sprinting and start setting your own rhythm.
Focus isn’t about narrowing your life down. It’s about widening your capacity to live it, fully, honestly, on your terms.
And maybe that is the revolution we’re after.
Learn more in this weeks resource: The After-Loss Inventory: What stayed standing. What got stripped away. What’s non-negotiable now.
With you in this.
Love,
Zelana