The Thing I Was Told to Fix Is Now What Pays Me

The thing I was told to stop doing is what's getting me paid and getting me noticed in grief wellness.

For years, I heard the same feedback in different fonts: "You're in your head too much." "Stop trying to make sense of your emotions." "It's not that deep."

And to be fair… people weren't wrong.

I do dissect things until there's nothing left. Sometimes down to the point where even I want my brain to log off.

But I'm learning as a small business owner: the thing people told me to fix is the exact thing that makes my work different.

When the Validation Finally Came

This week, I was on the phone with a library supervisor who booked me for my grief literacy program. I asked him why. What made him want this program now.

He said: "You intellectualize grief in a way I've never seen before. You help people understand what they're going through."

Whew.

A couple of weeks before that, a therapist colleague with 20+ years in the space told me she's never seen grief approached from my cultural lens.

And that's my thing.

I want to know how we got to a place where grief is shamed and treated like a personal problem. I'm a systems girlie. I'm not just interested in the problem — I want to know what caused it.

Why Understanding Changes Everything

Not sure about you, but I can face almost anything I can understand.

If I can name what's happening, I can stop shaming myself for it. If I can help somebody realize they're grieving — and that it's okay — then I consider my job well done.

Because some of us have been walking around thinking we're dramatic, or thinking there's something wrong with us… when we're actually grieving.

So yeah. I overthink.

I turn emotions into timelines. I turn pain into frameworks. I turn confusion into curriculum. I turn "I don't know what's wrong with me" into "Here's what's happening, and here's why it makes sense."

Turns out… that's not a flaw. It's my differentiator.