E is for Expectations and Empathy

We’re a people obsessed with timelines and enslaved to expectations. We operate under the neatness and predictability of our black-and-white plans, checking the necessary boxes as we go. We do what we should when we should.

But grief laughs in the face of expectations. It eats expectations for breakfast and then belches obnoxiously in punctuation.

Grief is an unorthodox master, one who cares not for shoulds and oughts. Grief is a rebel, defying order and logic and reason. And it is an enigma: who can fully know it or make sense of it?

To manage your grief, you must manage your expectations. Expectations and disappointment are inextricably linked. The higher your expectations, the greater your disappointment when they’re not met.

If you hold yourself to some kind of arbitrary grief timeline, you will fail. You will either superficially meet that timeline, healing incomplete, betraying yourself along the way. Or you will be so far past the timeline, your only option is to consider yourself a massive failure.

1. Release your expectations. Allow yourself to experience the terror and exhilaration of authentic healing. A journey that happens at its own pace. A timeline unique to you, one that cannot be predicted or held to account.

2. Remember you are impaired by grief. You are emotionally post-surgery. You are rebuilding your emotional stamina, attached to a spiritual wound-vac, walking with a mental limp.

You cannot currently do what you used to do. What you will do once again. Your temporary limitations are by design. It’s the unavoidable nature of healing.

3. Repair yourself with empathy. Empathy is the great gift of grief. It’s the lens that allows you to experience yourself and the world in color after a lifetime of only seeing in black and white.

Empathy is the visceral knowing that unifies us. It is the language of humanity. It’s the moments where we witness another’s suffering and our soul resounds with the familiar “I get it”.

Empathy doesn’t simply offer sadness or anger or joy for someone. It is our ability to feel with our fellow humans. From the depths of our being, to honor another’s pain, to acknowledge we’ve been there, to hurt alongside in a mixture of vulnerability and strength.

Empathy is the ultimate confirmation that we are not alone. That we are not the first to suffer in this way, nor the last. It is the silver thread weaving us all together in the tapestry of life. Crafted so finely that we cannot tell where our story begins and another’s ends. Created for beauty. Fashioned in love.

Align your expectations with your empathy. Affirm within yourself the pain and brokenness you are experiencing. Acknowledge your deficiencies, your limited abilities, your poverty. And allow empathy to reign supreme.