“You need to grieve properly.”
It’s whispered in support groups. Embedded in articles. Lurking behind well-meaning advice.
Take your time.
Let it out.
Feel all the feelings.
Don’t rush the process.
It sounds compassionate. Human. Wise.
But here’s the thing:
That’s still upside-down.
Because it assumes grief follows a script. That love has to hurt a certain way. That your healing depends on doing it “right.”
But there is no “right” way to grieve.
No five tidy stages.
No schedule.
No universal checklist of tears, rituals, or breakthroughs.
Grief is just love moving through thought.
It arises from within—moment to moment—shaped not by what’s happening, but by how we’re holding it in mind.
That’s why it shapeshifts. Disorients. Surprises.
And why no two moments ever look the same.
Some days you’ll cry at a sunset.
Some days you’ll laugh at a memory.
Some days you’ll feel nothing at all.
And all of it is okay.
There’s no medal for grieving well.
No penalty for forgetting to be devastated.
And no rule that says you can’t laugh through the tears.
Grief, like all emotions, is born of thought and held in the mind. It arrives, moves, flows, and softens on its own terms.
Here’s today’s Upside-Down Wisdom:
There is no proper way to grieve. Like the rest of life, grief unfolds in its own strange, beautiful way.
This is Upside-Down Wisdom—a series where we flip the script on the conventional "wisdom" we've been taught. If you would like to read other posts in this series, please visit the Upside-Down Wisdom page.