Did anyone teach you that understanding your grief is the key to being (or becoming) a healthy human being? I have since passed this book on to my Mom who is also finding a lot of clarity and helpfulness through its message. I certainly did not experience them as ‘true gifts of loss’ as the book puts it - a point that caused the lower part of my jaw to embed itself into my carpet when I read it. On his way back to see Leanne after several months away, Miles’ car veered off the road, and he was killed.

While I definitively could use some of the funny herbs that this third party has no doubt smoked to reach this conclusion, I cannot agree with it. It's OK That You're Not OK is a permission slip to feel what you feel, do what you do, and say what you say, when life finds you in a place of profound loss and the world seems hell-bent on telling you the right way to get back to being the person you'll never again be. In this special two-part episode, we face the new year together - with special guest, historian, author, and queen of awkward conversations, Kate Bowler. She calmly and lovingly explains what well-meaning people in our culture do with grief and she does it without blame or shame.First it offers a compassionate and accepting view towards grief that is so often lost in our modern society. In wide ranging, insightful, deep conversations, Megan talks with people about their often invisible losses - and what they’ve learned about being seen and supported in difficult times. Well, lady, let it be a lesson to you: either you care about people and check in with them from time to time, or you don’t and it shows. Mark's work is widely accessible and used in spiritual retreats, healing and medical communities, and more. Fear takes over in the people around you because they know it could happen to them, and they don’t want to think about that, it’s too painful.

In this beautifully written offering for our broken hearts, Megan Devine antidotes the culture's messed up messages about bearing the unbearable. That unacknowledged pain results in burnout, disconnection, and a distinct lack of empathy for others who hold seemingly opposing views. Not OK, Megan Devine offers a profound new approach to both the experience of grief and the way we try to help others who have endured tragedy.But I am here to tell you that the long, drawn-out death of a parent can also leave your whole world turned upside down. Megan Devine is the author of the book It's OK that You're Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture that Doesn't Understand.