It's Ok That You're Not Ok

Devine does a wonderful job of validating our feelings and our needs as we grieve.

It is filled with many wonderful pieces of wisdom about grief. The most helpful insight she offered me was the distinction she drew between the healthy pain of grief versus the unnecessary and unhelpful suffering that so often accompanies grief.

She provides practical advice on how to be kind to ourselves as we grieve. We can’t “fix” our grief and loss, but we can be kind to ourselves on this difficult journey.

I found It’s OK That You’re Not OK to be a useful resource to gain insight and encouragement when dealing with loss and the grieving process. I learned it’s okay to be on my own timeline with grief. Though the author couldn’t cover examples of every type of loss, I thought there were core similarities in people’s grieving that gave readers validation as they concentrated on their own self-care when pushing through their struggles.

I am like the Johnny Appleseed of this book; I’ve given it to the closest friends and the most casual acquaintances from very different walks of life, whether they are the person suffering a loss or a person supporting someone suffering one because guess what? We’ll all be both at different points in our lives. We can also define loss and its accompanying grief broadly; this book helped me show up for a friend during her divorce, for instance. If I could mandate a national book club that compelled us all to read one book, I’d pick this one.