When I first started therapy, I thought we’d talk about my loss, my memories, my heartache. I didn’t realize the very first thing I’d struggle with was naming basic feelings. But every session begins the same way: morning check in with the question that somehow feels harder than anything else:

“What are you feeling today?”

I sit there my heart racing. I’m trying to see this tiny colorful wheel posted on the screen in front me with a rainbow of emotions I’m apparently supposed to understand and I’m expected to wrap my entire internal world into five minutes.

The truth?
I’m still learning what my feelings even are. Sometimes all I can think is I feel everything and other days I feel nothing and some days my emotions hit so hard I can barely breathe, let alone name them.

What I’m discovering, though, is that the naming is part of the healing.

Because when I can point to a word even if it’s not perfect, something shifts. “Overwhelmed.” “Lonely.” “Angry.” “Wired and Weary” “Hopeful, for a second.” Each word cracks open a little space inside me, a little truth I didn’t have the day before.

And the strangers in that room?
They’re becoming my people.

At first, I couldn’t imagine opening up to them. Each of us carrying a different kind of pain: grief, trauma, loss, heartbreak, anger. We all have different stories. different wounds. different reasons for being there. 

But as we sit there day after day sharing; we start to recognize ourselves in one another. Not the specifics, not the details, but the rawness. The vulnerability. The terrifying act of trying to understand ourselves again.

We’re all learning this for the first time. We’re all doing it without a rule book. Just trying to survive. Trying to heal.
Trying to do it “right,” whatever that even means.

And somewhere in the middle of these weekly five-minute breakdowns, I’ve started to notice I wasn’t alone anymore. The faces around me didn’t feel like strangers they feel like witnesses, mirrors, teammates. People who don’t judge the silence between my words. People who nod when I say, “I’m not sure what I’m feeling, but it’s heavy.”

People who get it.

I’m learning, Healing happens in community.
Understanding happens in small, messy attempts.
And you don’t have to get it perfect.
You just have to try.

This is me grieving