Welcome to the Very Well Mind podcast. We've interviewed over 100 authors, experts, entrepreneurs, athletes, musicians, and others to help you learn strategies to care for your mental health.

This episode is hosted by psychotherapist and bestselling author Amy Morin. Now let's get into the episode.

Okay. You're listening to the Friday fix. Every Friday, I share a quick mental strength strategy that will help fix the thoughts, feelings, and actions that can drain you of the mental strength you need to be your best.

Now, let's dive in today's episode.

Today we're talking about how to stay mentally strong when you're working through grief.

As a therapist, I see a lot of people who have misconceptions about grief.

And it's no wonder why.

We rarely talk about grief as a society. We're uncomfortable with death, and when we see other people grieving, our temptation is to try and cheer them up. No one ever

teaches us how to grieve. In fact, no one even tells us what it means to grieve or why we do it.

So today I'm sharing what I've learned not just as a therapist, but as well as through

my own journey with grief. I was 23 when my mom died, and then exactly three years to the day,

my 26-year-old husband died. A few years after that, I lost my father-in-law and then a former

foster child. In fact, I spent an entire decade grieving

one loss after the next. But before I share how to stay strong while grieving, I want to clear

up some of the biggest misconceptions about grief. Number one, grief has a timeline. People often

believe that the length of time you grieve is directly proportional to how much you loved someone.

If you loved your partner, your mom, or your grandfather a lot, then you should be sad for a long time.

If you lost a coworker or a neighbor, you should only be sad for a little while.

But those things aren't true. In fact, thinking that you should feel sad for a certain amount of time

or that you should feel sadness to a specific

extent can be quite harmful. Misconception number two. Time heals all wounds. Nope, time actually

heals nothing. It's what you do with your time that matters. But I can't tell you how many

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