Pause. Find the Grief. Name It. Let the Grief In. Repeat.
- Katherine Hatch
- Feb 9, 2025
- 3 min read
My Updated Coping Plan as of February 2025
I admit that since November, I have coped by keeping my head down, not writing much, frenetically adding activities to the schedule, eating way too much licorice and cheese, and not carving any time to be still, to read, or to look up.
Sound familiar?
When the Universe Gifts You a Pause
Three weeks ago, my 8-year-old fractured her ankle. She earned herself crutches and a boot. I earned myself hours of cancelling all of our activities.
The universe gifted me a pause.
And in that pause, I got to revel in her response, which has been infused with cheer and a stronger sense of empowerment. It has been a mind-bending moment during the darkness of this time.
For weeks, my kiddo has crutched around with a joy I haven't felt in her for some time. She navigates the boot's 312 straps every day on her own and shows off her various adaptations and tricks, including running in place as she balances.
What She Taught Me About Grief
Here's what struck me: I noticed that she does not seek to make meaning out of this event beyond its accidental nature.
It has been an experience for her—not a lesson that needs to be processed. There was extreme physical pain at first, and since she felt all of that, there was no need to create unnecessary meaning.
She didn't ask "Why did this happen to me?" or "What is this teaching me?" She just... felt it. Named it. Moved through it.
The Difference Between Grief and Meaning-Making
The pause that my kiddo's ankle fracture brought me has been a reminder to return to this tenet: Create a pause enough to find and tend to the grief.
Here's the thing: A pause can invite grief—it doesn't necessarily invite meaning-making.
Our compulsion to make meaning comes from an attempt to tolerate our suffering, and not from us needing to tend to our pain. That is grief's job.
We grieve things that we cannot fix, solve, nor control. And sometimes, the most helpful thing we can do is simply name it as grief—not turn it into a lesson, not search for silver linings, not force it to mean something it doesn't mean.
In naming our grief, we may reduce making meanings that only burden us further.
What Naming Grief Actually Does
When we name and feel our grief, it allows us to:
Re-group
Get ready for what is next
Ride with it rather than fight against it
Grief wants us to come up for air and to look up. It begs us to act, to generate, and to do things we care about.
But first, we have to let it be grief. Just grief. Not a lesson. Not a sign. Not something that happened "for a reason."
Just the pain of what is.
An Invitation to Pause
I am here advocating for a pause—even 9 seconds—to:
Find the grief in what is happening in your world right now
Name it as grief (not as a problem to solve, not as a lesson to learn)
Let it in and feel it
Repeat (not too soon, but maybe sooner than you usually do)
My Updated Coping Plan
So here's what I'm learning in February 2025:
Less: Frenetic activity, head-down survival mode, meaning-making that burdens me further
More: Pausing. Finding the grief. Naming it. Feeling it. Repeating.
It's not too soon to pause. It's not too soon to name what hurts. And it's definitely not too soon to stop trying to make it all mean something.
Sometimes an accidental fracture is just an accidental fracture.
Sometimes collective grief is just collective grief.
Sometimes our pain is just our pain.
And that's enough. We don't need to do anything else with it except feel it, name it, and let it move through us.
What's Your Pause?
Where in your life right now could you use a pause?
What grief are you carrying that hasn't been named?
What meaning-making might actually be burdening you rather than helping you?
Maybe today, you take 9 seconds. Just 9 seconds to pause and name what's really here.
That's my updated coping plan. And honestly? It's working better than the licorice and cheese ever did.
Often under fear, uncertainty, hypervigilance, anxiety, depression, panic, overwhelm, exhaustion.
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