Pam Grant Counseling

08/21/2025

How to Carry What Can't Be Fixed: A Journal for Moving Through Loss with Mindfulness, Compassion, and Strength by Megan Devine is a compassionate and insightful companion for navigating grief. Building on the core message of her previous work, It's OK That You're Not OK, this book is structured as a journal, offering guidance, prompts, and affirmations for those experiencing deep loss. Devine challenges the societal pressure to "fix" or "get over" grief, asserting that some losses are indeed unfixable, and the goal is not to eliminate the pain but to learn how to carry it with more ease and wisdom. She emphasizes radical self-compassion, honest acknowledgment of pain, and mindful presence. The book provides practical tools for coping with the overwhelming emotions of grief, understanding its long-term impact, and finding a way to integrate loss into one's life without abandoning the reality of the pain. It's a guide to befriending your grief and finding strength in vulnerability.

10 Detailed Key Lessons and Insights from the Book

1. Grief is Not a Problem to Be Fixed: The central premise is that some losses are genuinely unfixable. Devine fundamentally rejects the societal tendency to pathologize grief or rush the grieving process. The goal is not to "get over it" or eliminate the pain, but to learn how to live with it and integrate it into your life.

2. Acknowledge the Pain Honestly: Healing begins with a radical commitment to honestly acknowledge your pain. Suppressing, minimizing, or avoiding difficult emotions only prolongs suffering. The book encourages sitting with your discomfort, recognizing it, and giving it space without judgment.

3. Self-Compassion is Paramount: In a culture that often tells grievers to "be strong" or "move on," Devine champions radical self-compassion. Treat yourself with the same kindness, patience, and understanding you would offer a dear friend in deep pain. This involves validating your emotions and giving yourself permission to feel what you feel.

4. Grief is a Wild, Untamed Force: Grief doesn't follow a linear path or a predictable timeline. It is often messy, chaotic, and unpredictable. The book encourages accepting grief's wild and untamed nature, allowing it to move through you in its own way, rather than trying to control or intellectualize it.

5. Your Body Holds Your Grief: Devine highlights that grief is not just an emotional or mental experience; it is profoundly embodied. It can manifest as physical pain, fatigue, anxiety, or illness. Paying attention to your body's sensations and practicing gentle grounding techniques can be crucial for processing and carrying grief.

6. "It's OK That You're Not OK": This phrase, popularized by Devine, encapsulates a core insight: it is perfectly normal to not be okay after a significant loss. This validation combats the isolation and shame many grievers feel when they don't conform to societal expectations of quick recovery.

7. Find Safe Spaces to Express Your Pain: Many grievers feel isolated because others don't know how to respond to their pain. The book encourages finding "safe people" or communities (support groups, understanding friends, compassionate therapists) where you can honestly express your grief without judgment or the pressure to "cheer up."

8. Mindfulness Can Help You Carry Pain: While not about escaping pain, mindfulness can help you observe your grief without becoming consumed by it. Practices that bring you into the present moment can create a small "space" around the pain, allowing you to carry it more consciously rather than being overwhelmed.

9. Grief is Love in Its Wildest Form: Devine frames grief as the natural extension of love. The depth of your grief reflects the depth of your love for what was lost. Understanding this connection can transform grief from a purely negative experience into a painful but profound testament to your capacity for love.

10. Living with Grief Means Integrating Loss, Not Forgetting: The goal isn't to forget the person or experience you lost, but to integrate the loss into the fabric of your life. This means learning to live with the pain, alongside joy and new experiences, acknowledging that the absence will always be a part of you, and that's okay.

BOOK: https://amzn.to/3HzSzhO

08/21/2025

As you settle into the first week of the semester, taking time for self-care helps establish a foundation for success. 🏆

Give yourself grace as you find your rhythm and routines. Remember, small consistent steps matter more than perfect days as you navigate this semester’s challenges.

Need help prioritizing wellness? Visit us at [counseling.ufl.edu] for resources designed to help you thrive, not just survive, this academic year.

08/21/2025

As we grow older, we realize something powerful — the heaviest burden we ever carried was never failure, heartbreak, or even loss. It was the endless weight of what others thought about us.

From childhood, society teaches us to live for approval:
✔️ Dress the way others expect.
✔️ Choose careers that “look good.”
✔️ Silence our true selves to avoid judgment.

But here’s the truth: you will never be free until you stop living in someone else’s cage.

Every year you grow, every wrinkle you earn, every lesson you learn — they are signs that life is too short to keep pleasing a world that will never be satisfied. The same people who cheer for you today may criticize you tomorrow. The same society that says, “be yourself” will also judge you for being different.

💡 Wisdom comes when you finally understand:

People’s opinions change with the wind.

Their judgments are reflections of their own fears, not your worth.

The only approval you truly need is your own.

✨ So, as you grow older, drop the unnecessary baggage.
Drop the fear of judgment.
Drop the need to explain yourself.
Drop the invisible chains of other people’s expectations.

And instead, wear freedom. Wear confidence. Wear peace.
Because the lighter your soul becomes, the further you will fly. 🕊️💫Dalai Lama

08/21/2025

From childhood, society teaches us that success is defined by two things:
👉 The job title on our visiting card.
👉 The number in our bank account.

But let’s pause and ask ourselves honestly — is that really success?

If you earn a high salary but have no peace of mind, is that success?
If you carry a big title but sacrifice your health and family, is that success?
If your days are filled with stress, anxiety, and emptiness — can that be called success at all?

✨ True success is not one-dimensional. It is a balance. A harmony. A life that feels full, not just busy.

A better measure of success looks like this:

Good relationships → people who genuinely love and support you.

Good health & wellbeing → the energy to live and enjoy life.

Financial stability → not just wealth, but freedom from constant worry.

Free time → moments to breathe, rest, and live beyond work.

Making a difference → knowing your existence adds value to others.

Liking what you do → not dreading Monday mornings.

Lifelong learning → keeping curiosity alive, growing every day.

Career → not just a job, but a path aligned with who you are.

💡 The Buddha once taught that chasing material desires without inner balance leads only to suffering. A golden cage is still a cage. True wealth is measured not by how much you have, but by how little you need and how much peace you carry inside.

So, the next time you look at your life, don’t just ask:
❌ “What’s my title?”
❌ “How much do I earn?”

Instead, ask yourself:
✅ “Am I at peace?”
✅ “Am I surrounded by love?”
✅ “Am I healthy, growing, and fulfilled?”

🌿 Because in the end, success is not about what the world sees in your bank account, but what you feel in your heart when you lay your head down at night.

✨ Redefine success. Live deeply, not just busily.

08/21/2025

08/21/2025

Classic book on BPD.
Walking on Eggshells

🎶 Friday Night at Mountain Vibes Kava Lounge! 🎶

Come hang with us this Friday for a chill night of tunes from Ginny McAfee. She’s got a smooth, earthy vibe with dreamy vocals and a touch of gypsy-style guitar — perfect for kicking back with a shell or tea in hand.

Music starts at 7:30 PM. Good drinks, good people, good energy.

See you there. 🌿✨

08/19/2025

Too often, we misunderstand meditation as an attempt to silence the mind or force ourselves into calmness. But the mind, like the sky, will always have clouds passing through — thoughts, worries, emotions, memories. You cannot stop them from appearing. 🌿

✨ What meditation teaches us is awareness.

To observe thoughts without chasing them.

To feel emotions without being consumed by them.

To notice the rise and fall of the mind, the way you would watch waves crash on the shore.

This is the essence of Buddhist wisdom: freedom is not in controlling life, but in not being controlled by it.

When you sit in silence, you realize — you are not your thoughts, you are the witness of them. You are not your emotions, you are the awareness in which they arise and pass.

🌸 In that realization lies true peace.
Meditation is not an escape from life; it is the deepest way of living it — with clarity, balance, and compassion.

08/17/2025

Love is:

08/17/2025

08/17/2025

Check out some of her books or podcasts! She has a wise woman in great speaker.

08/15/2025

08/15/2025

The Emotionally Absent Mother: A Guide to Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers by Jasmin Lee Cori explores the profound and lasting impact of growing up with a mother who was emotionally unavailable. This "emotional absence" refers not necessarily to physical abandonment, but to a lack of attunement, validation, and consistent emotional responsiveness from the mother. Cori details how this creates a "hole in the soul" for the child, leading to feelings of inadequacy, anxiety, difficulty with emotional regulation, and challenges in forming healthy relationships in adulthood. The book provides a compassionate framework for understanding these childhood wounds, acknowledging the pain, and embarking on a journey of healing. It guides readers, particularly daughters, through a process of grieving what they didn't receive, re-parenting themselves, and building a foundation for self-worth and genuine connection.

10 Detailed Key Lessons and Insights from the Book

1. Emotional Absence Is a Spectrum: Cori clarifies that emotional absence isn't always overt neglect. It can manifest as a mother who is preoccupied, depressed, narcissistic, overbearing, or simply unable to connect emotionally. The impact is the same: the child's core emotional needs for validation, mirroring, and attunement go unmet.

2. The "Hole in the Soul": Growing up without consistent emotional attunement creates a deep internal void. This manifests as a persistent feeling of loneliness, emptiness, or worthlessness, and a constant yearning for external validation, often without understanding its source.

3. Impact on Self-Worth and Identity: Without a mother's consistent emotional mirroring, children struggle to develop a solid sense of self-worth. They may internalize the belief that they are fundamentally unlovable or "too much", leading to chronic self-doubt, low self-esteem, and difficulty knowing who they truly are.

4. Challenges with Emotional Expression and Regulation: Children of emotionally absent mothers often learn to suppress or invalidate their own emotions, as their feelings were ignored or dismissed. As adults, this can lead to difficulty identifying, expressing, or regulating their emotions, resulting in outbursts, numbness, or anxiety.

5. Unhealthy Relationship Patterns in Adulthood: The core wounds often manifest in adult relationships. Individuals may seek out emotionally unavailable partners, struggle with intimacy, fear abandonment, become overly dependent, or constantly strive to please others to gain the validation they missed in childhood.

6. The Necessity of Grieving the "Missing Mother": A crucial step in healing is to acknowledge and mourn the mother you needed but didn't have. This involves processing the sadness, anger, and loss associated with that unmet need, rather than denying or minimizing the pain. This grieving process is vital for moving forward.

7. Re-parenting Yourself: Since the original "mothering" was incomplete, the book emphasizes the importance of "re-parenting" yourself as an adult. This means consciously providing yourself with the love, validation, and emotional support that was missing, fostering self-compassion, and meeting your own unmet needs.

8. Setting Healthy Boundaries: Learning to establish and maintain clear emotional and physical boundaries is paramount. This protects your energy and prevents others from repeating the patterns of emotional invalidation. It's an act of self-love and essential for building healthier relationships.

9. Seeking "Corrective Emotional Experiences": Healing often comes from forming new, healthy relationships that offer what was missing in childhood. These "corrective emotional experiences" with friends, partners, or therapists can provide the mirroring, validation, and consistent emotional responsiveness needed to re-wire old patterns.

10. The Path to Thriving, Not Just Surviving: The book offers a hopeful message: while the wounds are deep, healing is possible. By understanding the impact of emotional absence, engaging in self-compassion, grieving the past, and actively nurturing new connections, individuals can move beyond merely surviving to truly thriving and living a full, authentic life.

BOOK: https://amzn.to/4mFaG54

You can ENJOY the AUDIOBOOK for FREE (When you register for Audible Membership Trial) using the same link above.