This is my first Mindset Mastery Monday back since I travelled to Hawaii to be with my dear friend Jeff.

And Jeff has now died.

Coming home has made the reality of that hit me in a completely different way.

I went halfway around the world to be there with him, and I'm enormously grateful that I did.

But now I'm home.

And I'm learning how to be in the world without Jeff in it.

There have been moments of enormous sadness. And there have also been moments of enormous gratitude.

And that's what I want to talk about this morning.

Because I've realised something:

I am grieving because Jeff is gone.
 And I am grateful because Jeff was here.

Both are true. I don't have to choose one.

TÁ BRÓN ORM

There's a beautiful expression in Irish:

Tá brón orm.

We usually translate it as “I am sorry.” But literally it is closer to:

“Sadness is on me.”

And I love that distinction. Because it doesn't say: I AM sadness.

It says sadness is upon me. It's something I'm experiencing.

And if something is upon me, it can move. It can change. It can lift.

That doesn't mean forgetting the person. It doesn't mean the love disappears.

The feeling is not the whole of who I am.

THE MINDSET LESSON

One of the great lessons from Anthony de Mello is learning to observe what we're experiencing without turning the experience into our identity.

Instead of “I am devastated,” we can begin to notice: “There is devastation here.”

Instead of “I'm broken,” we might say: “I'm experiencing heartbreak.”

That's not just playing with words. It's creating a little space between you and the emotion you're experiencing.

Because emotions move. Grief moves. It comes in waves.

Sometimes you can be laughing and then, seemingly from nowhere, you're crying. A photograph. A song. A place. A memory. And suddenly the sadness is back.

That doesn't mean you're going backwards. It means you loved someone.

GRIEF DOESN'T NEED TO BE FIXED

We're often uncomfortable around grief. We want to make someone feel better.

We say: “Stay strong.” “Keep yourself busy.” “They wouldn't want you to be sad.”

But grief isn't a problem that needs to be solved.

When it hurts, let it hurt.

Feel it. Don't build a house there. But don't run from it either.

THE CONTRAST OF LIFE

There's another idea I've been thinking deeply about since coming home:

The lowest point can become a doorway to your highest self.

We don't always understand the value of darkness while we're in it. But sometimes it is in the absence of light that we discover how to become the light.

The human mind naturally seeks comfort. But growth often asks something different of us.

Life contains contrast:

Darkness and light.
 Sorrow and joy.
 Breaking and rebuilding.
 Grief and gratitude.

We don't become whole by experiencing only the emotions we like.

Wholeness means allowing ourselves to experience all of being human without abandoning ourselves in the difficult moments.

THREE REAL-LIFE EXAMPLES

You can miss someone desperately and smile at a wonderful memory.

You can cry because someone is gone and feel incredibly lucky that your lives crossed at all.

You can wish things had been different and be profoundly grateful for what actually was.

That's not denial. That's not forced positivity. That's emotional wholeness.