The Grief Nobody Hands You a Card For

Tip: Listen, then read. This post is a perfect match for Joy Lab podcast episode 252: Born to Belong: Grieving What Should Have Been There From the Start

There's a kind of grief that doesn't come with casseroles or condolence cards. No one names it for you. You just carry this vague, persistent ache — a sense that something is missing, that you're always waiting for something just out of reach.

Francis Weller calls this the fourth gate of grief: What We Expected But Did Not Receive. It's the grief of never being fully welcomed, seen, or celebrated for exactly who you are. Not because you weren't loved, but because love and welcome are not the same thing. True welcome says: you belong here exactly as you are. You don't have to earn your place. You don't have to be anything other than yourself.

When that welcome is missing, we adapt. We perform. We shapeshift. We hide the parts of ourselves that don't seem to fit. And then we wonder why we feel so incomplete. Or worse, we blame ourselves for it. We call it imposter syndrome, or insecure, or not being passionate enough. But this gate gently insists: that ache isn't a personal failure. It's a loss. And losses deserve to be grieved.

Here's what's hopeful about this: it's never too late to receive the welcome you didn't get. New relationships can genuinely rewire those old patterns. The nervous system can finally get the message that it's safe to belong. That process might feel uncomfortable at first (there's actually a name for that: Emotional Backdraft), but that discomfort is often a sign that something real is happening. Something that you've needed for a long time is finally making its way in.

Simple Joy Practice: A Letter to Your Younger Self

Collect: 5 minutes. A pen. Some compassion.

Think back to a moment in your childhood when a part of you (e.g., your curiosity, your sensitivity, your big feelings, your way of caring) was dismissed, corrected, or made to feel like too much.

Write a short letter to that younger version of yourself. You don't have to send it anywhere. You just have to mean it.

Tell them: I see you. That part of you wasn't wrong. You didn't need to be fixed.

Let yourself feel whatever comes up. And if nothing comes up right now, that's okay too. 

Close the letter with one thing you genuinely appreciate about that part of yourself today. Maybe your sensitivity makes you a good friend. Maybe your big feelings mean you love deeply. Reclaim it. It was yours all along.

This practice is part of our 10-part Gates of Grief series on the Joy Lab Podcast. Head to Episode 248 to start from the beginning, or dive into whichever gate is calling to you.