There's a phrase that far too many grievers have heard again and again:

"When you're ready, you'll know. You'll feel it."

People say it in all sorts of contexts—about when you're ready to go back to work, ready to start dating again, or ready to go through his belongings that you haven't been able to bear looking at, much less thinking about parting with. It's talked about with some sort of ephemeral magic, as if one day you'll simply be walking along and go from feeling unready to feeling ready.

The problem, of course, is that being ready isn't a feeling at all. Being ready is a decision. No one seems to know who first said that—it's a statement that makes its rounds on the internet and social media now and again (if you can attribute the original source, let me know!). But whoever said it, we're grateful they did, because it normalizes the reality that for any of the things listed above, and countless others in grief, we don’t FEEL ready. 

You may think to yourself, "Okay, here we go, I'm ready." But in that moment within you there's often a part saying, "You have to move forward, you have to make this decision," while another part screams, "No, turn around. I just want to bury my head in the sand. I just want to run backwards into the safety of the grief cocoon I've been living in." When you approach readiness as a decision, rather than waiting to feel ready, it can change everything.

The Funeral

Let's think about the funeral as an example. Assuming you're reading this because someone you love died, there was probably a moment the day of the funeral when you had to get into the car, shut the door, start the engine, and drive to the service. If someone had asked, "Are you ready?" the word "yes" may have come out of your mouth, and the actions may have followed—stepping into the car, sitting down, putting the key in the ignition. But did you feel ready? Can you ever feel ready to go to the funeral of someone who meant everything to you?

More likely, what happened is that you made a series of decisions. You knew it was something you needed to do. You probably knew there were things that would happen there that mattered to you: honoring and remembering their life, seeing family and friends you love, maybe meeting people who loved them that you'd never met before. So even though every bone in your body might have screamed "No, I'm not ready," you still managed to put one foot in front of the other, get in that car, and walk into that funeral home, church, or pub where the wake was—because you made a decision.

Choice Points and Values

If you approach readiness as a decision you make instead of a feeling you have, you look at things differently. You generally make decisions in your life based on what's important to you, based on your values, and sometimes based on necessity. This can be especially helpful when you're flooded with emotions pulling you in a completely different direction.

The ACT psychologist Russ Harris talks about the idea of a choice point—we've written about this here before, and we recommend you check it out if you haven't. Harris explains that in so many moments in life, you can decide to move toward or move away from your values. So in a particular moment, you might say to yourself, "It's really important to me that I go back to that family gathering again." Inside, you may be flooded with emotion: fear of seeing people you haven't seen since the loss, overwhelm at the emotional triggers that might be there, fatigue and inertia because just finding the energy to go feels overwhelming.

In that moment, if someone asked, "Are you ready?" the side of the choice point where those emotions live would scream, "Absolutely not." But you can take a step back as an observer and say, "I see you. I hear you. I know you're trying to protect me from the pain, trying to keep me safe. And I also know this is something important to me, something I'll have to do at some point, something I can decide right now that I am ready to do, even if I don't feel ready." Just remember: readiness isn't a feeling, it's a decision. And so, like the day of that funeral, you pick up your keys, walk to your car, get in, and set off.

It's Also Okay Not to Be Ready

It's important to know this doesn't mean you should constantly force yourself to do things that cause too much distress, or judge yourself every time you decide not to do something because you're not ready. It's okay to not be ready. It's okay to say, "I've made so many decisions this week or this month that I didn't feel ready for, and I need a break." But when you do that, it helps to recognize it as an active decision you're making—not a passive wait for the readiness fairy to tap you on the head and grant you permission to feel ready.

What Do You Need to Get Ready?

If you think of readiness as a decision rooted in action, you can also think about what you need in order to make that decision. It's a bit like yelling to your spouse, child, or roommate, "Hey, are you ready to go?" The answer you're looking for isn't whether they feel ready—it's whether they've put their shoes on, grabbed their coat, found their wallet, gathered everything they need to walk out the door.

This isn't so different in grief. Maybe the thing you don't feel ready for is selling the house you shared with your partner for so many years, full of memories. What do you need to be ready? A realtor who understands how emotional this process is and can be gentle with you? A way to capture the house before saying goodbye—a photographer or illustrator to create a print you can hang in every place you live afterward? Time to journal about the hopes and fears the move brings up?

The same question applies to smaller decisions, too, like finally going through their belongings: do you need someone to sit with you while you do it, a time limit so it doesn't swallow the whole day, or simply permission to stop the moment it feels like too much?

The question is always: what do I need in order to get ready? When you open that closet, or when the realtor plants the for-sale sign in the yard, will you feel ready? Chances are, you'll feel fifty emotions swirling at once: prepared right alongside unprepared, confident right alongside completely unsure. But in that moment, you can feel all of those feelings and still say, "I am ready”.