Can you be grateful for grief? Grateful for experiencing the thing you probably most wish hadn’t happened in your life? Gratitude and grief don’t seem like they go together, but for some people, while the pain of what they have experienced never goes away, there is value in how the experience of grieving has changed them.

Jodi Merritt is a mental health therapist at Reverence Counseling. She joined us to talk about experiencing grief, how everyone’s experience is different, and how, sometimes, those shared experiences are part of the value of experiencing grief.

Related: Support doesn’t have to be happy