Are you grieving right now? Me, too.

I cleaned my apartment over the weekend.

Not just a sweep, it was a proper deep cleaning.

No drawer left behind.

I went through every article of clothing one by one and asked myself, “Does this bring me joy?”

If you’ve ever heard of Marie Kondo, this is her method.

It’s the system of simplifying and organizing your home by getting rid of physical items that do not bring joy into your life.

I watched her Netflix series and I was hooked.

Although, surprisingly, this was much harder than I expected it would be. I remembered the people who were crying on the show as they went through the process of letting things go; experiences, memories, people; It was touching. I suppose I didn’t think I would go through something like that. I didn’t think I had anything to let go of.

But I was wrong.

As I went through the old clothes, photographs, and knick-knacks, I felt a hollow sensation well up in my heart. 

Brought to tears by a face oil.

I held it in my hands and thought of the person I used to be when I used it.

I sort of missed her in this brief fleeting moment. I missed the simplicity of a life that I then thought was hopelessly complicated. I missed the comfort of knowing my parents were asleep in the room next door. I missed my daily routine and my yoga studio down the street. 

I realized I would never be her again. I would never be that girl.  

I couldn’t put it into words right then, but now I realize the feeling I was experiencing was grief.

And these days, it seems that grief is all around us:

Kessler said it best in this article written for the Harvard Business Review,

“We’re feeling a number of different griefs. We feel the world has changed, and it has. We know this is temporary, but it doesn’t feel that way, and we realize things will be different. Just as going to the airport is forever different from how it was before 9/11, things will change and this is the point at which they changed. The loss of normalcy; the fear of economic toll; the loss of connection. This is hitting us and we’re grieving. Collectively. We are not used to this kind of collective grief in the air.”

When I read this article, it made me feel better to label the emotions I was experiencing. These moments, like the one I had in my bedroom, are a byproduct of what’s currently happening in our environment. 

As the years march on, our world changes and we slowly evolve. We reinvent ourselves. We pick up new habits and friends and collective experiences, and then we gradually transform into new versions of ourselves.

I believe that building your personal brand is the process of developing oneself. It requires radical courage. It takes bravery to shed old layers and continuously upgrade and expand your sense of identity.  

The deeper you go, and the more you uncover your purpose, the more you want to develop yourself for those around you. The more you want to contribute to the good of others. Even during times of crisis. In fact, even more in times of crisis.

The process of tidying up my apartment felt like the process of shedding layers of an old identity. It was sentimental, a bit nostalgic, but it also made me hopeful for the years to come.

The moral of this story: let yourself feel grief and keep moving. Kessler says, “Emotions need motion.” So let them flow through you and use them to catapult you into the next stage of your life.