Acknowledgement Before Healing
You cannot heal what you refuse to name — and most people spend a lifetime avoiding it.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 90%
Lemieux's first-order intervention for grief is acknowledgement, which she argues is the single act that would change the trajectory of what most people are able to do next. It has two halves people routinely conflate: acknowledging what you've been through, and acknowledging what it feels like inside you. She's blunt that it can't be fixed and isn't supposed to be — the platitudes ('everything happens for a reason', 'time heals all wounds') are simply not true and stand in the way. Once acknowledged, you can stop avoiding and build a plan that feels safe to heal within. Getting pain out of the body accelerates this, whether through writing no one reads or sharing in a community, because healing happens fastest in community.
Origin
Built from Lemieux's own failed attempts to outrun grief — moving from Phoenix to Nashville, then two months in Europe with carry-on suitcases and no plans — and later formalised through her master's in grief and bereavement.
Core principles
- 01Most people spend their entire lives avoiding the reality of the pain.
- 02Grief can't be fixed and isn't supposed to be — no band-aid applies.
- 03Platitudes ('everything happens for a reason', 'time heals all wounds') are false and block acknowledgement.
- 04Simple does not mean easy, which is why so few people ever get here.
- 05Getting pain out of the body — even writing it where no one reads it — facilitates healing.
- 06Healing happens fastest in community.
How to run it
- 1
Drop the platitudes
Reject 'everything happens for a reason' and 'time heals all wounds.' Lemieux is explicit that neither is true, and accepting them prevents acknowledgement.
Pro tip The permission that unlocks this: it's okay to feel exactly how you feel.
- 2
Acknowledge the event
Name factually what you have been through, without trying to fix or minimise it. It can't be fixed and isn't supposed to be.
- 3
Acknowledge the internal state
Name what it actually feels like inside you. This is the half people skip, and it's the one that stops the avoidance.
Watch out It sounds simple. Simple isn't easy — this is exactly why the majority of people never reach it.
- 4
Get the pain out of the body
Write the story down. It works even if nobody else ever reads it; what matters is that it leaves you.
- 5
Build a safe plan
With the pain acknowledged, create a plan that feels safe for you to heal within and to experience the world again.
- 6
Heal in community
Find or create a community with shared respect and validation for the pain others go through — healing happens fastest there.
Pro tip Sharing your story gives other people permission to acknowledge theirs, which compounds the effect.
In the wild
After losing the children, Lemieux and her husband moved from Phoenix to Nashville. When the adrenaline of a new city wore off and the grief was still there, they packed carry-ons and went to Europe for nearly two months with no plans.
→ The grief was still there when the novelty wore off. Only then did they dig into the real questions — what do we want from our lives now, and how do we rebuild — which required acknowledgement first.
Lemieux shares her story on podcasts, on her own show, and in a memoir. Women who've been through hard things write to her saying her story gave them courage to share their own.
→ She calls it the greatest privilege of her work — sharing gives other people permission to acknowledge their stories, which is what starts their healing.
Common mistakes
Trying to fix grief
There is no band-aid. Treating grief as a problem to solve keeps you in avoidance and prevents the acknowledgement that actually moves things.
Acknowledging the event but not the feeling
Naming what happened while skipping what it feels like inside leaves the avoidance intact — both halves are required.
Assuming simple means easy
Acknowledgement sounds trivially simple, which is why people assume they've done it. Most never actually do.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone stuck after loss, trauma, or a failure who keeps trying to move on without naming what happened.
Not ideal for
Acute trauma requiring clinical intervention — Lemieux routes that to professionals, not self-acknowledgement.
From the transcript
“The one thing that we know about grief and trauma is that most people spend their entire lives avoiding the reality of the pain.”
“We have to acknowledge what we've been through and also what it feels like inside of us. And it might sound so simple to say…”
“What we know is that healing happens fastest in community.”
From the episode
Ashley Lemieux: How Entrepreneurs Can Overcome Loss, Heal, and Build a Thriving Business
Ashley Lemieux