How do I know if I'm grieving spiritually or just staying stuck in pain?

Mirabai knew this distinction intimately. She didn't bypass her longing for Krishna—she lived *inside* it, let it reshape her, sang it into the world. Spiritual grief moves. It's not about staying numb or pretending the loss didn't happen. It's about allowing the ache to teach you something about love, about what matters, about who you're becoming without what you lost. Stuck grief often feels like circling the same wound, the same story, the same "why me." Spiritual grief feels like you're *in* conversation with the loss—asking hard questions, letting the weight of it change your values, noticing how it's made you softer or more honest or less willing to waste time on things that don't matter. One way to check: Does this grief make you more closed off, or more open? More rigid in your beliefs, or more curious? More alone, or more connected to what's real in yourself? Mirabai's devotion deepened her capacity to love. That's what grief as spiritual practice does—it doesn't shrink you. It expands something, even as it breaks something else. Start noticing where your grief is moving you, not where it's keeping you stuck.