We grieve for what we hoped could be, for what we hoped was possible. Grief arises with force when our hope for what was possible is no longer. I have many folks come to me, confused by why their grief is so intense. Perhaps they grieve a relationship that was estranged, or a family member who was abusive towards them, or something they know wasn’t ultimately good for them, yet they are deeply affected. This is a form of disenfranchised grief, in which we (or others) diminish

Our grief is deeply shaped by the nature of our relationship to the person or situation we are grieving. In fact, as hard as it might be to hear, I have observed that one of the most reliable predictors of what our grief journey may look and feel like tends to be reflective of what the relationship looked and felt like. When we love deeply, we grieve deeply. AND love and being in relationship can be complicated, complex, messy, and at times, confusing and brutal (which is som

Along with a proper grief name tag to wear, I’ve always wanted to have a grief-appropriate prescription pad. In acute grief, which is the initial phase after the loss when one’s world might be inhabitable and upside down, people often feel there are no things or acts that bring much comfort. And often, the burden is placed on the person grieving to not only figure out what those are, but also educate those around them. In short, the acute grief phase is not a time for emotio

Grief is the ultimate swim upstream. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I learned from an early age about the wonders of salmon. What stood out to me has always been their journey back to their home streams from the ocean. As they return to the exact stream of their birth, they swim against the current, which often involves flinging their underbellies towards the waves of waterfalls in order to take a hit so immense that they fly up into the air, landing a little bit closer

C.S. Lewis wrote A Grief Observed after his own experience of losing his partner. This small book has always stuck with me. His observation that grief feels like fear is something I hear from folks every day. When we lose someone significant to us, our sense of trust in ourselves, others, and the world can feel obliterated. This shattering of that trust often shows up as increased fearfulness, anxiety, hyper-vigilance, and the urge to cocoon or run. Increased fearfulness i

I wish any of us could actually know and prepare for our grief journey. Here are some truths I’ve come to believe about grief timelines: There are 3 Phases in Grief : 1) Learning that the loss happened; 2) The Head and Heart connecting on the reality of the loss; and 3) Learning to live with this reality in one’s ongoing life. 1) The first phase is learning that the death, the event, the loss, actually happened. And that takes time. Learning that something happened can be

In grief, we are growing in two [seemingly] opposite directions. One growth direction is towards accessing our own strength and power and truth. This is the one that society recognizes as “healing.” The other way we are growing is towards our capacity to access and tolerate our own pain. This direction doesn’t usually feel like growth or healing; it is hard and messy, less sexy, less spoken about, and might even be mistaken for regressing or moving backwards. However, it is j

When we are grieving, we tend to remember how we felt in someone’s presence (if we are seen and heard OR not) instead of the exact words someone said. However, words can and do matter. The time of acute grief is filled with harder and easier moments that cycle rapidly. It is such a different experience from depression and anxiety and can feel so unfamiliar and unsettling. Easier and Harder have been the words I have found that best describe the cycle of these moments and the

Disloyalty in grief is that experience of feeling badly for feeling ok. It tends to happen in those moments that you chuckle at something and then get that drop in your stomach—how could I have any other emotion besides the devastating ones? I have yet to meet a grieving person who doesn’t have this experience. We humans swim in emotions about our emotions. This second layer of emotions, namely the self-punishing and diminishing ones, is where disloyalty lives. I have come