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