grief belongs right here

There’s this idea about grief that in order to process it, we have to leave where we are.

That we have to deal with grief in a space far away from daily life.

Because we can’t let our children see us cry or be less productive at work or bring our real emotions with us into polite society.

We can’t let grief touch the day-to-day stuff of life.

Because it’s too big + overwhelming + intense and might shatter everything.

It’s true that grief often asks for rest + time + space away.

And it’s good to take it how + where + when we can.

But grief doesn’t have to live in exile -- separate from daily + communal + ordinary life.

And I don’t think it should.

Because grief isn’t an embarrassing problem to hide away.

It’s an ordinary response to loss.

It’s a healing energy that’s healthy + important + necessary.

It’s what rises up to help us navigate change + process loss + make meaning + access the best parts of us.

We need grief.

But we're often encouraged to push it away instead.

Because it's inconvenient + uncomfortable.

It slows things down.

It asks things of us.

It values our humanness -- our human responses + feelings + processes -- over productivity.

But this is precisely its magic.

It helps us be alive.

And it belongs in normal life because it’s a normal thing.

And it’s a dynamic + messy + alive thing.

Just like life is.

Just like we are.

It’s not something we go away to fix + feel all at once (so that we can come back ready to be “normal” again).

It’s something that flows with us in all sorts of wild + unpredictable + inconvenient ways.

Grief belongs right here.

With us.

What might it look like to let it in?

the ferocity of grief

I often talk about grief as a healing energy.

Sometimes, people assume that means grief is gentle + soft.

And sometimes it is.

Sometimes, it invites deep rest + slows everything down + rocks us to sleep + asks us to just let go.

But it can also be fierce.

And this ferocity is healing too -- and often precisely the medicine we need.

I’ve noticed that my own grief lately has been more fierce than gentle, more intense than soft.

Because the loss is a big one (bigger than I was seeing or making room for), and I’d been avoiding it.

So the grief showed up as intensity to direct my attention to the truth I needed to see + speak -- and to what I needed to do to process the loss, be who I want to be through the experience, and take critical steps I’d been avoiding.

And while this wasn’t easy, I found I trusted my grief more after this.

Because it didn’t show up to calm me down, make me feel better, or tell me everything was going to be okay.

It showed up to tell me the truth + be with me through the gritty realness that felt impossible to confront without its help.

It reminded me that loss is devastating and that processing + healing through it is often gritty + intense work that asks something of us that’s not always easy to give.

And it connected me with my own power + ferocity (that supported me in all sorts of ways through the experience).

The intensity is exactly what I needed.

Grief is the energy that catches + holds + carries us through loss.

That helps us feel what we need to feel, see what we need to see, and tend to what needs tending.

Which means it often has to be fierce + intense to do its work.

And that it’s sometimes going to feel more like a broken bone being set into place than a soft lullaby to sleep.

Because our grief shows up to heal -- whether that healing looks like reset + reckoning, softness + ease, or something else entirely.

But no matter how it shows up or what it demands, we can trust our grief to tell the truth + be with us through the hard stuff.

And to me, that feels like good news.

grief is a public service

Allowing + feeling our grief not only supports our own process of healing.

It also brings something essential to our collective life.

Because grief belongs in public + communal space.

It’s necessary.

Grief is about telling the truth + being human.

And pushing down grief (because it’s too painful or scary or vulnerable) often means lying + pretending + denying reality.

It means evading core realities of our human experience like feeling + vulnerability + interconnectedness + uncertainty.

And when there’s no room for grief in public life, no support for processing it collectively, the consequences aren’t great.

Because what do humans do with unprocessed feeling?

We tend to fling it out into the world + project it onto others + assign blame.

We try to control the externals (+ other people) so that we don’t have to feel the feelings that get triggered by circumstances beyond our control.

We refuse to live in ambiguity + uncertainty + nuance and drift toward rigidity + absolutes instead.

Here in the U.S., for instance, there’s been a notable + tragic absence of collective grief through the pandemic, even though the losses have been staggering + devastating.

And we’ve seen the impact of this absence in the form of denials of reality, large-scale refusals to make small changes + sacrifices for the common good, misinformation + conspiracy theories, and blame + hatred toward certain groups of people.

I imagine that if we’d had spaces to feel + process the grief together, we’d be more plugged into our humanity + less afraid of the truth.

We’d be more aware of our tender vulnerability + fierce interconnectedness and more responsive to the hard + painful circumstances of the moment.

So feeling your grief isn’t just for you.

It’s for the world.

It’s not only about healing yourself.

It’s also about bringing that healing + humanity + truth to our collective life.

In this way, grief is a public service.

Because the capacity to feel sorrow + hold uncertainty + allow painful emotions is so often precisely what’s needed to meet the moment, support others, remember community, and step into power.

And when we allow our own grief, we open permission + possibility for others to do the same.

So how might you make room for your grief? How might you welcome it as the healing + truth-telling medicine that it is?

loving ourselves more...

Grief is an opportunity to love ourselves more.

(Just as any hard thing is an opportunity to love ourselves more.)

As I’ve been in my own grief this week, I’ve noticed lots of moments when I’ve been tempted to be mean to myself.

...To judge myself for feeling bad (because I “should” be able to make myself feel better),

...To beat myself up for having moments of feeling less like an emotionally grounded, mature adult and more like a toddler who didn’t get her way + is tantruming because the feelings are too big,

...To make myself wrong for having an experience of grief that is less a cathartic river of depth, sorrow, and connection and more an embarrassing breakdown of irritability, anxiety, and ungroundedness,

...To push myself back into “normal” levels of productivity + activity + engagement, even though my entire nervous system is asking for something else.

So a lot of my work this week has been about simply affirming + loving myself,

Giving myself kindness + care + understanding,

Resting + taking space (more than I think I “should” need),

Repeating simple + soothing phrases to myself like:

It’s okay to feel this way.

Nothing’s gone wrong.

This is normal + okay.

I love you.

This is what being human is all about: messy feelings + chaotic energies are part of it.

I’m proud of you.

I’m remembering that the point of grief isn’t to get to the “other side” (whatever that means) as quickly as possible.

It’s about loving ourselves through the hard stuff.

It’s about having our own backs when it gets messy + feels like too much.

It’s about not making our feelings wrong.

It's about letting ourselves be human + loving our human selves, just as we are.

So whatever hard thing you’re going through, how might you love yourself just a little more fiercely + deeply through it?

What might it mean to make love the priority + the center + the reason?

caring for our toddler self

Last year I found a large round stone on Lake Michigan that I took home with me.

It sits on my nightstand, and on nights when I feel anxious or ungrounded, I hold it as I fall asleep to invite some weight + groundedness into my space.

This stone has soothed my inner toddler many times through restlessness, fear, and overwhelm.

As an adult, I have lots more resources + capacities for self-soothing than I did as a child, but I’ve learned to return to what worked with my little self:

- Healthy attachments to safe people + soothing objects,

- Safe spaces to tantrum when my emotions get too big,

- Plenty of transition time + spaciousness,

- Gentleness + patience when the world is moving too fast.

Because that toddler is still a real + alive part of me that sometimes gets activated.

And when I treat her with care + gentleness -- when I don’t dismiss her feelings, or rush her, or push her to be more mature, or ridicule her for things like finding comfort in a rock -- everything seems to work better.

So what soothed + comforted you as a child? What wisdom exists in those memories? And what practices + tools might you return to now to ground your nervous system + give yourself care?

allowing undoneness

One of the things I’ve had to work through on my journey of unwinding internalized productivity culture is my relationship to undoneness.

The intentional work of leaving tasks, projects, and goals undone, unmet, and unfinished.

...To let what I’ve done for today be enough -- simply because it’s what I had to give.

...To not judge myself for not getting as far as I thought I should + not beat myself up for “wasting” time.

...To notice when I’ve exhausted the day’s resources + energies -- and then put the creative project down + close my laptop for the day.

...To set my work down (even if I just started) when I notice I’m feeling activated, exhausted, or ungrounded so that I can tend to my nervous system first (+ continue to rebuild the trust I have with myself).

...And to allow the hard feelings to exist when any or all of that feels uncomfortable.

This has been deep work.

All sorts of resistance comes up when I do this.

It’s often taken intention to not push + not fight,

To remind myself that self-kindness is always the way -- and that a grounded + well-tended nervous system is always the priority,

And to remember that we’re not here to simply finish things; we’re here to live into an experience of aliveness + a process of becoming.

Life is always undone. It’s always unfinished + incomplete.

And that’s as it should be.

Because life is dynamic + moving. It’s alive + unfolding.

Just like us.

And when I choose to find + create enoughness, no matter the circumstances, I feel more connected to life + self than ever.

To be fully alive is to embrace the unfinished process of our own unfolding and remember that still, it’s enough.

We’re enough.

What might it look like to embrace that enoughness exactly where you are today?

what healing really looks like

Sometimes healing looks like a series of cathartic breakthroughs + sexy epiphanies -- and sometimes, it looks like spinning in circles, getting nowhere, and loving ourselves anyway.

Both are important. Both represent progress.

I experience both in my own healing, growing work -- and in my work with clients too.

But when we’re in a river of struggle, spinning our wheels -- it can feel like something has gone horribly wrong (because we're doing it all wrong).

But when we can meet ourselves in moments like these -- when we can feel our frustration + activation + freak-out -- and take the one right next tiny step toward presence + care, we unleash a deep + powerful magic.

We show ourselves that we don’t need the world around us or within us to be a certain way to stop everything, be with what's real, make a grounded choice, and take loving action.

So when your progress looks + feels like miraculous leaps forward, congratulations! That’s really fun.

And when your progress looks + feels like loving yourself through a hard moment + choosing to be on your own side when you feel like nothing is working, congratulations! That’s power + magic in action.

So in these moments of frustration + stuckness, my practice is to pause, breathe, and ask myself: what’s my one right step toward groundedness, care, or grace?

This tiny practice has opened lots of space through the hardest moments, illuminating the power I have, we all have, to love ourselves through the tough stuff.

How might it feel to try it on for yourself?

fertile ground

One of the mantras I’ve been practicing is:

Right where I am is fertile ground.

I say this to myself when I feel stuck, frustrated, or annoyed -- when I’m spiraling in negativity or feeling creatively stuck or thinking I should be somewhere else feeling something else --

when I’m thinking that something needs to be different (inside or around me) for me to be okay.

I say this mantra to remember that right where I am is the perfect place to start.

Because it’s the only place to start.

Because right here, right now, aliveness is happening.

And in this space, I have everything I need to take the one right next step: feelings to feel, kindness to give, space to allow, and breaths to take.

Right here is a fertile space that supports goodness + growth.

What might it look like to remember that?

grieving the big stuff

The grief we feel around hard stuff that happens in the world is important.

Because loss isn’t just a personal thing; it’s also a collective one.

There are some losses we experience together -- some losses that remind us just how deeply we’re all connected.

I feel this collective grief all the time -- most recently around yesterday’s verdict out of Kenosha. There’s lots of complexity in my feeling + thinking around that, but the sorrow is clear + uncomplicated.

I sometimes feel resistance to this kind of grief -- like it’s too much to take one + take in (+ don’t I have enough of my own stuff to deal with?) -- but I know it’s essential.

Because this kind of grief reminds us that we belong to the world + the world belongs to us.

And facilitates a deeper connection + realer intimacy with a world that will break our hearts again + again.

Which is part of grief's healing quality:

Keeping us connected to life + grounded in the world -- even when this life + world are sources of pain + loss -- because they're also the sources of everything else, including everything that matters.

So inviting + allowing this grief is one way of saying yes to life.

What might that look like for you?

growing faster than we think...

Today I’m pondering how fast growth can happen + how quickly we can expand.

Less than 3 months ago, I facilitated a workshop on art + grief. Today, I facilitated a workshop on the magic of ritual (same platform + similar audience size), and I noticed that it felt completely different.

The first workshop was solid. It went well. But I remember the shaky + slightly nauseated feeling of holding space for that many people.

But today, I felt clear + grounded with only a slight rumbling of nerves (apart from a mini panic spiral I had when I was 4 minutes late due to tech issues on my end).

It reminded me: when we do hard + scary things, it can seem like we’ll always feel that way.

But the truth is: things often get easier.

We grow + expand. We deepen our resilience + capacity. We learn to trust ourselves to do the things + feel the feelings.

Whether we’re showing up in the world in a deeper way, stepping into our work in the world, choosing ourselves + prioritizing our healing, or claiming our creativity + magic --

It often just takes a couple rounds of practice, a moderately-sized leap of faith, or some subtle shifts in identity to create unmistakably real + deep shifts for ourselves.

Sometimes, the changes don’t take as much as we think they will.

Sometimes, the small moves + brave tries work literal magic.

So what’s your next step into your own deepening + expansion?

seeing ourselves

Yesterday, someone introduced me to a roomful of strangers as the Queen of Depth.

And it made me feel all fluttery inside.

Because it feels good to be seen,

To have someone recognize + affirm something true + magical about who we are.

But of course, we can do this for ourselves too.

We can name + claim what we love most about who we are,

...Tell the truth about ourselves to ourselves,

...Step into our boldest + biggest + raddest identities,

...Let who we’re becoming pull us forward into something mysterious + wonderful,

...And shine brightly in our radiant weirdness + unstoppable uniqueness,

What might that look like for you today?

Shine on, radiant one

slowing down

Whenever I feel rushed or impatient, I know something’s off.

That I’m thinking I “should” be somewhere else.

It’s always my sign to slow down.

To remember that life is only ever happening in this moment.

And that the only step there ever is to take is the one right next one.

And when I tell myself that's not good or fast enough, I’m seeing the moment I’m in as an inconvenient, bothersome obstacle that I need to skip over as fast as possible to get somewhere better.

Which means I’m rushing past the real stuff.

So I’m trying to slow down instead.

To sink into whatever’s mine right where I am.

To remember that the moment I’m in is already an alive one -- as real + actualized as any other.

And that there's magic in the slowness: deeper rhythms + bigger questions + richer feelings.

So how might you slow down today?

imperfect self-care

Sometimes, perfectionism sneaks into my self-care.

(Even though perfectionism is the opposite of self-care.)

It looks like judging the things I might do to care for myself in terms of how productive or virtuous they are.

I start thinking there’s a right + wrong way -- practically, ethically, spiritually.

That a walk in the woods is more virtuous than an hour of Netflix or that an hour of journaling is more productive than a nap or that a meditation session is better than a one-person dance party.

But self-care is throwing all of that away to simply listen to ourselves.

Because sometimes, that thing we’re deciding is a waste of time (the nap, the IG scrolling, or the hour of trashy TV) is precisely the medicine our body + spirit most need in the moment.

Sometimes, we need movement + active energy. Sometimes, we need rest + stillness. Sometimes, we need communion + connection. Sometimes, we need solitude + alone time. Sometimes, we need effort + devotion. Sometimes, we need disconnection + letting go.

And in my experience, this often changes day to day, hour to hour.

There are no final answers.

Plus, looking for the “best” or “right” way to care for ourselves misses the point, which is developing + deepening our relationship with ourselves,

Listening to our bodies + spirits + nervous systems -- and letting them want what they want + need what they need,

And bringing (+ being led by) a spirit of curiosity, kindness, and care.

So whatever we choose to do or not to take care of ourselves, how might we lead with love, be nourished by kindness, and listen with care?

seeking enchantment

I was feeling brittle yesterday.

Like my checklist was a matter of life + death, like there was too much to do, like I had to get myself under control or else.

Everything felt hard + cold + rigid.

All signs that I needed some enchantment.

And to set myself free.

So I hauled off to the woods to wander around until I could feel it again: the feeling of belonging to the world.

I breathed the autumn air + watched the ducks + cried into a tree + forgot about my computer.

Most of all, I remembered that I get to just be alive.

And that there’s an abundance of enchantment + power in that aliveness.

And that sometimes the best thing we can do is put ourselves in alive spaces that help us remember just how big + wild + beyond everything is (including our own selves).

What might that look like for you?

A Blessing for All Hallows' Eve

A blessing for All Hallows’ Eve:

May you find enchantment in the spaces where the veil is thin.

May you remember you belong. Inside the turning seasons. Inside life + death. Inside a vast + expansive communion of spirit.

May you feel the presence of your ancestors + remain anchored in the power of your lineage + draw strength from the saints who came before.

May the turning of the seasons ground you + remind you that you are participating, always, in a great unfolding.

May the migrations above draw you closer to your own intuitive knowing + instinctive wisdom.

And may what’s most sacred + alive in this world (+ beyond) never stop haunting you.

the questions we ask ourselves

The questions we ask ourselves matter.

And I recently made a shift around the types of questions I ask myself when I’m struggling or having a hard moment.

Rather than asking: how do I fix this? -- I try to ask instead: What’s most needed right now?

Because when I’m wondering how to fix it, I’m assuming there’s something wrong.

But what if there’s no problem to solve when we’re struggling? What if there’s just an opportunity to meet ourselves where we are + take the one right step toward what’s most needed?

What if I’m just a human having a hard moment, and there’s nothing wrong with that?

These kinds of questions help me meet myself where I am, be on my own team, and approach the hard stuff with curiosity + care rather than judgment + panic.

What might it look like to do the same through your own hard moments?

relating to the monsters

As I’ve been exploring the new-to-me genre of horror + watching some truly frightening stories on screen, I’m thinking about all the ways the monsters + ghosts + haunted places are symbols of something deeper.

And how we create our own monsters + ghosts + haunted places by pushing feelings into shadow, running away from our grief, and turning away from the parts of life we don’t like.

In scary stories, the monsters are the scariest when they’re hidden in the darkness, just out of sight.

Because when we actually see the monsters in the light of day, the fear isn’t quite as visceral + activating.

The same is true for the monsters we create, I think -- for the hard feelings + deep questions + alive knowings we push into the shadows.

When we simply stop running + feel, when we shine a light on what we’ve been hiding away to see it face to face, it becomes a completely different experience.

Take grief, for instance -- something our culture often pushes away (+ encourages us to push away).

It can be a truly horrific + monstrous experience (if we run + push it away such that it becomes a shadowy figure that chases us).

Or it can be a rich + dynamic -- if also an intense + challenging -- encounter with something real + human + alive, something that’s showing up for an important + healing reason.

In real life, the monsters we create have something to offer.

They have a truth to tell, a question to ask, or an invitation to make.

And our work is simply to stop screaming + listen, stop running + feel, and turn toward the shadows to take a closer + deeper look.

What might that look like for you?

your anger is a good sign

When I was doing domestic violence advocacy work, I was always encouraged + a bit relieved when my clients got angry.

Because anger is a good sign.

It’s the closest thing to hope.

(Whereas something like apathy is further away.)

And I still feel this way when I work with clients in my grief work.

Because when we’re angry, we’re both aware of + connected to what we know is right -- to the beautiful visions of goodness + possibility we’re meant to experience in this lifetime.

Still, I’ve found that lots of folks are afraid of their anger and see it as a violent + destructive force.

But in my experience, anger that we honor + allow to exist + feel in our bodies + make room for, is ultimately more a creative force than a destructive one.

It might call for destruction of the old thing or some dimension of our current reality -- but only to build a new + more congruent one.

In other words, there’s a clarity + vitality to anger.

It’s an energy we can use.

It’s the energy that shows us to help us stay alive inside situations + systems that hurt + harm us (like ableism, sexism, racism, capitalism, etc.) in an I’m-determined-flourish-and-outlive-my-enemies kind of way.

It’s the power we possess to fight for ourselves, the lives we want, the flourishing that we *know* belongs to us.

So what if your anger is here to help you heal, come all the way alive, and claim the goodness that is your birthright? And how might you make room for this catalytic + powerful energy, allowing it do its transformative work on your behalf?

Being on our own side

I sometimes get scared when I’m about to share my writing, post my latest art piece, or just show up in the world with what matters to me.

One of the things that helps me move through the fear to do the thing is saying to myself:

You’re safe with me; I have your back + am on your side no matter how this goes.

I don’t try to convince myself that there’s nothing to be afraid of (because there are no guarantees of safety or comfort, especially when it comes to creativity).

The truth is that I might get rejected. I might be misunderstood or judged. I might fail.

But what I can do is promise myself that *I* will never reject me -- that I will treat myself with kindness + care no matter what happens.

Because that’s always the worst part: the mean things I say to myself after a hard thing happens.

So what if we just promised not to do that? To be loving always, and especially when we hit a challenge? To be on our own team, no matter what? What might that change for you?

wanting what we want

Wanting what we want often requires us to integrate shadow.

Because wanting something can bring up all sorts of ideas about what that means about who we are.

It can stir up thoughts like:

- It’s selfish to want more time for myself.

- It’s shallow to want more money or success.

- It’s dangerous to want a deeper experience of my own power.

- I’m a bad person for wanting personal fulfillment in a world where so many people are suffering.

We can challenge thoughts like these + pick apart their logic + change our minds + turn our attention in more supportive directions.

Which is important.

But it’s also important to look at + integrate these shadow parts.

The parts of ourselves we’ve stuffed down + exiled.

The selfish parts. The needy parts. The shallow parts. The powerful parts.

Whichever parts frustrate, frighten, or disgust us.

Simply because they’re alive in us.

They invite us into deeper awareness -- and offer us resources + energies we can’t access any other other way.

And when we push them away, we live more fragmented lives, cut off from the fullness of who we are in all of our complexity + humanity.

Which means we have less awareness around how our shadows are moving + active in us -- and fewer resources for relating to these parts with intention + discernment as we go after what we want + create the lives we crave.

There’s a lot of power + richness + possibility in our shadowy parts, and I’ve found that when I just give these parts of me space to simply be + exist -- when I look a little more closely + make a little more room -- there’s less internal discord and more creativity, equanimity, and access to my core energies.

So what might your shadowy parts have to offer you? And how might you give them some room to be as they are so that you can receive their gifts?