When I worked with folks as a domestic violence advocate, I was essentially doing two things:

Holding space for the hard stuff + holding space for the hope.

I was having hard + honest conversations about safety, risk, and what it takes to heal.

I was supporting people as they reckoned with the violence + trauma.

I was doing homicide prevention work (which is what DV advocacy is at its grittiest).

I quickly learned that when it comes to DV work, you really just have to go there.

You have to say the hard + true thing, be honest about what’s at stake, tell the truth about the limits + failings of the systems that will decide things about their future, and be with people unflinchingly as they’re processing what happened, sometimes for the first time.

You don’t shy away from any of it.

But you also don’t leave people there.

You go to the hardest parts while still holding hope.

While still believing that pathways + possibilities exist.

While still knowing that healing is a thing that happens -- and that it’s available + possible for the person sitting across from you.

In my work, that looked like making plans + taking things one step at time.

It looked like envisioning healing, creating safety, holding vision, and naming possibility.

It looked like me reminding them, again + again, that they’re not alone + have what it takes.

And this is the approach I carry with me as I move through the world, do my grief coaching work, and care for myself through the ups + downs of life:

Do the stark assessment, process the gritty emotion, show up for the hard questions, and hold unflinching spaces for what feels impossible to move through...

...while also holding the vision that healing is possible + hope is warranted -- that our dreams matter and that there are pathways we can step into *today* to begin walking toward them, even through the hard stuff.

Because life asks us to make room for this both/and -- to practice holding the fullness of what’s real while continuing to journey into deeper + deeper layers of possibility along the way.