It’s Monday afternoon as I write this. It’s been the kind of day where the light seems to hold questions more than answers. Perfect for what’s been on my mind.
Several of you have written asking versions of the same question: “Why all this talk about grief lately?” Some of you are curious, some concerned, and some feel like maybe I’m seeing something you can’t quite see yet.
So let’s have the conversation that’s been brewing in my inbox and, I suspect, in the quiet of your hearts too.
“Why are you talking about grief so much these days?”
Honestly? Because grief is talking to me. Through my clients. Through the collective energy field. And through what it means to be human right now.
But it’s more than that.
As I’ve been creating this grieving companion, something keeps becoming clearer: We’re carrying two distinct kinds of grief.
There’s the grief of losing someone we love. That soul-shattering experience of death that rearranges everything. Nothing compares to it. Nothing replaces it. It’s its own universe of loss.
And then there’s the grief of life changes. The death of dreams, identities, certainties. The loss of health, home, purpose. These aren’t lesser griefs, just different ones.
And right now, we’re in a time of unprecedented loss on both fronts.
And what I know from both my professional experience and my own life experience is that when grief goes unnamed, it goes underground. It becomes anxiety. Depression. Rage. Numbness. Physical illness.
I’m talking about it because silence isn’t serving any of us anymore.
“Is this time really different? Haven’t humans always grieved?”
Yes and yes. Humans have always grieved. But this moment is unique.
We’re the first generation to grieve in real-time with the entire planet. Through our screens, we witness losses happening thousands of miles away as if they’re in our living room. We’re neurologically wired for tribe-sized grief, but we’re processing global-sized loss.
We’re also experiencing what I call “anticipatory collective grief”. We’re mourning futures that haven’t disappeared yet but feel increasingly uncertain. Climate anxiety? That’s grief. Political despair? Grief. The strange emptiness after scrolling social media? Also grief.
This isn’t your grandmother’s grief. This is grief amplified, digitized, and shared across billions of nervous systems simultaneously.
“But grief is just sadness, right?”
Oh, if only it were that simple.
Last week I was working with a client who was furious about a friendship ending. “I’m not sad,” she insisted. “I’m angry.” And I said, “Yes. That’s grief too.”
Grief wears many masks:
- Anger that comes in waves
- Numbness that feels like floating
- Restlessness that won’t let you settle
- Exhaustion that sleep doesn’t cure
- Guilt that feels like “what if”
- Relief that brings its own shame
- Confusion that clouds everything
Sometimes grief is the hyper-vigilance after loss, when your body stays on high alert. (That’s always been my particular brand. After my son Connor died, I couldn’t stop scanning intersections, watching every car, my heart racing at every crosswalk. I’d text loved ones repeatedly just to make sure they’d arrived safely.)
Sometimes it’s the strange euphoria when you realize you survived something unsurvivable. And sometimes it’s the bone-deep loneliness of being the only one who remembers.
“Why does this matter for spiritual growth?”
Because grief is one of our greatest spiritual teachers.
It strips away everything non-essential. It cracks us open to truth and shows us what actually matters.
In my transpersonal psychology work, I’ve seen how unprocessed grief blocks intuition, dims spiritual connection, and keeps us trapped in old patterns.
But when we turn toward it, when we let it move through us properly, that’s when deep transformation happens.
I learned this the hard way. For years after my sisters died, I thought being “strong” meant not feeling. It took my son’s death to crack me open completely and teach me that strength is in the feeling, not the avoiding.
Grief isn’t the opposite of spiritual growth. It’s usually the doorway to it.
“What can we actually DO about all this grief?”
First, we name it. We stop calling it stress or anxiety or “just being tired.” We say: “This is grief. I am grieving.”
Then, we make space for it. Not the kind of space that tries to fix or rush or spiritually bypass, but the kind that says, “You belong here. Show me what you need.”
We find containers for it whether that’s through ritual, creativity, movement, or allowing tears to fall without apology.
And we remember that grief shared is grief transformed. We weren’t meant to carry these weights alone.
One last thing…
As I continue to write and record these grieving companion audios, I keep having the same experience. My voice cracks. Memories surface. Sometimes I have to stop and just breathe.
And every single time, I think: “This is exactly why this work matters.”
Because if I – someone who’s spent decades studying grief, living grief, guiding others through grief – still feel its rawness, then how much more do others need permission to feel theirs?
I’m not talking about grief because it’s trendy or marketable. I’m talking about it because it’s true. Because it’s here. And because pretending otherwise is costing us our aliveness.
Your grief, in whatever form it takes, whatever it’s about, matters. It’s not a problem to be solved. It’s a messenger to be heard.
And maybe in learning to listen to our own grief, we learn to listen to each other. To the earth. And to what wants to emerge from all this breaking open.
That feels like medicine our world desperately needs right now.
