She came to me saying he needed therapy. And sure, maybe he does. Maybe he’s shut down, unavailable, and unequipped for the emotional reality of their shared life.

But what we uncovered in our first conversation was something else entirely. She’s been grieving, quietly, for months. Not because of a death or something dramatic. There’s been no life-altering event that people could point to and understand. But because she’s been emotionally abandoned by someone still standing right beside her. He’s still sharing her bed and still asking what’s for dinner.

That’s the kind of grief no one gives you permission to feel. There’s no funeral for the person your partner used to be. No casseroles delivered when intimacy dies a slow death. And no bereavement leave for the loss of feeling that’s seen, known, and cherished in your own home.

There’s just the growing ache of being invisible in your own life.

What surprised her the most from our call wasn’t that he couldn’t show up for her emotional world. It was that she’d been the one disappearing. Slowly, silently adapting to the silence. Shrinking her needs to fit his capacity. Explaining away her loneliness until it felt normal.

She didn’t need advice about how to communicate better or tips for reviving their relationship. She needed meaning. Not a checklist to fix what was broken, but a deeper way to understand why this was happening now, what it was revealing about her in the big picture, and how to move forward with clarity instead of all this confusion.

And after one session, she could feel the shift. This wasn’t just about a relationship that might be ending (or might somehow survive). It was about a chapter closing in her life, and the soul-level choice to show up differently in the one that’s beginning.

There’s a difference between holding it together and holding yourself sacred.

I keep seeing this pattern. We’re in one of those life-seasons now, collectively and personally. It’s a cycle shift. An undercurrent. A slow, undeniable turning of the inner tide that’s asking us to become something new. It’s not just the earth that’s changing between spring and summer. It’s you, too.

Things feel faster somehow. And heavier, more intense. Old ways of coping don’t seem to work anymore. Compromises you used to make feel impossible now. And the truth you’ve been trying to keep at bay is knocking. Louder.

From my perspective, not everyone sees it happening. And not everyone wants to admit what they’re feeling. But you might. You might feel it in your bones, this sense that life is asking something different of you now.

I’m not really talking about your partner who’s checked out, or your job that’s draining your soul. Or the bone-deep fatigue that sleep doesn’t cure. I’m talking about what you’re being asked to become once you stop abandoning yourself to keep everyone else comfortable.

It’s important to recognize that some grief doesn’t announce itself with tears and drama but through the slow erosion of joy and the gradual dimming of your inner light. Especially in the way you stop expecting to be seen because you’ve forgotten what that even feels like.

You might be grieving the version of yourself who used to believe that love would be enough, or the future you thought was secure, or the energy you used to have for things that once mattered. Or maybe it’s just this sense that something essential has been lost along the way.

When you realize you’ve been holding it all alone

If you’re feeling something you haven’t quite put your finger on, maybe grief that doesn’t fit the traditional mold, or a truth that’s only just surfacing, and you have this feeling that life’s trying to change you, you don’t need to wait for it to become a crisis.

You don’t need to collapse to deserve support. And you don’t need to hit rock bottom to reach out. You can just say: I’m in it. I need meaning. I want to be met where I actually am, not where I think I should be.

This is the work I do. Not through advice or strategies or step-by-step programs, but through real conversation. Through the kind of quiet, steady presence that lets you remember who you are underneath all the ways you’ve learned to disappear.

If you’re drawn to soul sessions we can get into it twice a month, or if you need the more fluid connection of unlimited support where you can reach out whenever something stirs, that’s available too. We’ll find what fits your actual life, not some idealized version of it. Because here’s what I know for certain: You don’t need to have it all figured out to begin. You just need to be willing to stop pretending that numbness is the same thing as peace.

With love and deep listening (and less duck drama these days),

Jonni

And if you want a P.S. You’ll never need to prove how hard it is to me. You don’t need to justify your pain or demonstrate that you’ve tried everything else first. You just need to show up as you are. I’ll meet you in the meaning, and we’ll find your way forward from there.