The Lessons In Loss

Not everyone makes it through grief awake. But if you do, something powerful can shift.

I’m not afraid of death. I used to be when I was younger. When I learned Elvis had died, I was five and remember freezing whenever I heard his voice on the radio. I couldn’t comprehend how someone who once walked the earth, sang, laughed, created music, not to mention who everyone knew, could just be… well, gone.

The finality of it moved me. He wouldn’t make any more music. I won’t ever see him. That we’d only ever have what he left behind. Will my parents ever stop being sad?

Inherited? Perhaps. Did I feel it? Hell yes.

When Prince died, I felt the same. Probably deeper. He wrote the soundtrack to my life. His music held memories of who I was and who I was becoming. It felt personal. But it wasn’t, of course, not in the way you feel when you lose someone you know or truly love. A family member, friend, colleague, neighbour. This is another depth altogether. It can be crucifying, and when someone is taken suddenly, it’s nothing less than heartbreaking for those left behind.

Collective Grief

We are living in a period of deep, collective grief on the planet.

We are grieving a loss of stability, certainty, connection, and the world we thought we knew. We’re grieving old systems that are crumbling, identities that no longer fit, and truths that are constantly being uncovered. We are grieving the tragic loss of innocent lives in unnecessary wars.

What goes on in all corners of the world affects us. Either consciously or unconsciously.

And let’s face it. We have NOT been taught how to process collective grief consciously. It may manifest through our lives as burnout, anxiety, irritability, disconnection, division, and numbness. You can feel it in people around you who are overwhelmed and lost, in families who don’t speak the same language of values anymore, in communities torn apart by fear or polarisation. Towns become heavy with hopelessness, and countries carry the emotional weight of unprocessed generational, political, and environmental trauma.

This grief has been building for years, and now it’s asking to be felt, honoured, and transformed. That’s what we can do. Because just like personal grief, collective grief is here to wake us up.

And it has to begin with each of us choosing to FEEL.

The Energy Of Grief

It’s dense, heavy, and often misunderstood. Whether personal or collective, it moves through the whole body like a tide, slow and silent, fierce and unrelenting. It carries the weight of love that has nowhere to go, of interrupted life and things left unsaid.

And it will begin its work, when each of us choose to FEEL it.

A Different Way Of Looking At It

It’s delicate terrain. I say this with full awareness that not everyone will be ready, or willing to see it this way, and that’s okay. But in my experience, grief can be a profound portal for transformation. It is, at its core, a transition. And how we interpret that transition shapes the way we move through it.

If we only see grief as pain, as a final ending, or as absence, it can leave us feeling hollow and diminished, weak, even. But there are lessons within the loss that ask for our divine attention.

There are parts of us that only show up in grief, and it can literally alter our life path. It deconstructs what you thought was solid and burns down the illusion. It may ask, Who are you now? Without them? Without that? Without what you thought defined you?

Some don’t make it through grief awake. Staying in the pain and fighting the change is all they have. And that’s okay, it’s human. But real transformation happens when we choose to let it move through us.

Grief is a strange and sacred teacher. It unravels us, but it also has the power to reveal what truly matters. It’s life-changing, and life-affirming too. Because when we’re deep in grief, we’re also fully present in life. Feeling it all.

And maybe that’s what it means to be truly alive. I’ve been asked those questions more than once. And I’m still answering them. What I’ve learned is that grief isn’t just sorrow. It’s not just emptiness. It’s real, authentic, powerful love trying to find a new way to exist.

There's No Way Out But Through

I like to think the soul moves on, calmly and peacefully, because for those that pass, it’s simply a transition. But for those left behind, it’s a jagged, excruciating, heart-numbing loss.

It arrives, often uninvited and changes the shape of us. It unravels us into tiny little pieces and rearranges us, in its destruction, but what remains is the version of us that remembers what matters.

Society doesn’t preach this. We are meant to be strong and move on. ‘Keep yourself busy!’ I don’t want to get over the things and people I’ve lost. I want to get through them. I want to be shaped by them in a way that opens me. That makes me understand love more. That stops me from taking anything for granted.

Rubbish. Strength isn’t pretending you’re fine; it is allowing grief to do its sacred work.

Grief calls us to sit and be still with it. Honour it, Rage and weep with it. The pain doesn’t go away, but we grow strong enough to carry it differently.

You may stop the people-pleasing, you may learn to use your voice, you may make some life-changing decisions, you may hug for longer and say I love you more, because there is no promise of tomorrow.

One thing is for certain: grief brings with it great change. It will no doubt be the end of something, but it can also be the beginning.

Sending love. X