The Portal You're Avoiding
I had an alignment call with a potential client a few days ago. He reached out looking for support because he was feeling overwhelmed and scared.
I was feeling a lot of heaviness in the call - between him and I, and in the world.
It's a heavy place right now.
As I was dialoguing with him, I was tracking all of the things that were on his plate.
He'd be in Europe for 6 months and his visa was up.
He'd just been broken up with and was feeling lonely.
There were a few stories running concurrently.
But the one running underneath all of it? Unprocessed grief.
The Grief You Don't Know You're Carrying
We think grief only shows up at funerals. But grief is the natural response to any loss - and if you're human, you've lost plenty.
The dreams that didn't pan out.
The version of yourself you thought you'd become.
The relationships that ended.
Most of us were never taught how to grieve consciously. Instead, we learned to medicate, distract, and push through. We developed elaborate systems to avoid feeling the very thing that could set us free.
Look around your life. Where are you numbing?
- The endless scroll when difficult emotions arise
- The extra drink that turns thinking into static
- The hookup apps when loneliness hits
- The workaholism that keeps you from feeling anything at all
- The spiritual bypassing that makes everything "love and light"
These are not you being weak.
These are unconscious grief.
Two Paths: Creation or Destruction
I've learned through my lifelong tussle with the existential mystery that grief always moves through us. The choice isn't if it's in your life or not, but it's whether you'll feel it consciously or unconsciously.
Unconscious grief destroys. It shows up as:
- Addictive behaviors that temporarily silence the pain
- Explosive anger at small inconveniences
- Chronic emptiness despite external success
- Relationships that repeat the same painful patterns
- A life that feels like you're sleepwalking through it
Conscious grief creates. It becomes:
- The raw material for your most authentic art
- The fuel for deep, transformative relationships
- The gateway to purpose that actually matters
- The foundation for a life lived fully awake
Your heartbreak isn't your weakness. It's your raw material.
Creating Sacred Space for Your Losses
Conscious grieving isn't wallowing or staying stuck in pain…forever. Take the time to move through. And then, learn to alchemize your deepest wounds into your greatest gifts. It requires:
Recognition: Acknowledging what you've actually lost, not just what you think you should be grateful for.
Feeling: Allowing the emotions to move through your body without immediately reaching for a distraction.
Ritual: Creating intentional practices that help you complete cycles of loss and integrate the wisdom they contain.
Witness: Having support that can hold you as you do this work - because grief was never meant to be processed alone.
The cosmic beauty isn't found by avoiding the darkness. It's found by learning to see what the darkness has always been trying to show you.
Your grief isn't happening to you. It's happening for you.
If you're ready to stop running from the very thing that could transform your life, if you're willing to turn toward what you've been avoiding and learn to work with it consciously, then perhaps it's time to begin.
The shadows don't disappear when we ignore them. They transform when we learn to dance with them.
Ish
P.S. I've got a shadow work course that helps you understand your specific flavor of grief, and how to move through it. It's a 10-week, go at your own pace training that's as good of as shadow work training as it gets. And it helps you move you grief from unprocessed burden to processed creative magic.
🍵 x 🐉