I’d like to reflect on the word “grief”.  For so many people it means that someone has died. Or another way of sharing that is “I have lost someone” (which frankly to me, always sounds like a polite description to avoid the actual conversation around death… like perhaps if you just looked hard enough you’d find them! But I digress, that’s a whole other topic!).

But how many women out there have experienced grief in so many different forms without “having lost someone?”

• Grief over lost love
• Grief over betrayal
• Grief over lost careers
• Grief with health problems, illnesses, accidents
• Grief with marriage breakdowns
• Grief with family separation
• Grief with things just are not turning out as I had planned here!! WT???

Suddenly your life has a hole. A gap. A void. Something that was supposed to be there, but isn’t. The rug has been ripped out from under you and you are in free fall.

Perhaps it’s a hope, a dream, a relationship, a job, a person, an experience. Perhaps it’s a life you thought you’d have.

Like an art form and a journey without a map, there seems to be no clear way to navigate the stormy waters of grief. It can feel lonely, it can feel tiring, it can feel like no one on this earth understands. It can feel like you’re struggling to keep your head above water, that you can’t hold up for much longer, that there’s no safe land in sight for miles with just an endless horizon of emptiness.

Life jacket anyone?

But, what if we are all bobbing helplessly without a map in this sea together?

What if we understood that we all hold grief in different forms on different days?

That we are all just trying to do the best we can on any given day?

That life is always a process of falling apart and coming together, sometimes all at once?

That even a small act of kindness might be the exact life raft someone needs?

I recall the kindness that buoyed us through the early days during our grief. Flowers, cards, dinners, phone calls, messages. Like a mirror reflection, I felt that the depth of our grief was matched by the depth of love and kindness.

Maybe grief is there to show you the compassion and kindness you didn’t know was there?

Whatever grief you are navigating, starting by searching for kindness is the first emergency life raft plan. Kindness that surrounds us each and every day in so many varied ways. That small piece of gratitude that touches your heart when receiving and acknowledging kindness acts as a small beacon of hope, a little light source to start guiding you through.

Like to learn more about navigating grief?

As a women’s resilience coach Niky’s courage and authenticity offers many women the exact insights they need to help them navigate grief and loss in the variety of forms that takes for women.

Ask about her one on one coaching programs or her Rise UP women’s retreats!