“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”
— C. S. Lewis
Greetings to all my precious people!!
Every Autumn, trees perform the most beautiful act of grief imaginable – they release what has sustained them all summer, trusting that this letting go is not loss but preparation for new life. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, grief is not a pathology to be fixed but the natural emotion of the Metal element, the feeling that allows us to honor what has been while creating space for what’s becoming.
The Sacred Sadness That Clears the Way
At midlife, we often find ourselves in seasons of multiple griefs – not just the obvious losses, but the subtle mourning of who we used to be, dreams that didn’t manifest as expected, and the sweet sorrow of watching our children grow beyond needing us. This isn’t depression or getting stuck in sadness. This is the sacred work of clearing the emotional field so new possibilities can take root.
The Science of Sacred Sadness
Dr. Mary-Frances O’Connor’s groundbreaking research at UCLA reveals that grief is not just an emotional experience but a complex neurobiological adaptation that literally rewires our brains for resilience. Her studies show that people who allow themselves to feel grief fully, rather than suppressing or rushing through it, develop stronger neural pathways for emotional regulation and meaning-making.
Research from Harvard Medical School demonstrates that tears contain stress hormones and toxins that are literally eliminated from the body through crying – making grief not just emotional release but physical detoxification. Meanwhile, studies on “post-traumatic growth” show that individuals who process loss consciously often emerge with expanded capacity for joy, deeper relationships, and clearer life purpose.
But here’s what’s particularly relevant for midlife: Dr. Christiane Northrup’s research shows that women entering perimenopause and beyond often experience what she calls “developmental grief” – mourning not just external losses but the shedding of outdated identities. This isn’t pathological; it’s preparation for the most authentic and powerful phase of life.
The field of “complicated grief” therapy has revealed that healing happens not by “getting over” loss but by learning to carry it differently. Grief becomes medicine when we transform it from something that stops us into something that opens us.
Autumn’s Grief Wisdom: The Metal Element’s Gift
In Chinese Medicine, the Metal element governs both the Lungs (taking in life force) and the Large Intestine (releasing what no longer serves), with grief as the bridging emotion that makes both possible. Healthy grief allows us to take in the fullness of what we’ve experienced while releasing our attachment to how we thought things should be.
The different levels of autumn mourning:
Surface Grief: The obvious losses – deaths, divorces, job changes, children leaving home. These demand our conscious attention and deserve our full feeling.
Identity Grief: Mourning who we used to be – the young woman, the new mother, the woman who could do everything, the one who never said no. This grief makes space for who we’re becoming.
Dream Grief: Releasing expectations that no longer serve – the life we thought we’d have by now, the way we thought our relationships would unfold, the career path that didn’t manifest. This creates space for dreams we couldn’t have imagined when we were younger.
Collective Grief: The sadness we carry for our world, our communities, our planet. This is not despair but sacred sensitivity that motivates compassionate action.
Anticipatory Grief: The mourning that comes with recognizing life’s finite nature – our own aging, our parents’ mortality, the precious brevity of this incarnation. This grief awakens gratitude and presence.
The Four Faces of Healing Grief
1. Somatic Grief: What the Body Knows
Based on Peter Levine’s somatic experiencing research
Grief lives in the body and must be felt, not just thought about:
- The Chest Opening: Place both hands on your heart and breathe into the sadness, allowing your chest to expand around the feeling rather than contracting against it
- The Sacred Sigh: When grief arises, don’t hold your breath – sigh it out with sound, releasing the stuck energy
- The Grief Walk: Move your body while feeling sad – grief needs motion to process properly
This week’s practice: When sadness arises, ask your body what it needs – rest, movement, touch, or expression.
2. Ritual Grief: Creating Sacred Container
Adapted from cultural mourning practices worldwide
Grief needs witnessing and ceremony:
- The Release Ritual: Write what you’re grieving on biodegradable paper, burn or bury it consciously
- The Memory Altar: Create a small space honoring what you’ve lost – photos, objects, flowers that you tend regularly
- The Grief Circle: Share your loss with trusted others who can witness without trying to fix
3. Creative Grief: Art as Medicine
Based on expressive arts therapy research
Grief often needs expression beyond words:
- The Color of Sadness: Use art supplies to express what grief looks like, feels like, sounds like
- The Letter Practice: Write letters to what you’ve lost – people, dreams, versions of yourself
- The Song of Sorrow: Allow yourself to cry to music that matches your sadness
4. Meaning-Making Grief: Finding the Sacred Teaching
Drawing from Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy and post-traumatic growth research
Every grief carries medicine when we’re ready to receive it:
- The Teaching Question: “What is this loss trying to teach me about what truly matters?”
- The Compassion Connection: “How does my pain connect me more deeply to others who suffer?”
- The Wisdom Harvest: “What strength or insight has grown from walking through this darkness?”
Lunar Grief: Working with October’s Waning Energy
This week brings us deeper into the waning moon cycle, perfect energy for release work. The Last Quarter Moon in Leo (October 20th) asks us to release with courage and heart – to grieve not as victims but as lionesses who know that feeling everything fully is a form of bravery.
Waning Moon Grief Practice:
- Light a candle and sit quietly with what you’re mourning
- Allow yourself to feel the full weight of the loss
- Ask: “What wants to be released through this sadness?”
- End by placing your hand on your heart and saying: “I honor this grief as sacred medicine”
From Personal Grief to Community Healing
Here’s what I’m witnessing: women who learn to grieve consciously become the ones others turn to during difficult times. Not because they have all the answers, but because they’re not afraid of sadness. They can sit with pain without trying to fix it, offer presence without toxic positivity, and hold space for the full spectrum of human emotion.
This is profound preparation for community leadership. A world in crisis needs women who can feel deeply without drowning, who can witness suffering without becoming overwhelmed, and who understand that healing often requires honoring what hurts before moving toward what heals.
Questions for reflection:
- How might your grief work be preparing you to hold space for others’ pain?
- What becomes possible when you stop fearing sadness in yourself and others?
- How does allowing your heart to break open actually increase your capacity to love?
The Deeper Medicine: Grief as Gateway
I’m creating spaces for women who understand that their sensitivity is not weakness but wisdom, that their capacity to feel deeply is preparation for serving greatly. The grief work you’re doing – the conscious feeling, the sacred releasing, the meaning-making from loss – this is not just personal healing. This is preparation for becoming a medicine woman for your community.
If you’re ready to transform your grief into medicine for others – to use your accumulated losses as wisdom for healing, to turn your broken-open heart into a sanctuary for others who suffer – I’d love to explore what that deeper work might look like.
Because here’s what I know: the women who will heal our world are not the ones who have avoided pain but the ones who have learned to compost their suffering into wisdom. Interested in exploring how your grief might be your greatest gift? Let’s talk.
Integration Invitation
This week, practice meeting one area of grief with presence instead of avoidance. This might be as simple as letting yourself cry when sadness arises, or as complex as finally grieving a loss you’ve been carrying without feeling.
Notice what happens when you stop trying to fix or rush through sadness and instead treat it as sacred information. Trust that your tears are not weakness but wisdom, that your grief is not pathology but preparation.
Remember: every leaf that falls makes space for new growth. Every tear that falls clears the way for deeper joy. Every grief that’s consciously felt becomes medicine not just for you but for everyone whose heart you touch.
The Metal element knows: what we’re willing to release consciously transforms into the very strength we need for what’s coming.
Next Friday: INTUITION – Strengthening Inner Knowing as the Veil Grows Thin
P.S. How are you discovering that grief, when welcomed instead of avoided, becomes a teacher rather than an enemy? Your wisdom about transforming pain into medicine might be exactly what someone else needs to hear.
“We cannot cure the world of sorrows,
but we can choose to live in joy.”
~~ Joseph Campbell
Photo by Stefanie Jockschat on Unsplash
