Through Our Feelings Not Around Them

Whew. Another tender date has passed.

Mother’s Day is not my favorite day, and I suspect I’m not alone in that. As a teenager and young adult, I often bypassed my own grief around Mama’s death when I was only twelve. I intentionally focused on the wonderful female figures in my life—my stepmom, sisters, and girlfriends. I expressed gratitude to them with gifts, flowers, and cards. Somehow, this felt like a way of honoring my mom. And in appreciating the gifts of the feminine, I comforted myself.

But it also created distance from my heartbreak.

Some call this spiritual bypassing—when our true emotions are suppressed in the name of gratitude, positivity, or transcendence. Not that there’s anything wrong with gratitude and positivity. That perspective helped me recognize the blessings in front of me. But grief does not disappear simply because it’s overshadowed. Facing grief with honesty and compassion is far more healing. Then gratitude becomes something authentic that arises naturally—not a way of escaping discomfort.

Mother’s Day can be complicated. Many of us are grieving the loss of our mothers months, years, or even decades later. Some are struggling with wounds around our own motherhood. Some are grieving the loss of a child. Often, more than one of these is true. Meanwhile, the culture makes a grand celebration of the day, subtly sending the message that things should feel a certain way, which can deepen the ache. And as we know, grief triggers can bring us to our knees seemingly out of nowhere.

Shortly before Mother’s Day, I had one of those moments.

I was driving to yoga and passed a building I’ve passed hundreds of times—one where my son Graham once lived. My mind drifted toward gratitude for my sister, who flew in from Louisiana the weekend we recovered Graham from the lake. I remembered how indecisive I’d been when she asked if she should come. First, I said yes, then no—telling her she might need to come later for a funeral instead. Sensing I couldn’t make the decision myself, she made it for me: “I’m coming.”

I was so grateful to have her beside me that surreal, heartbreaking weekend.

And then, almost instantly, my body moved from gratitude around that memory into rage. Rage at the authorities who ignored us for weeks. Rage at their laziness, their incompetence. Then came the tears—rushing through me like something volcanic. Within seconds, the entire rescue day flashed through my body and memory.

And that is how grief works.

Any emotion, memory, or experience that hasn’t been fully honored will rise again until it is. Gratitude cannot cover it forever. Sometimes gratitude even invites it.

I needed gratitude that weekend after retrieving Graham's body, and in the weeks that followed. And I genuinely felt it for the friends, family, and even strangers who supported us tirelessly throughout the search. But gratitude could not erase the tangled emotions underneath.

So how do we give these moments “their due”? That is deeply personal. Crying. Writing. Singing. Moving. Speaking the truth of our heartbreak. Reliving moments of love. Honoring what is. Honoring what is not.

As I’ve grown older and gathered more life and grief experience, I still love expressing gratitude to the amazing beings in my life. But I also pay closer attention now. When difficult emotions arise, I try not to push them aside. I know those tears are doing important work—work that cannot be accomplished through bypassing.

I know that each time I descend into the dark well of heartbreak, I will rise again. But I also know I must descend fully in order to rise authentically.

I recently came across a passage in Mark Nepo’s Book of Awakening—Graham’s book:

“Feeling any one feeling deeply enough—that is, thoroughly and completely—somehow opens me to the common source of all feeling. And at the source, no one feeling can last by itself. So through our feelings, not around them, we come upon the unnamable source of all feeling that can heal us of the pain of any one mood.”

May we all have the courage to trust this truth.

Father’s Day is just a few weeks away. Nourish yourself. Give yourself compassion. And embrace every part of yourself and your experience.

Our 2027 Sacred Journey With Grief Retreat in Belize is the perfect place for a deep dive with that source of all feeling. Save the dates! February 21-28. Tickets will be available soon. Please reach out for your discovery call. To me, every connection is welcome and divinely orchestrated.