What if grief has been present in more of our lives than we realized?
This Sound Bite was inspired by my recent conversation with somatic nurse coach Lisa Ketcham-Hendrickson, who reminded us:
“We can’t heal what we don’t feel.”
That conversation brought me back to Francis Weller’s The Wild Edge of Sorrow and his five gates of grief—a framework that expanded my understanding of what grief can be.
Questions to Conside
Like many of us, I thought I understood grief. We lose someone we love. A relationship ends. Something precious is gone.
But what about the parts of ourselves that haven't felt loved or welcomed?
The suffering we witness in the world?
A friendship or love that wasn't reciprocated?
The future we imagined but never lived?
An achievement we expected of ourselves but never reached?
Or grief that may have traveled through our families for generations?
Mentioned in This Sound Bite
It was Weller’s exploration of ancestral grief that especially stopped me.
I grew up in a family where loss was something we stuffed down. We didn't talk about it, and we certainly didn't spend much time feeling it.
Understanding that grief can move through a lineage gave me a new way of looking at what we may carry—and the possibility that not everything we feel necessarily began with us.
In this Sound Bite, we explore Weller’s five gates of grief, the relationship between grief and aliveness, why grief can challenge our ideas about strength and emotional control, and the importance of allowing grief to be witnessed in community.
Because maybe recognizing grief isn't about becoming sadder.
Maybe it's part of becoming more fully alive.
What might you be grieving that you've never given yourself permission to call grief?
And who might you allow to witness it with you?
Maybe we don't have to solve it.
Maybe we begin by noticing it. Naming it. Sharing it.
With compassionate curiosity.
Lisa Ketcham-Hendrickson — Episode 315
We Can’t Heal What We Don’t Feel: Coming Home to Ourselves
Lisa is a somatic nurse coach and founder of Human Recovery. Our conversation about grief, healing, nervous-system regulation, community, and coming home to ourselves inspired this reflection.
Francis Weller — The Wild Edge of Sorrow
Weller’s exploration of the five gates of grief helped me see grief not simply as a response to death, but as something that can touch belonging, expectations, the suffering around us, our ancestry, and many other parts of being human.
Community Shout-Out: Drew Turner
I also want to give a shout-out to past Girl, Take the Lead! guest Drew Turner from Episode 201.
Drew is a Women’s Leadership Coach who works with women who have done everything “right” and still feel like they have something to prove—helping them begin to trust themselves again.
On September 2, Drew is offering a free one-hour Zoom workshop:
How to Stop Proving
She’s keeping the workshop small—just 30 women—and it may especially resonate if you’re someone who:
- Is quick to help and support everyone else
- Feels exhausted but rarely slows down
- Struggles to ask for help, even from people close to you
- Knows something needs to change but can’t quite name what
If you recognize yourself—or someone you care about—in that description, you can save your seat here:
drewturnercoaching.com/proveittwice
And you can find my conversation with Drew in Episode 201 of Girl, Take the Lead!
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If this reflection brought something up for you, consider sharing it with someone you trust.
Maybe that's one small way we begin turning grief from something we carry privately into something we can witness together.
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