Close your eyes for a moment. Can you still picture their face?
I asked this question to a room full of accomplished women last week, and I watched as every single hand slowly rose. Despite decades of being “over it,” we could all remember our first heartbreak with startling clarity. The awkward middle school note asking, “Do you like me? Circle yes, no, or maybe”—and that crushing moment when they circled NO. The high school or college “perfect relationship” that felt like forever until it wasn’t. The first love that taught us our hearts could be shattered into a thousand pieces.
What struck me most wasn’t that we remembered; it was how we all instinctively smiled that same bittersweet smile, as we recalled how ridiculously unprepared we were for those early losses (and still are).
Learning What’s Acceptable
When that heartbreak hit, we ran to the people who loved us most. Our parents, our friends, our siblings. And with the best of intentions, they offered us the same comfort they had received:
“Don’t worry, there are plenty more fish in the sea.”
“You’re better off without them anyway.”
“Just keep yourself busy—time will heal.”
Maybe your mom started with gentle sympathy but by day three of your moping, her patience wore thin: “If you’re going to walk around with that sad face, go to your room.”
So we did what any smart girl learns to do. We put on that happy face. We threw ourselves into sports, hobbies, or the next relationship. We told ourselves it was “no big deal” and we “shouldn’t feel bad.” We buried the hurt and carried it forward, entering our next relationship just a little more guarded, a little less trusting. From a young age, we learned that some losses don’t get sympathy. We learned there is a limit on how much or for how long we can feel. We learned that strong girls only cry for a short time. And, we learn to keep, carry, and compare our losses.
And thus began the lifelong habit of “emotional rock collecting.”
Stow & Carry Our Grief
Every loss in life is like a rock. Some are boulders—the death of a parent, a divorce, a devastating diagnosis. Others are smaller stones—a friendship that faded, a job that ended, a dream that didn’t materialize. But here’s what no one teaches us: we’ve been collecting these rocks in an invisible backpack since childhood.
Think about your own collection. Beyond that first heartbreak, what rocks have you gathered? The loss of a beloved pet? A military deployment that changed your family? A child leaving for college? The unmet expectations of a life you dreamed of? The erosion of trust in someone you believed in?
As women entering midlife and beyond, as mothers, as professionals who’ve navigated decades of life’s ups and downs, our backpacks are heavy. Really heavy. And yet we keep trudging forward because that’s what we do. We’re strong. We’re capable. We handle things.
But what if I told you there’s another way?
Enough Time or Too Much?
“Time heals all wounds,” they say. But is this true? I’ve learned that time alone doesn’t complete the pain of grief from loss. In that same group of women, I asked if anyone was experiencing grief from a painful experience more than ten years ago. As expected, many nodded, some with tears. Time gives us hours, weeks, and years where we can take steps for healing. But time alone won’t do anything for us.
And then there’s that other phrase we hear when we’re still hurting: “It’s time to move on.” These four words, usually delivered with the best intentions, land like a judgment. Suddenly, we feel like failures—not only are we grieving, but apparently, we’re doing it wrong and taking too long. No one provides a timetable for how long each grieving experience should take.
Here’s what makes it even more complicated: some of our deepest losses are the quiet ones. The ones that are loud on the inside but invisible to the outside world. When a loved one dies, society gives us a few days off work, maybe an extension on that project deadline. There are casseroles and flowers and people who understand you’re struggling.
But what about the quiet losses? The miscarriage no one knew about. The dream job that fell through. Retirement. The friendship that slowly dissolved. The child struggling with addiction. The parent sliding into dementia. The betrayal that shattered your trust. The crisis of faith that left you questioning everything you once believed. These losses can be just as (or more) devastating, yet there are no bereavement days, no meals delivered, no social acknowledgment that your world has shifted.
With these private, emotional upheavals, there’s nothing. Just the expectation that you’ll keep showing up, keep performing, keep pretending everything is fine while your heart is suffering in silence. And this is just what you’ve been trained to do in times of change and loss.
Onward.
Who showed us how to process the inevitable changes that come with being human?
The answer, for most of us, is no one. We’ve been taught to acquire things our entire lives—degrees, careers, relationships, homes, dreams. But who taught us what to do when we lose them?
The answer, for most of us, is no one.
My Own Heavy Load
Twelve years ago, I faced a devastating loss that changed my world forever. But true to my upbringing and what I believed was expected of me as a strong Christian woman, I did everything I thought I was supposed to do.
I stayed strong for my kids—after all, they needed me to be their unwavering foundation. As mothers, we’re conditioned to believe that our own grief comes second to everyone else’s needs. I threw myself into work and helping others because keeping busy felt productive, purposeful even. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?
Most tellingly, I grieved alone. Growing up in a family where negative emotions weren’t tolerated, I had learned early to tuck my hurt away. “Give it to God,” I was told. “Count your blessings.” “Others have it worse.” Even when I tried to share my pain, it was met with those familiar phrases that somehow made me feel worse instead of better, like I was lacking faith or gratitude. I became an expert at putting on a happy face.
So as a grown-up, I did what every “good” woman learns to do: I became the strong one everyone could count on. I managed everyone else’s emotions while burying my own. I smiled at church, helped my friends, excelled at my work, and made darn sure my kids never saw me fall apart.
The result? I pushed myself into survival mode—strong enough to avoid breaking, busy enough to avoid feeling. It worked until it didn’t. The burnout was inevitable. The adrenal fatigue was my body’s way of saying what my heart couldn’t: This isn’t sustainable.
But it wasn’t until three years ago, when my brother died from substance addiction, that I acknowledged the weight I’d been carrying. That devastating loss should have been the breaking point, but somehow I managed to hold it together using all my well-practiced coping strategies. It was the next loss—smaller in comparison—that finally broke my backpack wide open.
I realized in that moment that my backpack had been full for years, and I, like so many of us, needed more than just keeping busy and waiting for time to pass. I needed actual tools for healing, not just surviving.
What Recovery Really Looks Like
Does it surprise you to hear the two words, grief + recovery, together? Recovery from grief isn’t about “getting over it” or “moving on.” It’s about learning to carry our experiences differently. It’s about discovering that we can honor what we’ve lost while reclaiming our capacity for joy, trust, and connection.
This isn’t complicated or elusive work, though it does require courage. The courage to feel what we’ve avoided feeling. The courage to challenge what we’ve been taught about strength and weakness. The courage to believe we deserve healing.
When we do this work—when we finally learn how to process our losses properly—something beautiful happens. We don’t just get our energy back; we discover reserves we didn’t know we had. We don’t just trust again; we trust more wisely. We don’t just connect with others; we connect more authentically.
This is how we were designed to live. This is how we’re meant to show up in our families, our careers, our communities, and our faith.
Your Heart Matters
If you’re reading this and recognizing your own story in these words, I want you to know something: your heart matters. The losses you’ve experienced—whether the world acknowledges them or not—are real and significant. The grief you carry deserves to be witnessed, honored, and gently healed.
You don’t have to keep carrying that heavy backpack forever. You don’t have to live with less energy, less trust, less joy than you were created to have.
As someone who has walked this path from overwhelming grief to genuine healing, I can tell you with absolute certainty: there is another way. It’s not about positive thinking, keeping busy, or waiting for time to work its supposed magic. No, we need what we were never taught—how to actually complete our relationship with loss so we can move forward with our full hearts intact.
My Search and Rescue
I went on a quest to find the answer to the problem of grief. Not only for my coaching clients, but for myself. And, I discovered it one wintery day on a beach in North Carolina. It’s called The Grief Recovery Method, which provides clear, compassionate steps to help you name what you’re carrying and bravely take the actions toward healing from emotional loss, both recent and long ago. Created by someone who experienced profound grief and dedicated his life to discovering what truly heals, this evidence-based approach has helped thousands of people across several countries reclaim their lives.
It lightened my load and gave me a toolkit for living fully so much that I was trained and certified as a Grief Recovery Specialist. And I’ve had the privilege of witnessing this same transformation in my clients—women who thought they’d forever live with emotional pain and never feel free or like themselves again.
This work isn’t about forgetting or minimizing what you’ve been through. It’s about completing your relationship with those experiences so they no longer define your capacity for happiness. It’s about learning to trust again, love again, dream again, and walk in freedom.
Whether you’re dealing with a recent heartbreak or carrying stones you’ve held for decades, healing is possible. You don’t have to figure this out alone, and you don’t have to stay stuck where you are.
What would it feel like to finally lighten the load you’ve been carrying? What dreams might resurface? What relationships might deepen? What version of yourself might emerge?
If this resonates with you, I’d love to have a conversation about your journey. Sometimes the most powerful healing happens when we stop carrying our grief alone and start sharing it with someone who understands. Your heart matters, and so does your healing. I’d be honored to share more about my small group (starting soon) or individual sessions.