By Jen Watts, Transformational Embodiment Coach
Dear ones,
As I write to you in these early days of December, I'm sitting with a profound paradox. Outside my window, the late autumn world is stripped bare - trees standing in their naked truth, the ground covered with what has fallen. There's a stark beauty to this season, a kind of honest grief that nature wears openly.
And yet, this same landscape fills me with gratitude. Gratitude for the cycle that allows death to nourish new life. Gratitude for the trees' willingness to release. Gratitude for the shelter those fallen leaves provide to countless beings through winter. Gratitude even for the grief itself - because grief is proof that we loved, that we cared, that we were present enough to feel.
I'm holding both in my heart right now - grief and gratitude - and I'm learning they're not opposites at all. They're companions. They're two hands of the same body, two wings of the same bird. We need both to fly.
The Grief We're Carrying
Let me name what I'm feeling, what I know many of you are feeling too. There's so much grief right now.
Grief for our world. The violence, the hatred, the division. The environmental destruction we're witnessing in real time. The systems failing people who depend on them. The future we fear for our children.
Grief for the veil being lifted. For many of us with privilege, recent years have shattered comfortable illusions. We're seeing clearly now what marginalized communities have always known, always experienced, always tried to tell us. The racism that was always there. The misogyny that was always there. The cruelty that was always there. And we're grieving - not just the reality, but our own complicity in not seeing it sooner, not believing it sooner, not acting sooner.
Grief for what could have been. The lives we might have lived if we'd made different choices. The relationships that didn't survive. The dreams we had to release. The versions of ourselves we'll never become because we chose a different path.
Personal losses. The deaths of people we loved. The endings of relationships. The transitions that felt like little deaths - empty nests, retirement, bodies changing, identities shifting.
This is a lot to carry. It's profound, really. And it's present to all of us in a myriad of ways.
Here's what I'm learning: We're not meant to carry this grief alone.
Grief is Meant to Be Shared
In his beautiful book The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Francis Weller writes about how we've lost our communal containers for grief. In traditional cultures, there were rituals, ceremonies, designated times and spaces where the community gathered to grieve together.
We've lost most of that. We're expected to grieve privately, quickly, efficiently. To "get over it" and "move on." To not make others uncomfortable with our sorrow.
But grief doesn't work that way. Grief unexpressed becomes stuck in our bodies, hardened in our hearts, transmitted unconsciously to those around us. Grief shared, witnessed, held in community? That grief can transform. It can soften. It can even, eventually, become something like wisdom.
In our recent women's circle, we created sacred space to share our grief. And what happened was profound. As each woman spoke her sorrow aloud - for the world, for personal losses, for dreams deferred - something shifted in the room. The weight that each had been carrying alone was distributed across all of our shoulders. We were still holding grief, but together. And somehow that made it bearable.
This is what we're meant to do with grief. We're meant to witness each other's sorrow. We're meant to say, "I see your pain. Your grief matters. You're not alone in this."
The Healing Power of Gratitude
And yet - and this is crucial - acknowledging grief doesn't mean abandoning gratitude. In fact, I'm coming to believe that gratitude is how we survive grief without being destroyed by it.
Gratitude isn't toxic positivity. It's not pretending everything is fine when it's not. It's not spiritual bypassing or denying real pain.
Gratitude is the practice of noticing what remains even after loss. What persists even in darkness. What continues to nourish us even as other things fall away.
Gratitude is fundamental to healthy existence. Research shows it literally changes our brain chemistry, strengthens our immune system, improves our sleep, reduces anxiety and depression. But more than that, gratitude grounds us. It connects us to what's real and present rather than leaving us lost in what's gone or what we fear.
Gratitude creates flow. When we notice and appreciate the good in our lives, we align ourselves with the energy of abundance. Not in a "manifestation" way, but in a genuine way - we become more aware of gifts constantly being offered, more able to receive them, more generous in offering our own gifts in return.
Gratitude is contagious. When we embody gratitude - when we can feel it in our bodies, when it radiates from us - it lifts those around us. Not in a performative way, but in the simple way that light spreads. One candle can illuminate a dark room. One grateful heart can shift the energy of an entire gathering.
In this late fall season - aligned with the wheel of the year's natural rhythm of thanksgiving and the solstice - we're invited to practice gratitude not despite our grief, but alongside it. In conversation with it. In holy relationship with it.
The Paradox: Holding Both
Here's the sacred truth I'm learning: To hold space for both grief AND gratitude is transformative. It's balancing. It's centering.
When I hold only grief, I collapse into despair. The weight becomes unbearable. The darkness becomes absolute. I lose hope.
When I hold only gratitude - especially the forced, toxic positivity kind - I become shallow. Disconnected from reality. Unable to meet others in their authentic pain. Spiritually bypassing what needs to be felt and processed.
But when I hold both? When I can say, "Yes, this is heartbreaking AND yes, there is still beauty. Yes, I'm grieving AND yes, I'm grateful"? That's when I find my center. That's when I become whole enough to be truly present. That's when transformation happens.
This is the practice of early December is teaching me:
I can grieve the state of our world AND feel grateful for the activists working tirelessly for change.
I can grieve the veils being lifted AND feel grateful that truth is finally being seen.
I can grieve what I've lost AND feel grateful for what remains.
I can grieve who I'm no longer AND feel grateful for who I'm becoming.
I can grieve the suffering around me AND feel grateful for my capacity to care.
This isn't either/or. It's both/and. It's the full, complex, beautiful mess of being human.
Creating a Practice: The Gratitude-Grief Ritual
I want to offer you a practice for holding both grief and gratitude. You can do this alone or with trusted others.
Preparation:
PART ONE: GRIEF WITNESSING (20 minutes)
Light the white candle. Say aloud: "I honor my grief. I make space for sorrow."
Take several deep breaths, placing your hand on your heart.
Begin to write - stream of consciousness - everything you're grieving.
Don't censor, edit, or judge. Just let it flow:
Then, if you're alone, read what you wrote aloud. Speak your grief to the universe, to the Divine, to your own heart. Let yourself feel it. Cry if tears come. Rage if anger comes. Let your body express what your words have named.
If you're with others, each person shares their grief while others simply witness - no fixing, no comforting, just presence.
Place your written grief in the grief bowl. You're not getting rid of it, just giving it a container outside your body.
PART TWO: TRANSITION (5 minutes)
Sit quietly. Place both hands on your heart. Breathe.
Notice how you feel after expressing grief. Perhaps lighter. Perhaps heavier. Perhaps both. Whatever you feel is right.
Take three deep, cleansing breaths.
PART THREE: GRATITUDE PRACTICE (20 minutes)
Light the gold candle. Say aloud: "I open to gratitude. I receive the gifts that remain."
Begin to write everything you're grateful for - big and small:
Then read your gratitude aloud - to yourself, to the universe, to life itself. As you speak each thing, pause and really feel it. Let gratitude move from your head to your heart to your entire body. Feel it warming you, lifting you, opening you.
Place your written gratitude in the gratitude bowl.
PART FOUR: INTEGRATION (10 minutes)
Now, with both candles lit, with both bowls before you, sit in silence.
You are holding both. Grief and gratitude. Sorrow and joy. Loss and abundance. This is the fullness of being human.
Place one hand over each bowl. Feel how you can hold both simultaneously. Notice that holding gratitude doesn't diminish your grief. Notice that holding grief doesn't cancel your gratitude. They coexist. They inform each other. They make you whole.
Speak aloud: "I hold both grief and gratitude. I am large enough to contain multitudes. I am balanced. I am whole."
CLOSING:
Blow out both candles, releasing the energy of the ritual while keeping its medicine in your heart.
You can keep both bowls on an altar, revisiting and adding to them as needed.
Dear ones,
As I write to you in these early days of December, I'm sitting with a profound paradox. Outside my window, the late autumn world is stripped bare - trees standing in their naked truth, the ground covered with what has fallen. There's a stark beauty to this season, a kind of honest grief that nature wears openly.
And yet, this same landscape fills me with gratitude. Gratitude for the cycle that allows death to nourish new life. Gratitude for the trees' willingness to release. Gratitude for the shelter those fallen leaves provide to countless beings through winter. Gratitude even for the grief itself - because grief is proof that we loved, that we cared, that we were present enough to feel.
I'm holding both in my heart right now - grief and gratitude - and I'm learning they're not opposites at all. They're companions. They're two hands of the same body, two wings of the same bird. We need both to fly.
The Grief We're Carrying
Let me name what I'm feeling, what I know many of you are feeling too. There's so much grief right now.
Grief for our world. The violence, the hatred, the division. The environmental destruction we're witnessing in real time. The systems failing people who depend on them. The future we fear for our children.
Grief for the veil being lifted. For many of us with privilege, recent years have shattered comfortable illusions. We're seeing clearly now what marginalized communities have always known, always experienced, always tried to tell us. The racism that was always there. The misogyny that was always there. The cruelty that was always there. And we're grieving - not just the reality, but our own complicity in not seeing it sooner, not believing it sooner, not acting sooner.
Grief for what could have been. The lives we might have lived if we'd made different choices. The relationships that didn't survive. The dreams we had to release. The versions of ourselves we'll never become because we chose a different path.
Personal losses. The deaths of people we loved. The endings of relationships. The transitions that felt like little deaths - empty nests, retirement, bodies changing, identities shifting.
This is a lot to carry. It's profound, really. And it's present to all of us in a myriad of ways.
Here's what I'm learning: We're not meant to carry this grief alone.
Grief is Meant to Be Shared
In his beautiful book The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Francis Weller writes about how we've lost our communal containers for grief. In traditional cultures, there were rituals, ceremonies, designated times and spaces where the community gathered to grieve together.
We've lost most of that. We're expected to grieve privately, quickly, efficiently. To "get over it" and "move on." To not make others uncomfortable with our sorrow.
But grief doesn't work that way. Grief unexpressed becomes stuck in our bodies, hardened in our hearts, transmitted unconsciously to those around us. Grief shared, witnessed, held in community? That grief can transform. It can soften. It can even, eventually, become something like wisdom.
In our recent women's circle, we created sacred space to share our grief. And what happened was profound. As each woman spoke her sorrow aloud - for the world, for personal losses, for dreams deferred - something shifted in the room. The weight that each had been carrying alone was distributed across all of our shoulders. We were still holding grief, but together. And somehow that made it bearable.
This is what we're meant to do with grief. We're meant to witness each other's sorrow. We're meant to say, "I see your pain. Your grief matters. You're not alone in this."
The Healing Power of Gratitude
And yet - and this is crucial - acknowledging grief doesn't mean abandoning gratitude. In fact, I'm coming to believe that gratitude is how we survive grief without being destroyed by it.
Gratitude isn't toxic positivity. It's not pretending everything is fine when it's not. It's not spiritual bypassing or denying real pain.
Gratitude is the practice of noticing what remains even after loss. What persists even in darkness. What continues to nourish us even as other things fall away.
Gratitude is fundamental to healthy existence. Research shows it literally changes our brain chemistry, strengthens our immune system, improves our sleep, reduces anxiety and depression. But more than that, gratitude grounds us. It connects us to what's real and present rather than leaving us lost in what's gone or what we fear.
Gratitude creates flow. When we notice and appreciate the good in our lives, we align ourselves with the energy of abundance. Not in a "manifestation" way, but in a genuine way - we become more aware of gifts constantly being offered, more able to receive them, more generous in offering our own gifts in return.
Gratitude is contagious. When we embody gratitude - when we can feel it in our bodies, when it radiates from us - it lifts those around us. Not in a performative way, but in the simple way that light spreads. One candle can illuminate a dark room. One grateful heart can shift the energy of an entire gathering.
In this late fall season - aligned with the wheel of the year's natural rhythm of thanksgiving and the solstice - we're invited to practice gratitude not despite our grief, but alongside it. In conversation with it. In holy relationship with it.
The Paradox: Holding Both
Here's the sacred truth I'm learning: To hold space for both grief AND gratitude is transformative. It's balancing. It's centering.
When I hold only grief, I collapse into despair. The weight becomes unbearable. The darkness becomes absolute. I lose hope.
When I hold only gratitude - especially the forced, toxic positivity kind - I become shallow. Disconnected from reality. Unable to meet others in their authentic pain. Spiritually bypassing what needs to be felt and processed.
But when I hold both? When I can say, "Yes, this is heartbreaking AND yes, there is still beauty. Yes, I'm grieving AND yes, I'm grateful"? That's when I find my center. That's when I become whole enough to be truly present. That's when transformation happens.
This is the practice of early December is teaching me:
I can grieve the state of our world AND feel grateful for the activists working tirelessly for change.
I can grieve the veils being lifted AND feel grateful that truth is finally being seen.
I can grieve what I've lost AND feel grateful for what remains.
I can grieve who I'm no longer AND feel grateful for who I'm becoming.
I can grieve the suffering around me AND feel grateful for my capacity to care.
This isn't either/or. It's both/and. It's the full, complex, beautiful mess of being human.
Creating a Practice: The Gratitude-Grief Ritual
I want to offer you a practice for holding both grief and gratitude. You can do this alone or with trusted others.
Preparation:
- Quiet, comfortable space
- Journal and pen
- Two candles (one white for grief, one gold for gratitude)
- Two bowls or containers
- Small pieces of paper
- Tissues (grief work often brings tears)
- 45-60 minutes uninterrupted
PART ONE: GRIEF WITNESSING (20 minutes)
Light the white candle. Say aloud: "I honor my grief. I make space for sorrow."
Take several deep breaths, placing your hand on your heart.
Begin to write - stream of consciousness - everything you're grieving.
Don't censor, edit, or judge. Just let it flow:
- What breaks your heart about the world right now?
- What personal losses are you carrying?
- What dreams are you grieving?
- What truths are painful to see?
- What are you angry about?
- What feels unbearable?
Then, if you're alone, read what you wrote aloud. Speak your grief to the universe, to the Divine, to your own heart. Let yourself feel it. Cry if tears come. Rage if anger comes. Let your body express what your words have named.
If you're with others, each person shares their grief while others simply witness - no fixing, no comforting, just presence.
Place your written grief in the grief bowl. You're not getting rid of it, just giving it a container outside your body.
PART TWO: TRANSITION (5 minutes)
Sit quietly. Place both hands on your heart. Breathe.
Notice how you feel after expressing grief. Perhaps lighter. Perhaps heavier. Perhaps both. Whatever you feel is right.
Take three deep, cleansing breaths.
PART THREE: GRATITUDE PRACTICE (20 minutes)
Light the gold candle. Say aloud: "I open to gratitude. I receive the gifts that remain."
Begin to write everything you're grateful for - big and small:
- What beauty did you witness today?
- Who loves you?
- What nourishes your body?
- What delights your senses?
- What opportunities do you have?
- What moments of grace have you experienced?
- What in your life works?
- What gifts do you bring to the world?
Then read your gratitude aloud - to yourself, to the universe, to life itself. As you speak each thing, pause and really feel it. Let gratitude move from your head to your heart to your entire body. Feel it warming you, lifting you, opening you.
Place your written gratitude in the gratitude bowl.
PART FOUR: INTEGRATION (10 minutes)
Now, with both candles lit, with both bowls before you, sit in silence.
You are holding both. Grief and gratitude. Sorrow and joy. Loss and abundance. This is the fullness of being human.
Place one hand over each bowl. Feel how you can hold both simultaneously. Notice that holding gratitude doesn't diminish your grief. Notice that holding grief doesn't cancel your gratitude. They coexist. They inform each other. They make you whole.
Speak aloud: "I hold both grief and gratitude. I am large enough to contain multitudes. I am balanced. I am whole."
CLOSING:
Blow out both candles, releasing the energy of the ritual while keeping its medicine in your heart.
You can keep both bowls on an altar, revisiting and adding to them as needed.
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