Do you feel a mix of emotions this time of year? Joy, happiness, connection - as well as grief, sadness, and loneliness?

We see commercials, Instagram & Facebook feeds full of everyone celebrating, being 'joyful'. Yet if this isn't our current reality, it can intensify the grief that is either prominent - or was laying dormant, unexpressed.

Grief illuminates the divide between our current reality to what once was, or what never was. It can be hard to talk about, because it doesn't feel very welcome in a time of 'good cheer' and 'holiday spirit'.

Yet death, divorce, heartache, illness, absence, and the wounds of abandonment (both emotional and physical) can bubble to the surface for nearly every single one of us this time of year.

Aging is its own form of grief - one that we all wrestle with (including the grief of babies becoming children, becoming teenagers, becoming adults... there is always grief with change, as welcome as it also is).

When there isn't space to allow these...