What Grief Has Taught Me

Part One of the Quiet Seasons Series 

As a coach, I often hold space for others navigating life’s hardest seasons — burnout, transition, loss. But behind that space-holding is my own lived experience with grief. And I’ve come to believe that vulnerability isn’t just part of the healing process — it’s also part of the integrity of this work.

This piece is a reflection I’ve hesitated to write, but feel ready to share. Because grief doesn’t just belong to the past — it shapes who we are, how we show up, and how we choose to keep going.

For the past ten years, I’ve lived in the Netherlands — and for eight of those years, I’ve quietly walked through some of the most transformative, painful seasons of my life.

It began with the death of my father in 2017. He had lived with multiple myeloma for five years, and we were incredibly close. Losing him was a heavy blow — not only because of our bond, but because of how unsupported I felt in my workplace at the time. I was grieving deeply, but I didn’t feel supported in that grief. That experience contributed to my decision to step away from that role — one of many shifts that would soon follow.

Shortly after, I fell pregnant. It was a beautiful, healthy pregnancy — a gift in the middle of grief. That season gave me renewed energy and reminded me that life can still hold joy, even in mourning.

But ten months after my daughter was born, my mother-in-law — a vibrant, healthy woman and a central part of our lives — died suddenly from a brain hemorrhage. The loss shook us deeply and altered the dynamic of our family. My husband fell into burnout shortly after, and together we entered a period of emotional and logistical survival.

Then came COVID. Lockdowns. Isolation. And between 2020 and 2024, I experienced four miscarriages — each one its own quiet devastation.

These years have not been easy. They've been layered with invisible grief. With endings that weren’t always publicly marked or understood. With roles I had to carry when I felt like I had nothing left.

But with time, I’ve also come to understand that grief isn’t something we move past. It’s something we move with.

What helped me wasn’t any grand solution — there was no single turning point, no magic fix. What helped was learning to honour my own pace, even when the world around me felt fast or impatient. It was giving myself permission to heal slowly, to fall apart and come back together in my own time.

I sought support — through therapy, coaching, friendships, and moments of solitude. I started tending to my mental health not as a side task, but as a sacred priority. I learned how to sit with sadness rather than push it away, to make space for the emotions I had long kept quiet, and to trust that they wouldn’t drown me if I let them rise.

I began to find comfort in the smallest things: the sound of the kettle boiling in the morning, the warmth of a hand-written message, a deep breath taken in the sun. A conversation where I felt truly seen. A walk with a friend where we didn’t need to talk. Just being in the moment, without needing to fix anything, became its own kind of medicine.

Stillness became enough. Silence became healing.

And slowly, patience taught me how to hold what I had lost — not tightly, but gently. Not to let go of grief, but to live alongside it. To let it be part of my story without letting it define me entirely.

Grief has humbled me. It has softened me. It has given me language for pain I didn’t know how to name before. And, perhaps most importantly, it’s taught me that even in deep sorrow, we can still find glimpses of life.