There are seasons of life when everything seems to arrive at once.
Joy and grief.
Love and loss.
Hope and heartbreak.
Beauty and betrayal.
The full spectrum of the human experience, woven together into the tapestry of a single life.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about what it means to hold it all. Not just the pleasant parts. Not just the moments we gladly share on social media. But all of it.
The joy of planning a wedding.
The grief of losing someone we love.
The excitement of imagining a future.
The ache of carrying wounds from the past.
Three years ago, Jim lost his son. This September, we’re getting married. Those two truths exist side by side. One does not cancel out the other. Love does not erase grief. Grief does not erase love. They simply coexist.
The same is true for so many of us.
Many of us carry childhood wounds, while simultaneously building beautiful lives. Many of us have experienced betrayal, while still longing for connection. Many of us have known deep loss, while remaining open to joy.
For a long time, I believed I needed to resolve one emotion before I could fully experience another. I thought healing meant arriving at a place where the hard feelings no longer existed.
Now I think healing looks different.
I think healing is learning to make room for all of it. To grieve what was lost. To celebrate what is here. To acknowledge what hurt us. To remain open to beauty.
My childhood contained experiences that stole innocence and left scars that took years to understand. But I refuse to let those experiences steal anything more.
I refuse to let them take my capacity for wonder. My ability to create. My love of beauty. My enjoyment of physical pleasures. My desire for emotional intimacy and connection.
The people who hurt us should not get to determine the rest of our lives. And yet, holding all of these emotions isn’t always easy.
Sometimes it feels overwhelming.
Sometimes the weight of it all threatens to pull me under. When that happens, I return to my creative practices. They bring me back to center. They ground me. They support me. They hold me when I cannot hold everything myself.
Some mornings, that looks like writing Morning Pages and letting whatever is swirling inside spill onto the page.
Other days, it looks like sitting down with a sketchbook and drawing a face, mountains, and wildflowers.
Sometimes it looks like making messy, furious scribbles across a page to release anger and frustration that words cannot touch.
These practices don’t make grief disappear. They don’t magically heal old wounds. But they create space.
Space to breathe.
Space to feel.
Space to remember that I am larger than any single emotion passing through me.
Perhaps that is the gift of creativity. Not that it fixes us. Not that it saves us from being human. But that it helps us hold the fullness of being human.
The joy and the sorrow. The beauty and the pain. The endings and the beginnings. The grief and the love.
All of it.
Together.
If something in you feels this… you’re not alone.
I share reflections like this, along with creative practices and quiet encouragement for the journey, in my monthly newsletter, What’s Blooming in the Orchid Garden.
You’re welcome to join us.
When you subscribe, you’ll also receive my free ebook: “Create Boldly. Live Beautifully: A Gentle Guide to Reclaiming Your Voice.”
Wander a little further through the garden...