Some grief has no words. But we still show up. 💔
It doesn’t get better. You do. #RelationalWisdom
This week, Someone deeply woven into the fabric of my life lost someone irreplaceable through tragic circumstances.
And in holding space for them, I realized how few spaces we’re given to talk about death.
Not in a spiritualized, polished, 'everything happens for a reason' kind of way. But in the aching, breathless, how-do-I-live-now kind of way.
Some losses take the words right out of you.
They halt time.
Rearrange the furniture of your soul.
And in their wake, what remains is not always clarity…but often silence.
We don’t talk much about that silence.
We don’t talk about the way the world keeps spinning even when yours has stopped. The emails, the groceries, the obligations.
The way you find yourself answering “I’m fine” when you aren’t even sure if you’re real.
And maybe you’ve been there too. Not just with death. But with any kind of loss that unmade you—quietly or all at once.
Maybe no one ever showed you how to grieve what couldn’t be fixed. Or how to live inside a world that doesn’t pause when you shatter.
Grief is not linear.
It’s not polite.
It’s not “healed” on a timeline.
It lives in the lungs.
In the hips.
In the throat that forgets how to speak.
Grief is a full-body experience—and in many ways, a sacred one.
Not because it’s beautiful.
But because it is real.
And anything that brings us closer to what is real can bring us closer to ourselves.
And that?
That is medicine.
When There Are No Words, Let There Be Presence
If you’re walking through loss—of a person, a life you thought you’d have, a version of yourself you miss—we want to say something simple:
You are not alone. Even when it feels like you are. Even when no one knows what to say. Even when the world asks you to “move on” before your bones are ready.
This is your reminder: Grief doesn’t make you broken. It makes you human.
The irony of grief is that it shows you what you deeply value.
What Helps (When Nothing Really Does):
There is nothing that “cures” the weight of a grief like this. All we can do is give the greatest gift we have…Our presence.
So I will simply leave you with the text I sent our person we are holding through their darkest, hardest moments.
There is a club that no one wants to belong to. The “How do I move forward when nothing will ever be the same?” club.
The “No one can ever understand or know the way this impacts every layer of my world and reality in ways I can’t even comprehend—let alone articulate” club.
I can only say with true authenticity that I see you. Strengths, support, and even blessings you can’t even count yet are already surfacing to surround you.
Mother Earth knows. Give her your tears unabashedly. Your tears record the sacredness.
Spirit is always present. You don’t even have to recognize it and it’s there.
Breathe.
Each moment is sacred. Each is a moment where you hold yourself through grief not containable.
People say it gets better.
It doesn’t. You do.
It’s as awful as it feels.
There’s nothing that changes that.
But you change.
How you can hold it.
The story around it changes.
It’s slow. It’s hard. It’s real.
It’s sacred.
It doesn’t get better, but you do. So your entire world does too.
It will not always feel this way—So completely encompassing of everything else.
Love, and a compassion that doesn’t have to change facts to be present settles in and changes you in the best ways through the worst you can imagine.
You get to take it one breath at a time. Each breath a new acceptance.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
Whatever is present gets to be honored.
You can’t do it wrong and we won’t let you fall.
I love you.
If You’re Holding Grief Too…
This letter wasn’t written to give answers. There are none. Not for this kind of loss.
But maybe somewhere in these words, you found a reflection.
A breath.
A knowing.
Maybe you’ve lost someone too. Maybe you’re still learning how to live inside that absence.
Maybe you’re holding someone else’s pain because that’s what love does.
Whatever you carry—whatever grief, whatever ache, whatever memory doesn’t know where to rest—may you feel it honored here.
We’re not in a rush to fix it.
We’re just here.
Witnessing it with you.
One breath at a time.
In presence, grief, and honesty,
~Shelby
P.S. I didn’t send this out via email as it’s a little off-topic from my main content (but not off topic for my soul) and I’m mindful of how much my content hits inboxes. So if you see this and wonder why you didn’t get an email, that’s why. <3