In case you haven't had a chance to listen to the Fire on the Mountain podcast I shared last week, I wanted to offer my favorite part of the story.

In the podcast, Ann Black shares how her family lost their home to the fire in the Santa Cruz mountains last year. Like all of the stories of fire loss and the devastation forest fires bring, it is a heartbreaking story.

It dawned on me last week that there’s a nuance to why life is so stressful in these days of the pandemic: We are all trying to avoid something that is invisible.

At 42, three months into a new relationship, I found out I was pregnant. Seeing that “+” symbol on the First Response stick would have been surprising enough given these circumstances, but the fact that I’d struggled with infertility in my 30s and was told I couldn’t get pregnant without medical intervention made this news just completely unbelievable.

When we are a little further down the grief path — this may be months or years of calendar time — the focus shifts from surviving to acknowledging other aspects of life and thinking about the future. You may still be trying to make sense of this new life, you may feel a desire to start putting pieces together.

Last week's post on creating a bigger container seemed to resonate with many people. Grief and loss touch all our lives and remind us of our togetherness.

Well, last week we wrapped up the filming of Yoga for Grief, which will air in November on Yoga Anytime. (If you want to check out their top-notch content then or before then, use the code MICHELLE for a 30-day free trial.) I will, of course, let you know when it comes out. I am beyond excited to share it.

Do you ever feel like it's just "one thing after another?" Or have you heard yourself say, with some amount of sourness, "it's always something!"

Of course you have. You're human and all kinds of things happen in life.

Our culture does not acknowledge the profound impact of major life events, and definitely does not provide the space for these types of losses to be openly discussed or shared.

In fact, we are often urged, subtly or overtly, to deal with the loss privately and swiftly.

Yet it is critical to our heart’s health and the wholeness of who we are to integrate the loss into this new way of living, eventually learning to live wholeheartedly with – not in spite of – that loss.