writing our grief
With bestselling author Stephanie Duncan Smith.
Boundless Emptiness, 2022.
That night in our twenties at the Argentinian restaurant on Lafayette Street, we couldn’t have fathomed it, we four—Josh, Blake, Dana and me. Cornell brought us together, and a decade on, there we were, stealing glances in the loo, making dreamy promises, drinking more than any of us needed to. Everything was possible.
We didn’t imagine that one day a decade later, Blake would jump out of a burning tower to his death on a regular Tuesday morning in 2001.
Nor could we have imagined that one day in our mid-fifties Josh would watch his home, neighborhood and kids’ schools be incinerated by fire. And that one of the only treasures he’d retrieve from the wreckage of his life—a photo of Blake and him.
What we can understand: Josh and his family finding temporary landing with Dana at her home, Dana’s grown son crafting mini flower arrangements from the foliage around their home, the clothing donations from our favorite LA store. Everything is possible.
Time marches on. All is sacred, profane, intimate, deepening, fleeting.
At the end of January, I’ll close out a month of meditation, after a final week in silence, in which I’ll sat five to seven hours each day, contributing to and receiving from the field of practice, precious calibration for my heart and body. Service, generosity, mindfulness and mortality are all present here, with each day ending with this verse:
Let me respectfully remind you
Life and death are of supreme importance
Time passes swiftly, and opportunity is lost.
Let us awaken, awaken, take heed:
Do not squander your life.
Thank you for being here, for your interest and willingness to explore your own grief this month. Senior editor at HarperOne and creator of
, a popular Substack for writers, is the author of Even After Everything, is our guest this week. She’s written a piece just for us.Stephanie is kind, she wears overalls, and her writing moves me to trust my own more completely. Her piece for us this week includes references to her grief, and ways in which writing has granted healing in the presence of uncertainty.
For context, I’ve personally experienced my own version of Stephanie’s story below, so particularly appreciate this piece.
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From Stephanie:
It was the third week of Advent, the week of joy, when I walked myself into the ER and was given the news I feared most: We couldn’t find a heartbeat.
It was my first pregnancy, and my husband and I had been elated to share the news with family at Christmas, but now that dream was over, returned to dust.
While others lit candles and sang Silent Night and waited to celebrate God being born, I was sent home to deliver death. The day it happened was the winter solstice, and I found some strange consolation in the honest dark, in a season full of light that all felt unforgivable to me.
Life is full of dissonances: light and dark, joy and sorrow, beginnings and endings. I have found that one of the greatest supports we can give ourselves in unsettled times is the permission to voice our life as we experience it—no gloss, no spin, free of the influence of other narrators. The self craves both witness and expression. Writing gives space to them both.
In the wake of my loss, I brought my pain to the page, and I found it to be a nonjudgmental presence. And I would keep writing—through my next pregnancy and its scares along the way, giving birth to my daughter one year later nearly one year to the day of my winter solstice loss. That circle of a year held so much—crushing sorrow, the surprise of joy, harrowing uncertainty between. How like life.
Reflective writing is exactly what it sounds like: a mirror. This is not writing with the intent to publish—no showpiece or deliverable—this is writing to make space for you. Let the blank page be to you a nonjudgmental presence. Let your whole self show up here, without the impulse to perform, solve, deliver, or impress. The single requirement of reflective writing is that it tells the unvarnished truth.
This is where the act of writing becomes downright spiritual: as it draws out our true selves to greet the transcendent. “Attention is the highest form of prayer,” Simone Weil once said. And as we draw our attentions to our lived narrative, searching for patterns that tether to wider wisdom both within us and beyond us, we practice such a sacred witness.
Writing is a powerful practice for processing life’s happenings because it teaches us to boldly engage paradox, because what is life if not juxtaposition. It trains the eye to be alert to where meaning might be discovered, as we become better foragers for the
good, true, and beautiful. It helps us make meaningful connections, unlearn habits and mindsets that are holding us back, and strengthen new neural pathways able to shape us over time into the people of courage and wisdom we most want to be.
Against the forces that seek to narrate our experience and speak for us, and against the unexamined untrue stories we tell ourselves, writing says, I am here. This is true. And I speak for myself. That December, I did not feel witnessed by the joy of the Christmas season. But I felt wildly witnessed by the winter solstice—the way the sun stopped her time for me when I needed it most. I felt that empathy for what it is: cosmic.
In my book Even After Everything: The Spiritual Practice of Knowing the Risks and Loving Anyway, I propose that the healing and wholeness we seek most depends upon first naming the night. As we name where it hurts, the page might become a soft place for our pain to land. Writing can give us the kindness of borders as we voice our experiences and, should we choose, we can leave our pain on the page finding some relief in release.
Writing, like the winter solstice, can make space for us to name the night, as well as the light, and every shade of glimmer and shadow between. It can make space for witness, for the sacred expression of something a life has to say. It can make space for attention—that highest form of prayer.
Thank you, dear Stephanie.
One question for you, dear reader:
What are you most afraid to write about?
Including this quote to remind us of the awareness that has nothing to do with words. Thank you
for this.Finally, here’s my Calendar for 2025, and a series of teachings in which I’m honored to take part, free.
The Power of Meditation
How to Heal Anxieties and Cultivate Enduring Peace Through Dharma, Somatics, and Psychotherapy.
Click here to learn more and watch for free.
Created to help you heal anxiety and access enduring peace, this exploration of dharma teachings and practices will be available January 21st-30th, 2025. Cultivate resilience and calm through body-based practices that help you remain grounded and present.
Understand how meditation affects anxiety in the brain and body.
Explore the integration of non-dual dharma teachings, mindfulness, meditation, and somatic practices to release anxiety stored in the body.
Practice techniques for embedding positive states in the subtle body, so you can stay present in the midst of radical personal, societal, and global changes.
Train the mind-heart in present-moment awareness, to reduce flare ups of anxiety as they arise and access enduring peace.
Thank you for being here.
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