Learning to Live Alongside Grief: Gentle support for midlife & Baby Boomer women navigating loss & major life changes

“We know what we are, but not what we may be.”
— Ophelia in Hamlet

When we are in the deepest agony of grief or life-altering loss, it can feel impossible to imagine ourselves as anything other than broken-hearted.

There are so many days when grief feels impossibly heavy and woven into everything we see, think and do. We feel certain the suffering we are living with now is what life will always be.

After the death of a loved one, divorce, illness, betrayal, caregiving exhaustion, or another devastating change, the future can seem to disappear entirely.

I understand this not only professionally, but personally. After the death of my son, my most recent of multiple other devastating losses, I have come to understand grief in a way I never wanted to. There are still days when sorrow feels woven into everything.

And yet, alongside that truth, I have also learned something else that matters deeply. Life does not stay still forever. Just as life can change for the worse in the blink of an eye, healing, meaning, connection, and even unexpected joy can slowly begin to enter again too.

Healing?

Healing is not the same as “getting over” terrible things. It is learning, little by little, how to carry both love and sorrow, while remaining open to life. That often begins with small steps and small choices.

It can start with choosing to create something, doing something to honor our lost loved one, perhaps connecting with a cause or with someone who can help us. It can begin with allowing one small moment of beauty to enter our day without guilt.

Not because we “get over” loss. We do not. Love does not disappear and neither does grief. I don’t believe in rushing grief, no matter who may push us to do that. I also don’t believe in pretending everything is fine because that may be what those around us want to hear. We can begin, gently and gradually, to grow around the pain instead of being consumed by it.

We surely cannot think our way out of grief. We can softly live our way forward, one decision, one breath and one moment at a time.

Most people in grief cannot envision feeling better because they are too exhausted from surviving. They are carrying memories, fear, loneliness, regret, uncertainty, and often the sense that the person they once were is gone forever.

We are more than what has happened to us. I have learned that while healing cannot be forced, it often does require some willingness — a small opening toward life again— a commitment, however fragile, to finding meaning again and to engaging differently with others—to  allowing support and to rediscovering parts of ourselves that have gone quiet under the weight of sorrow and change.

Sometimes It Begins Very Simply
taking a walk,
having one honest conversation,
saying ‘I CAN’ as often as you
say ‘I CAN’T’,
trying something creative, or just
something you’ve not done before,
reaching for companionship,
allowing moments of beauty without guilt,
or imagining, for just a moment, that life may still hold something for us.

Who Will You Become?

Even after tremendous loss, life can still contain purpose. It can still contain creativity. It can still contain connection, meaning, laughter, beauty, and hope.

We may know who we are today in our sorrow.
But none of us fully knows yet who we may still become. There can still be moments that surprise us with warmth, laughter and hope, even when we once believed those things were gone forever.

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I am Iris Arenson-Fuller, PCC, CPC

As a Life Redesign Coach for midlife and Baby Boomer women, I walk beside women who are navigating grief, profound transitions, disappointment, reinvention, and the complicated question of “Who am I now?”
I do not believe in toxic positivity or rushing anyone through grief. I believe in compassionate truth, gentle encouragement, and helping women slowly rebuild courage toward life again in ways that feel authentic to them.

If this article speaks to you, and you’re a midlife or Baby Boomer woman, let’s have a free conversation about what you can do to navigate grief and to redesign your life in spite of everything you’ve been through. I’m easy to talk to. My training and my life experience helps me help you access your own strengths and build new ones.

Let’s talk now: Contact me: Fill out a form here, write me at ir**@*******************ng.com, or call and leave me a clear message at 860-242-5941

You can also contact me through my website: https://visionpoweredcoaching.com