25/07/2026
Forgiveness doesn't eliminate grief.
You did the work. Now some things that used to feel like home are no longer tenable. But you don’t get to walk away from all of them. Some places and relationships that cause friction will continue to be in your life.
There's a name for this: ambiguous loss — a grief that, unlike the passing of a loved one, has no precise moment of transition, no moment of closure.
This is the deep grief for what could have been, such as a relationship that never developed into what you needed, or a career that never fulfilled you the way you'd hoped.
I often see this grief show up alongside the letting go of old desires that family, friends, or career was never able to meet. First it reveals the pain you've been holding at bay. Then, it becomes a deeper acceptance of what these relationships are actually capable of being.
It can look like less time invested, less intimacy in the time you do share, new outlets for support sought elsewhere, and tears shed for what you’d long hoped for that will never come to be.
This grief is just as important as mourning the death of a loved one. But there are no flowers to send, no funeral to attend, no ritual that marks the moment.
Instead, you’ve just quietly stopped feeding something that was never going to become what you hoped.
On the other side of this grief, something else becomes possible. The friction may still be there — a flash of anger, the old irritation — but it no longer triggers a spiral. You get to simply be who you are. They get to simply be who they are. Each of you on your own journey, seen now with a compassion that was previously overshadowed.
Tomorrow, the Guides will address this type of grief directly during Sustaining Balance, which is about holding the new normal you’ve bravely stepped into.
Join us live, tomorrow, at 1 PM Eastern Time / 10 AM Pacific Time — https://www.sarahcooke.com/events
