Being Human Means to Grieve... AND to Dream New Dreams
- Miranda
- Sep 11
- 3 min read
I was falling asleep a couple weeks ago, my husband away for the night, and I was in that liminal space right before your body surrenders. I happened to have just one tiny, harmless little thought about never experiencing motherhood (not something I think of daily but it is still tender). And before I could offer myself any sort of reframe or just allow the thought to dissipate, my heart squeezed so tightly I thought I was having a heart attack. The pain was so intense, the squeezing gripped so long, it took my breath away and I started to panic, gasping for air. Then my brain caught up to my body and I remember thinking, “oh… THIS is grief.”
Finally, the tears came. I cried and cried. I didn’t try to stop it or reason my way through. I just had to feel it and let my nervous system do what it knew to do. Complete the cycle, allow the water to come and wash it through. It was uncomfortable, and awful, and oh so very necessary. The act of grieving is necessary. I’m sorry about that.
The irony is that one of my favourite parts of being a coach is sitting with others in their grief. It’s a powerful moment of deep vulnerability when the world feels unfair and the void impossibly wide. While I’m not a therapist and I don’t diagnose or tell people what to do, I am human and to be human is to know that life full of love and joy will also, at times, be marked by loss and pain. My trauma-informed training has also taught me that what’s needed most in these moments is simple connection, compassion, and permission for our bodies to release. We hold so much in our bodies. Sometimes that looks like tears, sometimes like rage, sometimes like curling up under a blanket or escaping into a fantasy novel. That’s grief, baby.
In coaching, I help individuals look to the future. I help them build visions for themselves: What are your goals? Your values? What does success look like for you? What does healthy look like? I ask questions to focus clients on who they are now and who they want to be and inevitably the answers often highlight the roadblocks that get in their way. Limiting beliefs, old fears, loneliness, and so often… grief. Grief can tether us to the past and make it hard to imagine a tomorrow. And so we talk about it. I ask: “What does grief look like for you?” “Where do you feel it in your body?” And eventually, “What might come after?”, “How might you honour what’s gone and keep moving forward?” and even, "What new paths or stories might you begin to imagine for yourself?”
Because grief is not the end of our story, it’s part of it. Coaching can be the place where you learn to hold that truth: to honour what you’ve lost while allowing new dreams to take shape. And in leadership, this truth matters more than we often admit. The people who guide teams, organizations, or communities are also human beings who carry loss, disappointment, and change in their own lives. When grief is acknowledged rather than hidden, it can deepen empathy, expand perspective, and even reshape what “success” means. In this way, grief becomes not only something to survive, but also a human reminder that even in endings, there is room for hope, renewal, and the courage to dream new dreams.
