Six months into the journey of loss, the landscape changes. It is a notorious "crux" in the journey of grief—the initial shock absorbers have worn off, the "tribe" that surrounded her at the funeral has largely returned to their own lives, and the brutal reality of a future without a partner is setting in. #NeuroScienceRecovery #GuidedRecovery #GriefRecovery #DisplacedGrief We often see those suffering from grief, at this marker, as combative, defensive, and interjecting the

When I went home to visit my mother recently, I found myself in a landscape I didn't quite recognize. As a reminder, she lost her husband of 47 years just a few months ago, and I quickly realized that she is currently living in a biological "stall." Grief is a "Metabolic Bankruptcy. "My mother isn't "choosing" to fixate on the past; her brain is literally incapacitated by the loss of her 47-year "North Star." When you’re supporting someone in a grief loop, remember: they don'

When we lose a pillar of our family, the natural instinct is to retreat into the past. For my mother, who recently lost her husband of 47 years, "Memory Lane" is currently her only safe camp. She is hunkered down there, sifting through decades of stories to make sense of her new silence. This is a totally natural and necessary part of the healing process. But for me, walking that same lane is a different journey. Learning the art of Tactical Disassociation. I spent the last w

In the backcountry, we have a saying: "There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing." But sometimes, the storm is so fierce—with 50 mph gusts and a relentless chill—that the most logical move is to hunker down in the "base camp" of our homes. Yesterday was a reminder: You can’t Peloton your way out of a nature deficit. I had the "perfect" indoor day and ended up with a 7 pm anxiety spike. Why? Because my biology was craving the grounding that only the outdoors can

For over a year, I lived as a ghost on my own trail, walking around like a gaping wound that refused to close. I was an exposed nerve, raw and reactive, lashing out at the world because I didn't have the tools to process the storm inside. To the outside observer, I was "difficult," I was "losing it"—I was drinking in excess, relying on sleeping pills to find a forced peace, and carrying the physical weight of my metabolic collapse. I pushed away the very people who had been m