When I was 29 years old, my significant other passed away from brain cancer. Experiencing such deep love with someone, witnessing their health deteriorate, and losing them was completely life changing, to say the least.

When we anticipate the death of loved one, like in cases of cancer, the grieving process can start well before the person dies. This anticipatory grief often manifests as anxiety, depression, fear, and uncertainty. Some days, I found this to be more challenging to bear than the grief after my partner was gone.

In a similar vein, the anticipation of the one-year anniversary of his death riddled me with anxiety. How was I going to feel on the anniversary day? Will all of the pain that had softened over the last year come back in full force? To honour his memory, I hiked up the mountain where I had spread some of his ashes. On my way home, I stopped at the beach and went for a dip in the ocean, holding the memory of him with me the whole time. It was mid-March, and the water was very cold. COVID lockdowns had just been announced that day, so I was also experiencing anxiety and grief from that too.

As soon as I submerged my body in the cold water, I noticed my anxiety and mind chatter was nowhere to be found. I was fully present in my body, held by the ocean. This peaceful state lasted just for a moment—but sometimes, the smallest moments can make the deepest impact.

The next day, the anniversary and anxiety around it had passed, only to be replaced with anxiety and anger about the global pandemic chaos. I remembered that moment of peace in the ocean from the day before, and decided to go for another dip. The next day, I did the same thing. And the next day. And the day after that.

It was never my initial plan to repeat this activity everyday; it just naturally took on as a daily practice that stayed with me every single day, with intention and dedication, for two full years. I did not miss a single day in those two years because this grief ritual held so much meaning to me.

As the three-year anniversary of my partner’s passing and the two-year anniversary of my ocean ritual approached, it became clear to me that I was ready to let go of this daily ceremony. Once again, the anticipation of the anniversary came with a wave of grief, and part of me felt afraid of letting go of this ritual that had given me such a strong sense of intention, purpose, and structure. But I knew in my heart that it was time. Once I completed my final ocean dip in a ceremonial way, I felt a sense of relief, lightness, and spaciousness that I knew would open me towards new opportunities.

Although I let go of the daily ritual aspect of this practice, I still swim in the ocean on a regular basis year round—and always on March 16th.

My parents divorced when I was four years old. Their separation was messy and left a huge scar on our family of five. The loss of our family structure, shared home, and routines was deeply disruptive and destabilizing to all of us, resulting in multifaceted grief that continues to have ripple effects to this day.

Witnessing such animosity between my parents as they fought—in both the home and the court room—was scary and incomprehensible to my four-year-old self. This compromised my sense of safety and security at a young age, as did constantly having to move back and forth between mom’s house and dad’s house.

My mother, who my sisters and I lived with the majority of the time, struggled seriously with her mental health. This added a whole other layer of instability on top of our broken family structure. She sometimes did not have the capacity to care for me in the ways that I needed, nor did she serve as an effective role model of emotional regulation.

I know my parents did the best they could to love and support me despite their circumstances. However, as a young child I felt very alone in figuring out how to manage stresses that were beyond my capacity. As we all do, I developed coping strategies that helped keep me safe at the time but later became unhealthy and self-limiting.

I rarely opened up to anyone about my personal and family struggles until I started seeing a therapist for the first time when I was 24 years old—two decades after my parents got divorced—when I was deep in heartbreak after a breakup. Around the same time, I also started engaging more regularly with the arts through drawing, painting and pottery. This was a pivotal point on my healing path as I began to explore and express my emotions in different ways.

While I wish I had received greater support when I was a child to help manage the impacts of my parents’ divorce and family instability, I also believe it is never too late to heal old wounds. Over the years, I have experienced subtle shifts, major breakthroughs, and everything in between as I continue on my path of personal and family healing.  

Today, it is an honour and a privilege for me to be there for families as they navigate matters of family breakdown. It is my hope to offer others the kind of support I wish I had received when I was going through a similar experience.

My career path itself has also involved grief. Having invested so much time, money and energy into my education and training in engineering and architecture, it was a difficult process for me to fully accept that a conventional career path in these fields was not working for me and I needed to change my direction.

More than once, I left my job, took a break, and then found a new job. Each time was a small step towards a better direction, but it was never long before I would get the itch to leave again. I would force myself to stick it out until I simply could not anymore, at which point the cycle would repeat. I went through multiple iterations of this cycle over several years. The pattern would get louder and I responded faster each time, until finally I was able to break the cycle and truly let go of what was not working.

Saying goodbye was bittersweet. I felt relief, joy, and gratitude for my dedication in pursuing my true path; and at the same time I felt a profound emptiness, sadness, and shame—grief. By this point in my life, I had a pretty intimate relationship with grief and knew that “the best way out is through.”

I allowed myself to experience the full range of emotions and the time I needed to process my grief from this loss and major life transition. The emptiness I felt was ultimately the space that was needed to allow new, more aligned opportunities to enter my life. This is when I found expressive arts therapy.