At some point in our lives, we will experience grief. The profound emotions that sweep in, when something we loved is lost. A person, a place, a hope, a way of life. Anything that changes the way things were, to something they are now not.

During my time as a psychologist talking to clients about their emotions, grief was a recurrent theme. In my own life, when I have struggled with loss, it has taken me on a deeper exploration of what grief does to our minds, bodies and spirits.

I’ve studied world faiths, read esoteric texts and gone on retreats in wild places, to get to grips with this very human process of transforming loss into joy. Working with people preparing for end of life, it has reaffirmed my faith in the soul being eternal, and the process of transformation, grief invites within us, from death to rebirth.

When I walked the French Camino, I met a wonderful woman from Ireland. Our encounter was at Roncesvalles - just over the Pyrenees into Spain. A high and blessed point at the start of the pilgrimage to Santiago. She told me that this was her second experience of pilgrimage. She was walking in joy, since five years previous she had walked the same path in grief having lost her only son after a tragic divorce. I marvelled at her ability to recover her life after such events. On my pilgrimage through Portugal, I have heard many stories of how individuals have triumphed over grief. How they have transmuted it into something elevated. Not without pain, but through the pain.

All the great poets and mystics teach us that grief is an alchemical process. Read the works of Rumi, Teresa of Avila and Julian of Norwich, and the messages are the same. When God closes a door on a life you knew, somewhere he opens a window towards another life where you will be elevated.

I’ve experienced this process myself. My window to a new path of enlightenment, was a call to live in Porto. I could never have imagined what joy I would discover here, when I was still in the journey through grief and the dark night of the soul. On this journey many people held my hand, washed away my tears, and tended my wounds. Generous, gracious, and tender acts. I am a more whole human being because of what was lost, and what I was forced to seek. Fearing grief is a natural human response. Being courageous to move through the fear, empowers us to do great things with the one life we are given.