It is a profound truth that our strength does not emerge from the adversities we endure but from the choices we make in their aftermath. Acknowledging this does not diminish the weight of our sorrow, nor does it rush us toward resolution. Instead, it invites us to meet grief as a sacred threshold—a space where we are unraveled and remade.

In 2018, the unimaginable happened. We lost our daughter, Loey, at 39 weeks. It was not the first time grief had hollowed out my world. In 2013, we lost our twins at 22 weeks, a loss that shattered the foundation of who I thought I was. What followed was a labyrinthine journey through infertility—miscarriages, ovulation tests, fertility-enhancing diets, acupuncture, IVF, Chinese herbal medicine—all in pursuit of a life that continually slipped just beyond reach and grieving for a dream.

Then came the diagnosis. An autoimmune disorder. A blood clotting issue. A revelation of all that my body had endured, of all it was trying to tell me. Loss, it seems, has its own language—one that speaks through the body, through the soul, through the places that ache in ways words cannot reach.

Our lives became transient, moving often for my husband’s career. With each new city, I found myself uprooted, longing for community, for grounding, for something to tether me to myself. And then, Loey. Her absence pressed against me like a weight too heavy to carry, yet impossible to set down. PTSD set in. Trauma wrapped itself around my bones. I was suffocating under the weight of all that was unspoken, unseen, unacknowledged.

And then, I chose.

Not to erase the pain, not to force myself into the shape of someone "healed," but to listen. To let grief guide me toward the wisdom buried within it. This is where breathwork and sound healing entered my life—not as quick fixes, but as ancient practices that whispered, there is another way.

Through breathwork, I learned to soften into the waves of grief rather than be consumed by them. Each inhale became an invocation, each exhale a release. Sound healing wove its way through me, dissolving the places where sorrow had calcified, reminding me that my body—despite all it had endured—was still a vessel for life, for healing, for something sacred.

Our journey to parenthood took an unexpected path, leading us to the profound gift of surrogacy. Our son arrived not as a replacement for the children we lost, but as a testament to love’s enduring presence, and an even deeper reminder that grief is here. As I was searching for self, I became a certified conscious parenting coach with Dr. Shefali, a Certified Hypnobreathwork & Sound Healing Facilitator and a Grief Coach.

But on my son’s second birthday and during COVID, my life unraveled once more. My mother was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor, and a year later, she was gone. I found myself mothering while motherless, navigating yet another unbearable loss. You would think grief and I were well acquainted by then, but this loss shattered me in a way I hadn’t known before.

It brought me to my knees, stripped me bare, and for a long time, I couldn’t find my way back.

I did rise—but I did not return as the person I once was.

Grief had transformed me once again. We are not the same after loss, nor should we be.

It is in the breaking that we are reshaped, in the darkness that we learn to hold our own light.

Let us walk this path together—honoring what was, embracing what is, and opening our hearts to what might yet be.

This is the sacred alchemy of grief. This is the transformation.