Loving What Is Mortal: Therapy for Grief, Letting Go, and Living Fully 

Mary Oliver, in her poem In Blackwater Woods, offers this fierce and tender instruction for being human:

To live in this world, you must be able to love what is mortal, hold it close as if your life depends on it, and when the time comes to let it go… let it go.

Each week, I have a calendar reminder pop up with this message. It reminds me of something very important; I can live awake. Not numb, not on autopilot, but in honest contact with the reality that everything I love is temporary, including myself.

What I want to do here is explore how those three invitations can reshape a life and how therapy with me can become a place to actually practice them, not just admire them as beautiful words.

1. Loving what is mortal

Everything we love is going to change or end: partners, parents, friends, children, identities, roles, even the version of you reading this right now.

Most people know this in theory and then build lives as if it were not true. We protect ourselves by:

• – Holding back from love so we will not be “too hurt later”
• – Choosing busyness and productivity instead of tenderness and presence
• – Staying in our heads so we do not have to feel how fragile it all is

To love what is mortal is to say: I know this will not last, and I am still choosing to show up fully. Over time, living with this reminder can:

• – Soften perfectionism: life does not have to be flawless to be worth loving
• – Shift your priorities: connection starts to matter more than performance
• – Bring you back to your body: you allow yourself to feel affection, gratitude, grief, and awe

How this shows up in therapy with me

In sessions with me, this first invitation often sounds like:

• – “I am scared to care this much.”
• – “If I let myself really love them, what happens if they leave?”
• – “It feels safer not to need anyone.”

My style is relational, grounded, and gently curious. I will not push you into big feelings, but I will invite us to notice:

• – Where you shut down when connection gets too close
• – How your body reacts when you even imagine loving fully
• – The old stories that told you love is dangerous, conditional, or unreliable

Together, we build your capacity to love in a way that honours both your heart and your history without pretending loss is not real.

2. Holding it close as if your life depends on it

There are people, practices, places, and inner resources your life does depend on (maybe not in a literal survival sense) but in the “this is what makes my life feel meaningful” sense.

But many of us were taught to downplay this. We learned to be:

• – “Low maintenance”
• – Grateful for scraps
• – Suspicious of our own needs

Holding something “against your bones” means letting it matter enough to shape your choices:

• – Making time for the relationships that feel like home
• – Protecting your rest, your creativity, your body, your spiritual life
• – Letting your values, not your fears, guide your decisions

When you return to this idea weekly, you start to see more clearly:

• – What actually keeps you grounded
• – Where you are abandoning yourself to keep the peace
• – What needs to move closer to the centre of your life, not the margins

How we explore this together

With me, this second invitation often becomes a living question:

• – What does your life truly depend on right now — emotionally, psychologically, spiritually?
• – What are your non-negotiables for feeling like yourself?
• – Where have you been trained to feel guilty for needing support?

Because my work is not just cognitive, we also pay attention to your body:

• – How your breath changes when you name what you really need
• – The subtle flinch when you say, “I don’t want to be a burden”
• – The part of you that would rather over-function than risk asking for help

Therapy becomes a place where you practice holding what matters such as your relationships, your healing, your boundaries, your tenderness,  with more respect and less apology.

3. Letting go when the time comes

This is the part that usually hurts the most.

Letting go is not one skill; it is a lifelong practice:

• – Letting go of a relationship that no longer honours who you are
• – Letting go of a role or identity that once kept you safe but now keeps you confined
• – Letting go of a dream that belonged to a younger version of you
• – Letting go, eventually, of people and places you love deeply

Most of us don’t “do” letting go so much as survive it. We cling, bargain, freeze, or numb out. We tell ourselves stories so we do not have to feel the rawness of grief.

Reminding yourself of Oliver’s words weekly has a quiet power:

• – You stop pretending things are not ending when they clearly are
• – You waste less energy trying to freeze time
• – You begin to ask: If this will end someday, how do I want to show up now?

How I sit with you in this

In therapy with me, letting go is something we honour, not rush:

• – We make room for the grief you never felt safe enough to express
• – We explore the younger parts of you that equate loss with catastrophe or abandonment
• – We learn how to stay present to the pain without abandoning yourself or going numb

My role is not to tell you to “move on” or to spiritually bypass the reality of loss.
My role is to sit with you in the in-between,  when something is ending but the new life has not fully emerged yet, and to trust your timing.

Sometimes letting go is quiet and internal. Sometimes it’s a clear boundary. Sometimes it’s simply loosening your grip, breath by breath, while we stay in contact so you do not have to do it alone.

What therapy with me actually feels like

If you were to bring this weekly reminder into our sessions, here is what you could expect with me

• – Relational and grounded
  We start from the relationship between us. How you show up here — cautious, open, defended, eager, skeptical — is not a problem to fix, but information to understand.
• – Somatic and present
  I will often ask what is happening in your body as you talk. Tight chest, numbness, heat in the face, a lump in the throat — all of these are part of the story.
• – Trauma-aware, not trauma-reducing
  We can acknowledge trauma where it exists without making everything into a trauma event. Sometimes what hurts is not catastrophic, it is simply human — and still deserves care.
• – Integrative
  If it fits for you, we might weave in ancestral perspectives, spirituality, or insights from psychedelic work and integration. Always at your pace, always grounded in your reality.

Over time, therapy becomes a place where you:

• – Learn to love more honestly, without abandoning yourself
• – Hold what matters with clearer boundaries and deeper honour
• – Practice letting go with support, instead of in isolation

Mary Oliver gave language to a truth you already feel in your bones.
My work as a therapist is to help you live that truth in your actual, beautiful life: not perfectly, but more consciously, more kindly, and with more room for your full humanity.

If these three invitations speak to you and you want a place to explore them in depth, that is the kind of therapy I offer.