My personal story i share with groups

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                                          What if?  From Broken Hearted to Broken Open

Death and grief, we fear them, so we ignore them, or just pretend they won’t happen to us, right? Do those ideas have the ring of truth to you? Welcome to the human race! But, what if - what if, the devastation of loss is meant to birth something life giving? 

Loss is about change and endings. Endings that taking us somewhere we didn’t know we were going to go. 

I’m Britt Densford.  I’m a certified grief and loss coach and I companion grievers through the quagmire of overwhelming feelings that assault them when these life changing events happen.

My husband, life partner and creative collaborator died of a very sudden heart attack. 

Who have you lost? Loss comes in many forms! Loss of parents, sibling, friends, the list goes on and on. It’s the loss of love, right? There isn’t a person in this room that doesn’t have a relationship with loss. 

Grief turned my life inside out!  My life as I knew it was over and I knew I had to be willing to come apart so that, somehow, I’d be put back together through the process of rupture and repair. I came to realize I wasn’t going to feel any joy ever again until I fully felt the pain. 

I followed where the pain led me, and found my way, and that’s why I want to share with you today the comfort I found in my journey, because I learned more about love, from loss,than any other life experience.  I learned: DEATH DOES NOT HAVE THE POWER TO END A RELATIONSHIP!

It’s impossible to believe, that something so monumental as a life, could disappear completely. We must find a way to carry them with us. Grief doesn’t have to mean it’s also the end of our story with our loved one!

Love is a thing so powerful it can overcome the divide of time and death. Love is an eternal flame though the light it casts is different now. Joy comes from knowing that the love that was shared is constant, like the sun on the earth. 

We can embrace the experience of the love, what it actually is, something fuller and deeper than we ever even imagined - that going forward will become woven into the very fabric of who we are. 

I had no idea what challenges I would face when loss initiated me into the crushing realities of life and death and then finally - back to life! 

I didn’t know how my mind, body and spirit were going to survive as I was torn apart, piece by piece.  There’s no other way to say it.  It’s hard and I was lost, and I wondered “who am I now?” 

But I’m so much richer because I took this journey! That’s why I want to leave you today with a snapshot into what I learned so that when death comes to your door you might remember this glimpse of a path. 

At first, I could only feel because feel you must!  The way to heal is to feel! Releasing the pain – and mourning my loss – lead me to discover how to grow out of this tragedy. Growing and changing are hard, but we humans have been endowed with free will - the ability to choose.

I discovered that my loss offered two very different paths to walk - one of more sadness and regret, or - one of seeking the capacity to love more - that I could bring all that love that was still inside me into the world! 

Six months after my husband died, my inner world started to ask different questions. I had the thought, what does all I’m experiencing mean?  I still love Stephen just as much and he’s never actually going to be far from me because he’s so alive inside of me! 

He’s a part of me that will never die! It was becoming so obvious that life and death were a package deal. 

When someone we love goes away some part of them stays forever! It was very confusing and at the same time, comforting. But I wondered, what do I do with all this love that feels trapped inside me? Death took everything from me. But it also gave me part of myself I needed to make my acquaintance with.

My loss was drawing me closer to the invisible substance called love that permeates everything. This is the moment where the path forward finally came into focus. 

I was learning that grief was love with nowhere to go. I was so surprised that what I thought was giving into the pain was leading me some new place - to love in a different way!  I couldn’t change the situation, but I could let the situation change me!

Grieving fully brought me to the end of my endurance and opened me up - from broken hearted to broken open, to a deeper presence in my life.

To my amazement, I also began trusting this process. I wasn’t pushing against it anymore. On the other side of the pain was what was possible for the rest of my life.

My heart was broken open and feelings of compassion for other exploded! My life became holy ground when I chose to walk the path of love. It was a little unnerving to feel so raw. Through surviving the feelings loss generated, I became more in tune with the world, and kinder. Grief was softening my edges! 

Here’s 3 other things I learned.  

1. Stay attentive to honoring the dream of my life and the way it was all supposed to turn out, which was now dust in my hand. I learned how to comfort myself. Kindness to myself allowed me to keep walking forward on the healing path.

2. Be curious about what I’m feeling. What thoughts are driving my emotions? Being curious opened doors I didn’t even know existed!

3. Be willing to change. I chose that the dust my lost life left me holding could turn into fertile soil. I started to believe I could become something new and rise from the ashes.

Even though my loss was about the death of my husband, we all have our own stories that take us out of the ordinary and into moments of crisis. Life shattering experiences do rearrange us, and we can discover the meaning in our pain. 

Continuing to love and learn takes an act of courage as loss invites us to move into our hearts and use the experience as a portal to our own growth.

As your coach, we’ll walk together through all the feelings that arise from your loss, and when you’re ready, I’ll help you find new ground underneath your feet. Loss is a both/and experience. You walk some, you hurt some. I’ll hold the space for both the unraveling and the weaving back together.

Loss has or is going to happen to every single one of us. It’s an inevitable part of life. We can stop pretending that loss won’t happen and lean into the reality that life is both beautiful and devastating. 

I’ve navigated one of life’s treacherous paths. If I can do it, so can you - transmute the pain of loss into something life giving. 

If I can be a part of your recovery and growth from loss, or, if you have a question, email me and we can set up a time for a free conversation. 

Stephen spent 45 of his precious 77 years of life entrusting me with his legacy. It’s up to me what to do with this gift. The love we shared now fuels me in building a new life worth living and choosing a little joy every day.

There is a winding path into the woods of grief and I believe, we’re meant to walk it. Our cultures loss story is missing the greater story that loss can make a space for discovering a more enlarged way of being in the world. Thank you for allowing me to share my story with you.