In this episode, we're exploring the first of Francis Weller's Five Gates of Grief: "Everything we love, we will lose." This isn't just another depressing truth about life—it's a surprisingly liberating gateway to deeper love, presence, and joy. We'll share some stories and practical wisdom about how savoring practices can help us hold both love and loss simultaneously. Most importantly, we'll highlight why grief is a skill, not just a feeling, and you'll learn a simple five-minute micro-ritual for tending to loss before it accumulates. This conversation weaves together Buddhist teachings on impermanence, neuroscience research on grief and savoring, and the vital reminder that grief is absolutely a team sport.

p.s. Find your Simple Joy practice for this episode right here at our blog.

About: The Joy Lab Podcast blends science and soul to help you cope better with stress, ease anxiety, and uplift mood. Join Dr. Henry Emmons and Dr. Aimee Prasek for practical, mindfulness-based tools and positive psychology strategies to build resilience and create lasting joy.

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Sources and Notes for this full grief series:

Joy Lab Program: Take the next leap in your wellbeing journey with step-by-step practices to help you build and maintain the elements of joy in your life.
Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller

"Grief is not a feeling, grief is a skill." — Francis Weller
"Ritual is a maintenance practice that offers us the means of tending wounds and sorrows, for offering gratitude, allowing our psyches regular periods of release and renewal." — Francis Weller

"Half of any person is wrong and weak and off the beaten path. Half the other half is dancing and laughing and swimming in the invisible joy." — Rumi
"We are all the walking wounded in a world that is a war zone. Everything we love will be taken from us. Everything. Last of all life itself. Yet this reality does not diminish love. It shows us that loving is the most important business." -Christina Pinkola Estés' Website
Skye Cielita Flor & Miraz Indira, The Joyful Lament: On Pain for the World. 2023 Access here
Learn more about Joanna Macy's work from the Commons Library.
Beckes & Sbarra, Social baseline theory: State of the science and new directions. Access here
Beckes, et al. (2011). Social Baseline Theory: The Role of Social Proximity in Emotion and Economy of Action. Access here
Bunea et al. (2017). Early-life adversity and cortisol response to social stress: a meta-analysis. Access here.
Eisma, et al. (2019). No pain, no gain: cross-lagged analyses of posttraumatic growth and anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress and prolonged grief symptoms after loss. Access here
Lehrner, et al. (2014). Maternal PTSD associates with greater glucocorticoid sensitivity in offspring of Holocaust survivors. Access here
Kamis, et al. (2024). Childhood maltreatment associated with adolescent peer networks: Withdrawal, avoidance, and fragmentation. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2024.107125
Sheehy, et al. (2019). An examination of the relationship between shame, guilt and self-harm: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Access here
Strathearn, et al. (2020). Long-term Cognitive, Psychological, and Health Outcomes Associated With Child Abuse and Neglect. Access here
Yehuda et al. (1998). Vulnerability to posttraumatic stress disorder in adult offspring of Holocaust survivors. Access here.
Yehuda, et al. (2018). Intergenerational transmission of trauma effects: putative role of epigenetic mechanisms. Access here

Full transcript available here

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Everything We Love, We Will Lose: Navigating the First Gate of Grief [249]