What If We’ve Been Getting ‘Grief’ Wrong?

“Let me be still and listen to the truth”

What if we’ve been listening to the wrong voice this whole time?

For years, I replayed the facts of my life like a broken record — I could list the losses easily and by rote. (I bet you could too…)

The facts felt so heavy, so final. Like they were the whole story.

But there’s a lesson from A Course in Miracles that changed everything for me, Lesson 106: "Let me be still and listen to the truth." Because the truth is the only thing that is true. Nothing else matters. Nothing else is real.

The facts are what happened. But what we feel about them — what we make them mean — that becomes our truth.

What if your grief has been trying to teach you to tell the difference? And what if grief astrology could be the map that helps you listen?

The Voice We’ve Been Trusting

When my husband Kerry died, the facts were brutal. Over the course of three days, he survived 29 recorded heart attacks. In the hospital, the room was kept cold to protect his brain from swelling, but the chill in the air triggered his heart to keep doing what it had learned so well—attack after attack.

The choice was impossible: warm the room to stop the heart attacks but risk his brain swelling, or keep it cold and risk his heart failing. We warmed the room. Within hours, his brain was gone. And then came the next decision—removing life support—one we’d spoken about before, and I could only hope he would have thanked me for keeping that promise.

But the loss went far beyond the facts. I lost the wholehearted unawareness of death—the kind where you book a plane ticket without wondering if both of you will still be here. I lost the quiet certainty of being lovable; because he had been the living proof. I lost the man who played (let’s be honest here…) who won at cribbage with me every night, who the world thought was quiet but who, at home, filled every room with his curiosity and laughter.

And then there were the other losses—the friendships that quietly evaporated, the invitations that stopped coming, the conversations I would never get to have, the future I had imagined, the dreams that died with him, the version of myself that existed then. It was as if my entire life had been tipped into a blender and set to crush.

One afternoon in the grocery store, I turned down an aisle just as an acquaintance spotted me. I watched the recognition flash across her face, followed by panic, and then the abrupt pivot of her cart as she chose another aisle. The fluorescent lights felt too bright, the hum of the refrigeration units too loud, my cart suddenly too heavy to push.

The voice I’d been listening to all my life said: You’re too much. Your pain makes people uncomfortable. You’re alone because you’re broken.

But underneath that noise, if I got very still, there was another voice. Quieter. Truer.

Your wound is sacred. Your sensitivity is a gift. Your path is different because you’re meant to walk beside others who are also different.

Learning to distinguish between these voices? That’s what saved my life.

The Happy Learner Paradox

Here’s what I discovered about being what the Course in Miracles calls a “happy learner”: You don’t have to be happy about the facts. You don’t have to smile through your pain or pretend loss is a blessing.

But you can find peace — and eventually, a kind of quiet joy — in learning from what happened. In listening for the truth that wants to emerge from the ashes.

When I was estranged from my entire extended family at age 20, the fact was devastating. Thirty-nine relatives who simply vanished from my life because I spoke a truth they couldn’t bear to hear.

The voice of misery said: You destroy families. You’re too much trouble. You’ll always be alone.

But the truth, when I finally got still enough to hear it, whispered something different: You chose integrity over comfort. You’re learning to stand up for yourself when everyone else is afraid to. You’re discovering that your worth isn’t dependent on who stays.

That truth still guides me forty years later when new losses echo old patterns — when I feel the familiar ache of being the outsider. Now I recognize it as sacred information instead of evidence of my brokenness.

Your Sacred Triangle: A Truth-Listening Map

In astrology, there are three placements that form what I call your Sacred Triangle — your Moon, Saturn, and Chiron. They’re not there to tell you the facts about your personality. They’re there to help you hear the truth about your soul’s journey.

Your Moon shows you where you need gentleness to hear the truth clearly — how your heart needs to be held so the noise can quiet down.

Your Saturn reveals the structures and boundaries that let the truth grow louder than the chaos — what frameworks support your ability to listen inward.

Your Chiron carries the sacred wound that keeps returning you to the truth until you finally trust it — the place where your deepest pain becomes your most authentic wisdom.

My own Sacred Triangle tells a story that is uniquely mine. My Moon in Leo in the 6th house whispered that I needed to shine individually, to find my own rhythm of service. My Saturn in Aries in the 2nd house showed me that my healing required fierce self-accountability and creating my own sense of security. My Chiron in Pisces conjunct my Ascendant revealed that my visible wound was meant to open others’ hearts — that my sensitivity wasn’t a flaw but a sacred assignment.

Together, they revealed the sacred design behind patterns I’d been living but not understanding. “Oh,” I whispered when I first saw it mapped out, “this is how my soul does this work.”

The Boundaries That Love Built

Here’s what nobody tells you about healing: it requires boundaries that feel uncomfortable at first. Not because you’re being mean, but because you’re finally choosing truth over familiar pain.

When I learned to trust my Sacred Triangle, I started saying no to energy thieves who wanted to change how I navigate the world, relationships that overwhelmed my emotions, and environments that overstimulated my senses. Not because I was selfish, but because I was finally listening to what my soul actually needed. And the truth was that pretzeling myself to please others did not prevent my isolation; it magnified it for me.

The voice of old patterns screamed: You’re being difficult. You’re pushing people away. You’ll end up alone.

But the truth whispered: You’re creating space for what belongs. You’re learning to love yourself in the midst of everything that’s happened. You’re accepting that some losses are random — just like some miracles are random.

Boundaries became my way of believing truth over old stories.

The Randomness We’re Learning to Accept

What if grief is teaching us something sacred about the nature of life itself? That loss is as random as miracles, as unpredictable as grace? This doesn’t make loss meaningless — it makes it mysteriously purposeful in ways our minds can’t always grasp.

The facts are unchangeable: the abuse happened, my husband died, my family turned away, my son stepped back, Alzheimer’s is slowly stealing my brother and mother…

The truth is that I can keep choosing to listen for what these moments are here to teach me. To become what the Course in Miracles calls a happy learner — someone who leans into both the pain and the joy of their own journey, trusting that meaning can emerge from the most meaningless suffering.

This is what it means to begin to love yourself in the midst of all that has happened.

What If We’ve Been Getting Healing Wrong Too?

What if healing isn’t about getting over anything? What if it’s about getting still enough to hear what your wound has been trying to teach you?

What if your Sacred Triangle isn’t telling you how to fix yourself, but how to listen to the truth of who you’ve always been — even in the broken places, especially in the broken places?

What if the voice that’s been calling you too sensitive, too slow, too different has been lying this whole time?

What if your grief is not the problem but the teacher?

The Invitation to Listen

I can’t tell you what truth your Sacred Triangle is whispering. That’s between you and the stillness you’re brave enough to enter.

But I can sit with you while you learn to distinguish between the voice of facts and the voice of truth. I can companion you while you discover that your wound isn’t a mistake but a sacred assignment.

I can hold the space while you remember that healing doesn’t mean feeling better — it means learning to love yourself exactly as you are, right in the middle of everything that’s happened.

Let me be still and listen to the truth.

Because the facts won’t change. But the truth you listen to can change everything.

If you’ve been listening to the wrong voice, your Sacred Triangle can help you hear the one that’s been waiting underneath all along. I offer gentle astrology readings that help you distinguish between the voice of old wounds and the voice of your soul’s wisdom. [Download my free guide: “3 Zodiac Signs that help you heal”.]

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