There is a heaviness here. A weight in your chest, a knot in your throat, maybe your eyes are full but won't spill, or maybe they won't stop. Whatever it is, this is the truth of it.

I'm not going to ask you to chase your sorrow away. Quite the opposite. We are going to make a little room for it.

Because this grief wants to belong somewhere, it wants to be seen, and most of all it doesn't want to be carried alone. I am here. I can hold this weight with you, quietly.

Now let's do something very gentle with your breath. Draw the air inward, not deep, just easy. Then as you release it, with your lips slightly closed, let a soft hum come from within you, a low murmur, almost too quiet to hear.

Feel the vibration of that sound in your throat, in your chest. That vibration comes to loosen the knot that lives there. Once more.

Breathe in, and as you let go, hum softly. Let your throat open, let your chest ease, and as that low sound passes through you, let what you carry grow a little lighter.

Now let the grief come. It arrives in waves, it rises, withdraws, then rises again. Don't try to time it, stop it, or solve it with a clever sentence.

Just allow it. If tears want to come, let them, and if they don't, don't force those either. There is no right or wrong here.

There is only you, and this deep, ancient, human thing moving through you. Keep giving it your breath.

Now say something to yourself, the way you would touch someone you love deeply, someone who is very tired. You can rest your hand on your chest. You are allowed to feel this.

It is enough that you are here. That you grieve, that you long, that you break, these are all the signs of a heart that can love. Don't be hard on yourself, this is the last moment for that.

Come to yourself with tenderness, now most of all.

Now slowly, with no hurry at all, let the hum soften, let your breath return to silence. It's all right if the sorrow doesn't lift, perhaps it won't lift today, and that too is allowed. But something has changed, because you are no longer carrying it alone.

This vibration, this breath, this hand resting on your chest, all of them have kept you company. Let the weight in your chest shift a little, soften a little, in its own time. Let the knot in your throat, when it is ready, loosen a little.

If your eyes are closed, let them stay that way, or let them part in their own slow time. And the way this grief reminded you how much you can love, where inside yourself might you want to keep it?