Roots of the Rise
Grounded wisdom for the journey inward and upward.
Roots of the Rise is a soul-centered podcast hosted by Sarah Hope—Ayurvedic health practitioner, spiritual mentor, meditation teacher, biodynamic craniosacral therapist, and energy healer. Drawing from thousands of hours of client work, group facilitation, and her own journey through childhood trauma, grief, and the profound rediscovery of love and joy, Sarah offers a grounded, heart-led space for inner transformation.
Short episodes (10–20 minutes) released on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, offer bite-sized insights, ideas, and practices for inner growth and self-development. Whether you're seasoned on the path or just beginning to explore, this podcast gives you digestible nuggets to stay inspired—without overwhelm. It’s perfect for those who want to stay engaged in the work, curious newcomers feeling overloaded by long-form content, or anyone wanting to understand a loved one's journey from a broader, more accessible perspective.
Sarah’s intention is to expose you to a wide range of spiritual concepts, therapeutic tools, philosophies, and practices—all in service of helping you become the healthiest, happiest, most authentic version of yourself. The journey can be hard. It can feel lonely. But you’re not alone. Come walk this path with her—learning, healing, and rising, one grounded step at a time.
This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Sarah is not a licensed therapist, and nothing shared here is meant to replace the guidance of a physician, therapist, or any other qualified provider. That said, she hopes you find it beneficial—and maybe it even encourages you to dig deeper and get the support you need to let go of limiting beliefs and step into the most empowered version of yourself.
Roots of the Rise
Episode 58 - Grief is Just Love With Nowhere to Go
As Jamie Anderson says, “Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.”
Grief comes in many forms beyond death, including change, loss, and unmet hopes, and can either harden us or become a quiet teacher when met with compassion.
• When denied, grief makes us numb not only to pain but to our own aliveness
• Grief requires reclaiming the part of ourselves that was attached to what was lost
• Grieving is uniquely individual - there's no "right way" or timeline
• The "pain button" analogy: grief doesn't shrink, but our lives grow bigger around it
• Relationships change during grief - some people withdraw while others try to help in ways that don't match what we need
• To heal: feel your grief, name what was lost, meet yourself with compassion, express your emotions
• Finding meaning and integrating loss means carrying what we've lost with grace
• Healing doesn't mean forgetting - it means allowing love to change form
Resources
Tear Soup: A Recipe for Healing After Loss by Pat Schwiebert
The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments by Hadley Vlahos R.N.
Welcome to Roots of Arise with me, sarah Hope. In this episode we're opening the door to grief, one of the most tender human experiences we all face. Grief comes in many forms, not just through death, but through change, loss and unmet hopes. It can harden us or hollow us out, but it can also open us. Today we'll explore how grief shapes the heart, challenges our relationships and, when met with compassion, can become a quiet teacher on the path to healing. When met with compassion, can become a quiet teacher on the path to healing.
Speaker 1:Grief sits on the heart like a stone. When it's present, even the smallest opening of the heart can feel impossible. When grief is denied, we grow numb, not only to pain but to our own aliveness. In that numbness we may act in ways we never imagined. We harden, we grow cold, rigid and distant. Sometimes we feel lifeless inside. Grief and sadness can block our ability to feel joy. Their weight can be so heavy that love feels completely out of reach. Sadness pulls us away from life. It saps the life force and can spiral us into depression. But when grief is acknowledged and expressed, the heart begins to lighten. In facing our grief, we begin to face ourselves. We reconnect with our emotions, with others with compassion.
Speaker 1:Grief is pretty much always based on loss or change. It comes from having invested so much of yourself into something, only to lose it, and there are so many different ways we can experience loss. We can have a death of a loved one this is like the most recognized cause, whether it's a family member, a friend or a pet. But often when we talk about grief, the first thing we think of is death. But it could also mean the loss of a relationship. Breakups, divorces, estrangement from someone important like a dear friend, can trigger deep grief. Also, major life transitions moving to a new place, changing jobs, retirement can cause a sense of loss and disorientation. We can also experience loss of health. A serious illness, a disability, a decline in mental or physical health can lead to grieving one's former self or abilities and, lastly, a loss of dream or identity. And lastly, a loss of dream or identity when hopes or goals or a sense of purpose are no longer attainable or relevant. That can lead to profound grief.
Speaker 1:One of the things that's really important for us to do is to reclaim the part of us that was attached to what was lost. Some examples the grown woman who lost her dad may have simultaneously lost her inner child. The nurturing husband who lost his wife may lose the part of himself that was tender and open. The teacher of 40 years who finally retires and loses her sense of purpose. The aging parent who no longer remembers where they live and has to make peace with needing a constant caregiver, losing their own autonomy. The athlete who was in a bad accident and loses mobility of their legs, who then also has to figure out who they are if they can't go for the gold anymore.
Speaker 1:Sometimes we even grieve our authenticity when we realize we are consistently acting in a way that is not aligned with our values or belief systems. So in order to work with grief, we need to understand a few things. First, grief shows up in a variety of emotions, and we all know grief is an emotional experience, but it can show up as sadness, anger, guilt, relief, numbness. Allowing space for these emotions without judgment is essential for processing loss, especially because it is an individual process. Grieving is unique to every person. There's no one quote, unquote, right way to do it or a timeline to grieve. Cultural background, personal history, the nature of the loss all shape how grief unfolds.
Speaker 1:When my mom's died, the therapist, my adopted mom and I had been working with like literally read me snippets from this book called Tear Soup, which I'm going to link below in the show notes, even though I was 25. And when she started doing it I thought I'm a little too old to be read to. But then I remember all of a sudden just feeling this welling up of grief just to hear it be so openly spoken about. And the book recognizes how differently we all respond, how differently we all make tear soup, and that individuality extends to how much quote unquote work it's going to take for us to get over a loss. That's dependent on a variety of factors how old we are, our life experiences, what else is going on at the time. You know, grieving the loss of a husband after one year of marriage is different from grieving after five years with a two-year-old kid you have to look after at the same time, which is different from grieving after 55 years of being together.
Speaker 1:The circumstances of the loss matter too. You know, an unexpected loss of job or health or a loved one is just different than the loss of a 99-year-old grandmother or being let go after the third round of layoffs. There's a little bit more warning there. It doesn't take us quite as off guard. You know, over time, grief involves integrating the loss into your life, and that doesn't mean getting over it. I'm not sure we should ever really put it that way, because you don't ever truly quote unquote get over certain kinds of losses, but what we do is find a new way to relate to them, perhaps by creating meaning, carrying forward a legacy, deepening compassion. But this can be tough, especially if the loss was unexpected, because we all have, you know, ideas about fairness and life order, like kids shouldn't die before parents and religious beliefs that impact our ability to integrate a loss. And goodness, grief really changes our relationships, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:When we're the one experiencing the loss, we need support. When grief is the wound, compassion is the healer, especially self-compassion. But we long for love and understanding from our people, from our support system, and they can't always give it. Some people shut down when they're faced with someone deep in grief. They don't know what to say, so they say nothing at all. Other people try to help, but the way they do that isn't always what we need. If the loss is a death, some people want, need to talk about the person who passed. Others can't bear to even hear their name.
Speaker 1:Seriously, the book Tear Soup is so good. It captures all of this beautifully and offers such heartfelt suggestions for understanding the many different ways grief expresses itself and ways to show up for yourself and for others. Another book I'd recommend is called the In Between. It's by a hospice nurse who went TikTok, famous for sharing some of her experiences during her patient's final moments and what she's learned from them. The book is beautiful. It really shows that end of life can offer tremendous insight into how to live, and she offers this great analogy about grief.
Speaker 1:So imagine there's a box that represents your life and at the bottom of it is a pain button. Whatever loss you've experienced is represented as a massive ball that basically takes up most of the box. Basically, no matter what happens, the ball of grief is so big that it is just constantly hitting the pain button. But over time the box gets bigger, your life gets bigger. The ball doesn't get smaller. The grief is still there. It's still just as big as it ever was, but your life gets bigger. You adapt. So the grief ball doesn't hit the pain button as often, but every time it does it feels just like the first time.
Speaker 1:So what do you do if you're experiencing any type of loss. I hate this one, but it's true. You have to feel it to heal it. Avoiding grief does not make it go away. It only deepens the wound. We have to name what was lost, whether it's a person, a dream, an identity or a future. We have to name it and honor its significance. Grief is the price we pay for love. Recognizing that is the first step towards healing, and we have to meet ourselves with compassion, allowing grief to unfold however it comes, because grief is not linear. It can be such a roller coaster. If I started listing all the losses I've experienced, we'd be here for a while, so I'm just going to share one example.
Speaker 1:All of my parents In case you didn't know, I'm adopted. I was lucky enough to reunite with my biological family when I turned 21. My birth parents had actually gotten married and I have a full-blood brother and a large, wonderful biological family. I simply call the Biologicals. In 2008, my adoptive mother passed away and 36 hours later my biological mother died too. Both were unexpected and expected in their own ways, but the timeline was something I never saw coming and I responded with complete numbness. I vividly remember thinking I wish I could feel this way all the time because I did not care about anything, not what I looked like, not how I came across, not what anyone thought of me. There was this strange sense of freedom in that I had zero energy for anything beyond surviving the day in front of me.
Speaker 1:About three weeks later, I was at a lake house with a friend of a friend getting drunk and suddenly it all hit me. Everything I had been numbing came crashing down like a ton of bricks, blessing and a curse of alcohol right. And it wasn't just the loss of my mom's. I was also going through a divorce. I was grieving the end of my marriage, the loss of his parents, who I loved dearly, and the future I thought I was building. I was grieving the possibility of reconciling with my adoptive mom.
Speaker 1:I had only gotten four years with my biological mom and they weren't easy. They were hard. I mean, we were figuring it out, but there was so much left unsaid and unasked and now there was no more time I did not handle it well. Honestly, I don't think I fully grieved until years later and even now I don't think I fully grieved until years later and even now it still takes my breath away. That pain button still gets pushed, maybe even more often now, because both of my dads have passed, also about three years and six months ago.
Speaker 1:I am truly an orphan If you've lost both of your parents. You know how disorienting it is and I am so sorry for your loss. I'm lucky to still have really wonderful, loving parental figures in my life my in-laws, an aunt, even my third grade teacher. But you can't replace your actual parents and even though my moms have been gone for 17 years, I still get taken out by grief. With no warning. Has that happened to you? You're fine for months and then grief just knocks you to your knees out of nowhere.
Speaker 1:When my dad died, my in-laws gave me a lilac bush to plant in his memory, because I had lilacs outside my childhood bedroom window and a little while ago you know it's spring the bush bloomed. So I went out to smell them because I love lilacs, and I took this one sniff and absolutely lost. It Just broke down. Gut-wrenching sobs. I mean, the scent just transported me. It made me miss my parents so much I could barely breathe.
Speaker 1:Maybe you've experienced that too A smell, a song, some random memory, something happens and you think, oh, I should call so-and-so, only to remember you can't, they're no longer there and suddenly you're overwhelmed by loss. It happens and we have to let it. We also need to voice it. You know, luckily not many of my friends have experienced a deep loss just yet, but for those who have, I try to always make sure they know. Text me if you have a memory you want to share, a story that comes to mind. It doesn't matter how random or out of the blue it is. Let me witness your grief with you, not fix it, because I can't, but I can be there with you while you go through it.
Speaker 1:Grief, it needs expression. So whether you do that with someone or just through journaling, crying by yourself, singing some sort of ritual, just make sure you let the grief out and you may need to give yourself space for this space for the grief. Maybe you know that every anniversary of your parents' death or of the divorce being finalized, or of the fire that burned your house down, you're going to need a minute. Create that for yourself so that you can take care of your emotions, but also your body. I mean. Grief lives in the body. Anybody who's gone through it knows it is exhausting. We need rest and nourishment to help us process, and we may need support. Maybe friends will do, but maybe not. You might need a support group to help you grieve the loss, a church group, a therapist Once again with feeling you are not meant to carry any hardship, loss or sadness alone and that support may be what's needed to help you find meaning and to really integrate.
Speaker 1:You know the point of grief work is to regain connection with yourself rather than increase our attachment to what was lost. You know we can ask questions like why was this person or job in particular so special to me? What did they or it bring to me that I now feel I'm missing? What part of me was particular bonded to this person activity, lifestyle and what does that part need? What have I lost touch with in myself as a result of this ending and how can I nurture and regain that part of myself? Once again, ask what now? What does this loss ask of me? In time, finding purpose or honoring the loss through action, like art or advocacy or ritual, can become a part of your integration.
Speaker 1:Obviously, we are barely scratching the surface of what it means to grieve, how to deal with grief, but if you're in the middle of it. Know this you are not broken and you are not alone. Your sorrow is a testament to your capacity to love. Whatever you're grieving, there is love beneath the loss, and that love never disappears. It simply changes form. Healing doesn't mean forgetting. It means learning to carry what we've lost with grace. Let that love weave itself into the ongoing story of your life.
Speaker 1:That's all for today. Thank you so much for listening. If something in today's episode resonated with you, I'd love to hear about it. Feel free to reach out by clicking the message me button if you're on Spotify, or you can always email rootsoftherise at gmailcom If you're enjoying the podcast. It would mean a lot if you'd subscribe, leave a rating review or share it with a friend. On Friday, I'll be talking about the facets of the heart. What do I even mean when I say that? Until next time, remember, know who you are, love who you've been and be willing to do the work to become who you want to be. Just a quick reminder this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice. That said, I hope it inspires you to grow, heal and seek the support you need to thrive.
