This is not a piece I wanted to write.
This is not a piece I wanted to write.
And I feel it's important to write.
After 3 years of infertility, in October we were gifted with our miracle bub due in July. Telling our 5 year old. Celebrating with family at Christmas. Sharing the joy with people who had held their breath with us month after month was, and is, a gift. And as quickly and surprisingly as it came in, it went away.
Come early January things took a turn, and I consciously chose to traverse the experience of loss while we were camping, labouring overnight under the stars. And eventually birthing at home.
While devastating and painful, there was tremendous power in what my body and mind did. We were also able to find wonder and awe amongst it all.
Today's I thought of you, is to honour those who find themselves trying to traverse grief while running a business.
What purpose and grief have in common
I was an athlete who was entirely purpose and performance driven, largely focused on an end goal, at any cost;
Ironman under 12 hours
100m Freestyle under 1:30
PB 10km run
Etc.
As if they were these finite events. As if when I reached those milestones or finish lines my purpose was complete.
Young Katee had a lot to learn.
When you're purpose driven, there is no finish line. It's a way of being.
I naively held thoughts and beliefs around the idea that when I was strong enough to do [X], or fast enough to beat [X], or resilient enough to finish [X] -
THEN I would be; Happy. Content. Better. Confident. Worthy.
Because of the shifts I'd made through these explorations of purpose and performance in my earlier years, I approach the uncontrollable differently now. A prior version of myself would have had thoughts such as "when I finish this piece of work, then I can grieve."
Grief as a deadline. Something to schedule and conquer.
I see now that grief and purpose are shaped the same way. Neither is something you finish. Both are something you live.
I don't want to move on from this experience. I don't want to box it up in a corner. I want to take it with me. I've lived the repercussions of boxing up grief and I knew that this experience would be different. It wasn't an overt or conscious decision. It was something that happened innately as a result of the mindset, patterns and beliefs I'd shifted previously.
Kindness, then vulnerability, then borrowed belief
In the beginning I was not receptive to hearing "you'll make it through this", "everything will be okay" and similar platitudes. And hearing "it happens to 1 in 4" honestly made me rage.
It needs to be clarified: it's not 1 in 4 women, it's 1 in 4 pregnancies — which tells a very different story. In our case, it was a 2% chance of happening, not 25%. And when I did share my experience with my clients, the resonance was closer to 75%, including the dads too, as their grief can often get missed.
And these interactions are another reason I’m writing this outside of my personal world, because these experiences touch those around us.
Commonality does not dissolve the sense of being alone.
For me, connecting to commonality with those around me provided understanding — that a path ahead does exist — even if I couldn't see what mine looked like yet. And sitting in that unknown became just a little safer.
Kindness allows for what is. Belief encourages you to make moves.
I reached out to a community of women I barely knew. Solopreneurs, business owners, people navigating similar professional lives. I asked how they had moved through loss while running a business. How they had managed the impossible calculation of grief and clients and showing up.
My purpose driven brain was looking for belief. But what I got was kindness. Deep true kindness, from strangers. Far more powerful than belief. Because I could be where I was. I could feel what I was feeling and not try to move on, move forward or "heal" on some arbitrary timeline.
And then came the harder thing. Being open with my clients about what was happening. That was one of the most significant things I wanted to do. I knew that vulnerability meant I needed to also sit in receivership, of support and kindness.
Vulnerability without the receivership would have lessened the potency.
I chose to pause recruitments that were in progress. I chose to halt client projects. I chose to reschedule client mentoring sessions. I chose to refund people who had signed up for a new program.
Was it inconvenient for them? You betcha. Did they support me anyway? Absolutely.
I did however choose to continue my group mentoring program sessions — this decision came from an aligned place. There was no overthinking, doubt or guilt. It kept me tethered to some purpose outside of my internal healing. Connected to a community. Connected to my purpose and intelligence (which can certainly go walk about when you're in grief).
Spaciousness
With the space I created for myself, some days I was simply a ball of numbness in bed all day. And surprisingly, other days I had words flow out of me that are shaping up my future book. Or I'd create (and launch) a wonderful course/program that I'd been chipping away at for 6 months.
While goals, self expectation and healthy pressure can create momentum and can be a useful tool, the opposite is also true. But very rarely do we have the opportunity to experience this as business owners, creatives, and high performance humans.
I didn't strive for that output. I just got out of the way of it.
This is not a piece I wanted to write. But it felt important to pay it forward.
If you're in it - the impossible calculation of grief + business/work, I hope something here made it feel less like something to solve, and more like something to sit with.
Some deeper personal life explorations will be shared over on Instagram in the coming weeks if you’d like to connect there too.
Heartfelt thank yous
Evie Wright, my business manager who sat in uncertainty with grace and love. I do not know what I would have done without you at this time. Thank you.
My clients who waited patiently while I took time off and shared their own experiences with me so openly. For the future clients who are patiently waiting for my availability to open back up.
For the business owners and community that rallied around me, sharing their experiences and wisdom from the other side. This is me paying it forward.
For those that said:
How is your heart today?
About time you stopped being so put together I reckon.
Tell me where your head is at and we can hang out there together for a bit.
I would be so happy to listen to your whole story if you ever feel like telling it.
What was her name?
You don't have to hold it together with me
Hey, just thinking of you and thought I'd let you know. Xo
For those that:
Offered complimentary mentoring or financial services
Checked in and noticed my absence online
Sent me a photo of a horse they remembered I loved after a brief interaction
Reflected back what they saw in me — courage, healthy boundaries, strength, resilience, creativity, and love.
xx
I’m sharing my experience because despite having many friends and family members face such this shitty, horrible experience, there was so much I didn't know. And I suspect you might not either;
It could take days or weeks to begin.
It could feel like labour (and certainly did for me), and have the duration of labour too.
Hospital is not a given, in many circumstances it's safe to do at home.
The hormone cascade mimics labour, the oxytocin was incredibly potent and powerful, grief couldn't touch me (at the time).
There can be beauty amongst the devastation.
I’ve collated some of the more helpful resources from during this time here, which might support you, a friend, a team member, family member or collegue.
Katee Gray
Mentor, Equine Facilitator and Coach.
katee@kateegray.com
Supporting coaches, facilitators, speakers, and practitioners, to make business moves they can trust.
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