My Dad Was Sick, Not Bad: What Addiction Taught Me About Forgiveness

My Dad Was Sick, Not Bad: What Addiction Taught Me About Forgiveness

In 2019, I walked onto a stage in my hometown and shared my story publicly for the very first time. My mom was there. My dad was there. My Baba Leah was there. I could see them in the room while I delivered my keynote, and I will carry that image with me for the rest of my life. I am so grateful now that I spoke while he could still hear me. I had spent years keeping certain things quiet. And what I learnt about keeping skeletons in your closet: you forget that, amongst those bones, there is flesh and organs. Sometimes those skeletons are not secrets at all. They are real people, with real struggles, real pain, and real love. Not all secrets are meant to be kept. Understanding Addiction Changed How I Understood My Whole Life My father struggled with addiction, and he faced serious health challenges on top of it. For a long time, I did not have the words or the framework to make sense of what happened in our family. But the more I learned about addiction, the more clearly I understood why things unfolded the way they did. Knowledge did something I did not expect. It softened me. The more I knew, the more I understood, and the more I was able to actually help with his recovery instead of carrying resentment. The Lesson That Changed Everything: My Dad Was Sick, Not a Bad Person My dad was sick. He was not a bad person. That single shift in thinking changed my life. It moved me from anger to compassion, from distance to connection, from holding on to letting go. It gave me back something I thought addiction had taken for good. It gave me the ability to forgive and the freedom to love him fully while I still had him. When you stop seeing illness as a character flaw, everything changes. The person you were afraid to love becomes someone you can finally hold close. I am grateful every single day that I made that shift in time. Why Community Mattered in His Recovery My dad faced many physical health challenges. He was diagnosed with COPD, and he needed a lung transplant, but he wasn’t eligible due to lung cancer. That sentence was heavy to live, and it is even heavier to write now that he is gone. He was given 1.5 to 2 years to live. I want to say a huge thank you to Jewish Child and Family Service in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, for inviting me to share my story at their AGM, and for everything they did for my father and our family. JCFS was an enormous source of support during some of the hardest stretches of this journey. I lived on the other side of the country, far from my family, and that distance was one of the hardest parts of all of it. But knowing my dad had a community around him and a team behind him gave me peace of mind I could not fully put into words. When you cannot be there in person, knowing that someone else is showing up for the people you love is everything. February 18, 2022 My dad, Leonard Ian Kaplan, died on February 18, 2022. Grief is strange. It does not undo the forgiveness. If anything, it makes me more certain that forgiveness was the right and only path. I do not have to wonder whether he knew I loved him, because I told him, and I showed up for him, and I learned to see him clearly while he was still here. He was sick. He was never bad. And he was loved until the very end. To Everyone Who Listened To everyone who joined us for that AGM in 2019, who has followed my journey and to everyone reading this now, thank you for listening. Thank you for holding space for a story that took me years to be brave enough to tell. If you are carrying a family secret about addiction right now, I hope you hear this clearly: You are allowed to learn. You are allowed to understand. You are allowed to forgive. And you are allowed to keep loving someone who is sick, for as long as you have them, and long after they are gone. Some skeletons have a heartbeat. Mine did. He is my dad, and I love him. Frequently Asked Questions Is addiction a disease or a choice? Addiction is widely understood by medical and mental health professionals as a chronic illness, not a moral failing or a simple choice. Reframing my father as sick rather than bad was the shift that allowed me to forgive him and love him fully while he was still alive. How can families support a loved one in recovery from a distance? Learning about addiction, staying connected, and leaning on community organizations are some of the most powerful things you can do. For my family, having a local support team meant my dad was never alone, even when I could not be there in person. How do you find peace after losing a loved one to addiction and illness? For me, peace came from the work I did before he passed: learning, forgiving, and choosing love over resentment. Grief did not erase that work. It confirmed it. Saying what needed to be said while he could still hear me is the reason I can grieve without regret. What support does Jewish Child and Family Service offer? JCFS in Winnipeg provides support to individuals and families facing a range of challenges, including health crises and the impact of addiction. Their care for my father and our family was an essential part of our story. If this story resonated with you, share it with someone who needs to hear that their loved one is sick, not bad, and that it is never too late to choose love. Subscribe for more honest writing about addiction, family, forgiveness, grief, and resilience. XX Blair P.S. I am booking keynotes and workshops for fall and winter, into 2027. Interested in having me speak at your event or to your organization? Let’s talk: blair@blairkaplan.ca. Where’s Blair? * August 3, Birmingham, Alabama Alana and I have been invited to be the keynote speakers at Integrating the Pieces: A Workshop on Resilience, Loss and Grief for the University of Montevallo. * August 23-29, Porto, Portugal I will be co-facilitating the Portugal Grief Trip alongside Rachel from Happy Grieving. There is still room for you. Learn more and book your spot! [https://grieftrips.com/portugal] * September 8-10, Champneys Tring, UK Often dubbed the "Glastonbury for business," this two-day outdoor networking event is for founders and entrepreneurs. It features keynotes, startup finals, and wellness programming, running 9–10 September 2026 at Champneys, Tring, Hertfordshire. Enter to win a free ticket and join me! [https://ideasfest.uk/speaking/blair-830cb7] * October 2-4, La Le Jeune, BC Join me, Kayla and Simone this May at the Regulated Retreat [https://lljresort.com/regulated/]. I’m stoked to be speaking at Regulated - Autumn Exhale, a three-day nervous system reset retreat for people who are done surviving and ready to feel steady again, because most of us don’t need more motivation; we need regulation. And that’s what makes this experience different. This retreat blends nervous system science, movement, nature, and honest conversation to help your body downshift and reset. I’m honoured to create and be a part of this experience and would love to share it with you! * January 3-9, 2027, Marrakech, Morocco Join me and Happy Grieving for the Morocco Grief Retreat to kick off 2027. Grief can make the world feel small. Morocco does the opposite: it fills the senses without demanding anything from you. The souks, the spices, the calls to prayer, life continuing everywhere, in colour. And then there’s the stillness to balance it: a traditional hammam to let your body release what it’s been holding, pottery in the medina, a full day in the Agafay Desert where the horizon gives your thoughts somewhere to go. Daily grief workshops thread it together, always optional, always held by facilitators who have walked the path of loss themselves. Learn more and book your spot. [https://grieftrips.com/destinations/morocco/] https://grieftrips.com/destinations/morocco/ How We Navigate Grief is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Thanks for reading How We Navigate Grief! This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit howwenavigategrief.substack.com/subscribe [https://howwenavigategrief.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Coming Home to Winnipeg: Why I’m Moving Back After 19 Years in BC

Nineteen years ago, I packed up my Alero and left Winnipeg, sure that home was somewhere out west. And for eighteen years, British Columbia gave me mountains, ocean, lakes, a life I’m endlessly grateful for. But somewhere along the way I started to notice that the word “home” kept drifting east, back across the prairies, back to the place I thought I’d outgrown. Turns out you don’t outgrow Winnipeg. It just waits for you. What Winnipeg Holds Onto It waited in the way the sky opens up so wide you can watch a storm roll in from an hour away. In the people who say hello to strangers and actually mean it. In winters that ask everything of you and somehow make you tougher and softer at the same time. It’s the smell of River Heights after the rain, the long summer evenings, the way this city loves you back without ever needing to say it out loud. I would have moved home after my mom died, over five years ago, but my marriage kept me living in B.C. Now that I am no longer married, I am ready for a homecoming. Coming Home to a New Chapter So, I’m coming home. Not the home I left, but a new one, with new chapters waiting to be written and built on the same ground that made me who I am. To everyone who’s still here, who never left, who kept the porch light on: I can’t wait to be your neighbour again. To the friends I made out west who became family: you didn’t lose me, you just gained a place to visit. Winnipeg, I’m coming back to you. Thank you for waiting. Saying Goodbye to BC: Where to Find Me Before I Go If you’re one of my BC friends, here’s where I’ll be before the big drive east. Let’s grab coffee, have a dance, or meet me for a farewell hug. * Kamloops: June 23 to 26, and July 4 to 9 * Basscoast: July 9 to 12 * Driving from Kamloops to Winnipeg: July 12 I’ll be back in BC for Regulated - Autumn Exhale [https://lljresort.com/regulated/] at Lac Le Jeune Resort on October 2, and maybe a few more times before then. XX Blair P.S. I am booking keynotes and workshops for fall and winter, into 2027. Interested in having me speak at your event or to your organization? Let’s talk: blair@blairkaplan.ca. Where’s Blair? * June 23-24, Unleash AI for Business Summit Learn the RIGHT Way to Use AI — And Get More Done in 1 Week Than Most People Will All Year For anyone ready to create more content, faster, without the burnout — whether you’re building a business, scaling a side gig, or looking to work smarter. SIGN UP HERE. [https://www.unleashaiforbusiness.com/link.php?id=864&h=9439bd982a] * June 24, online, Beyond Grief: a Roundtable on Living Fully After Loss What happens when grief isn’t as heavy as it once was? This candid, multi-voice conversation explores what it means to live fully after loss. While much of the grief space centers on surviving, this roundtable makes space for what comes after the initial sorrow that follows loss and life-altering change, when life begins to expand again, often in unexpected ways. Together, grief and resilience leaders, podcasters, and grief-informed creators explore meaning-making, post-traumatic growth, and the nuanced reality of carrying grief while also reclaiming joy, purpose, and possibility. This is the conversation for everyone who needed to know grief shifts, that joy and aliveness are possible, and for everyone who’s arrived at lighter and isn’t sure what to do with that. REGISTER HERE. [https://letsreimagine.org/76768/beyond-grief-a-roundtable-on-living-fully-after-loss] * June 25, Kamloops, BC I will be in Kamloops. BC, MCing a golf tournament for a private client. * June 28-July 2, Sawtooth Survival Skills Gathering, Sawtooth Mountains, Idaho, with Hazen Audel At the Sawtooth Survival Skills Gathering [https://www.hazenaudel.com/primitive-skills-gathering-2026], we believe that there’s nothing quite like the bond formed around a campfire, learning to craft a shelter with your own hands, or trading knowledge with those who share your love for the outdoors. Our gathering brings together individuals of all skill levels who seek to deepen their understanding of traditional skills, self-sufficiency, and natural living. Over the course of several days, participants will immerse themselves in hands-on workshops, demonstrations, and meaningful discussions led by experienced instructors. All the while enjoying the beautiful Sawtooth Mountains, Payette River, and natural hot springs. Whether you’re here to hone your bushcraft skills, practice primitive fire-starting techniques, or simply take a step back from the hustle and bustle of modern life, you’ll find a welcoming community and a place to reconnect with the wild. * August 3, Birmingham, Alabama Alana and I have been invited to be the keynote speakers at Integrating the Pieces: A Workshop on Resilience, Loss and Grief for the University of Montevallo. * August 23-29, Porto, Portugal I will be co-facilitating the Portugal Grief Trip alongside Rachel from Happy Grieving. There is still room for you. Learn more and book your spot! [https://grieftrips.com/portugal] October 2-4, La Le Jeune, BC Join me, Kayla and Simone this May at the Regulated Retreat [https://lljresort.com/regulated/]. I’m stoked to be speaking at Regulated - Autumn Exhale, a three-day nervous system reset retreat for people who are done surviving and ready to feel steady again, because most of us don’t need more motivation; we need regulation. And that’s what makes this experience different. This retreat blends nervous system science, movement, nature, and honest conversation to help your body downshift and reset. I’m honoured to create and be a part of this experience and would love to share it with you! How We Navigate Grief is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Thanks for reading How We Navigate Grief! This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit howwenavigategrief.substack.com/subscribe [https://howwenavigategrief.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Grievorcée: A New Word for Grieving Someone Who Is Still Alive

I am not a widow. My wasband is still alive yet, I feel the version of him I once loved is not. He breathes. His heart still beats. And yet I grieve him in a similar way that I’ve grieved the dead, in the good outfit, eating shiva loaf, being still, in the dark, in the small hours when the house is quiet, and my thoughts are loud. A stroke took him. Not all of him. Just the part I married. So if I am not a widow, what am I? I went looking for the word and found a hole where it should have been. So I poured something new into the shape of that absence and let it set. The word is grievorcée, and once you have it, you will wonder how you ever went without. What Is a Widow? Let us begin where the language is sturdy. A widow is a woman whose spouse has died and who has not remarried. The word is ancient, Old English widewe, with cousins in nearly every tongue, because grief of this kind is older than grammar. To be a widow is to be a survivor of a marriage ended by death. The vow was kept. Til death do us part, and death did. The widow has a great deal, and I do not say this lightly. She has casseroles and condolence cards. She has a date on a calendar. She has a body to bury and a name to put on a stone and a room full of people who all agree, out loud, that something has been lost. She has permission to mourn. That permission is the thing. That is the inheritance I was denied. What Is a Grievorcée? grievorcée /ˌɡriː·vɔːrˈsiː/ verb. To grieve a person who is still alive; to mourn the loss of someone not through their death but through estrangement, distance, illness, or profound change, while they yet draw breath. “After the dementia took the last of her mother’s memories, she found herself grievorcéeing the woman who still sat across the table.” noun, grievorcée: the living person who is so grieved. “She had become a grievorcée to her husband after their marriage ended.” Etymology: a blend of grieve and divorce, with the -ée suffix marking the one acted upon (compare divorcée), capturing the severing of a bond from someone who remains present in body but lost to the relationship. Read it again. Feel how it lands. A divorce ends a marriage by choice. A death ends it by force. The marriage does not fully end, at the beginning (or, ever?). It simply empties. He is still here. He is my wasband, the man who was, the man whose face I know better than my own, and whose mind has gone somewhere I am not allowed to follow. I am the grievorcée. Grieving a Living Spouse: The Loss Nobody Names There is a clinical term for the territory, and I will give it to you because precision is a kindness. The psychologist Pauline Boss called it ambiguous loss, the grief that comes when someone is physically present but psychologically gone, or psychologically present but physically gone. It is a loss without proof. Loss without the courtesy of a corpse. Ambiguous loss is the wife whose husband has dementia. The daughter of the addict who left and became no longer recognizable. The son of the man who survived the accident and never quite returned to the room. It is grief that cannot complete itself, because the thing you are grieving keeps walking through the kitchen asking where the remote is. My friend, Stephanie Sarazin, wrote a brilliant book about this type of loss called Soulbroken: A Guidebook for Your Journey Through Ambiguous Grief [https://stephaniesarazin.com/home/ambiguous-grief-book/], which expands on Pauline Boss’s seminal work on ambiguous loss. With touching personal stories of loss onset by divorce, addiction, betrayal, trauma, incarceration, Alzheimer’s, estrangement, and more, Soulbroken explores the complications and deviations from traditional grief when mourning a loss, but not physical death, and offers practical solutions for healing. The clinicians, like Boss, had the concept. What they lacked, what we all lacked, was a word you could wear. Ambiguous loss is accurate, and it is also a phrase you cannot say at a dinner party without explaining yourself for ten minutes. Grievorcée, you can say in two syllables and a sigh. It does the explaining for you. Why I Needed a New Word Because the old ones lied. When people asked after him, I had no honest reply. The forms have a box for married, a box for widowed, a box for divorced, and not one box for technically married to a man I miss with my whole body while he sits twelve feet away. Grief without a name is grief without a home. It wanders. It shows up in the wrong places, at the wrong volume, and everyone around you decides, quietly, that you are simply difficult now. That you have not “moved on.” Moved on from what, exactly? Nobody died. Try explaining that you are in mourning for a living man and watch how fast the room finds something else to look at. So I named it. I put on the metaphorical fur, I dripped myself in the cold fire of the right vocabulary, and I walked back into my own life with a word that finally matched the size of the thing. I am a grievorcée. My wasband is my grievorcée, present and gone, here and lost, mine and not. It is not a happy word. But it is true, and after long enough in the company of lies, truth is the most glamorous thing a woman can put on. If you are a fresh grievorcée or a seasoned one, you are not difficult, and you have not failed to move on. You are grieving a loss that the world forgot to give a name to. Now it has one. Wear it well. XX Blair P.S. If you have any advice for me, who is one month in, please comment below or send me a message. Where’s Blair? * June 23-24, Unleash AI for Business Summit Learn the RIGHT Way to Use AI — And Get More Done in 1 Week Than Most People Will All Year For anyone ready to create more content, faster, without the burnout — whether you’re building a business, scaling a side gig, or looking to work smarter. SIGN UP HERE. [https://www.unleashaiforbusiness.com/link.php?id=864&h=9439bd982a] * June 24, online, Beyond Grief: a Roundtable on Living Fully After Loss What happens when grief isn’t as heavy as it once was? This candid, multi-voice conversation explores what it means to live fully after loss. While much of the grief space centers on surviving, this roundtable makes space for what comes after the initial sorrow that follows loss and life-altering change, when life begins to expand again, often in unexpected ways. Together, grief and resilience leaders, podcasters, and grief-informed creators explore meaning-making, post-traumatic growth, and the nuanced reality of carrying grief while also reclaiming joy, purpose, and possibility. This is the conversation for everyone who needed to know grief shifts, that joy and aliveness are possible, and for everyone who’s arrived at lighter and isn’t sure what to do with that. REGISTER HERE. [https://letsreimagine.org/76768/beyond-grief-a-roundtable-on-living-fully-after-loss] * June 25, Kamloops, BC I will be in Kamloops. BC, MCing a golf tournament for a private client. * June 28-July 2, Sawtooth Survival Skills Gathering, Sawtooth Mountains, Idaho, with Hazen Audel At the Sawtooth Survival Skills Gathering [https://www.hazenaudel.com/primitive-skills-gathering-2026], we believe that there’s nothing quite like the bond formed around a campfire, learning to craft a shelter with your own hands, or trading knowledge with those who share your love for the outdoors. Our gathering brings together individuals of all skill levels who seek to deepen their understanding of traditional skills, self-sufficiency, and natural living. Over the course of several days, participants will immerse themselves in hands-on workshops, demonstrations, and meaningful discussions led by experienced instructors. All the while enjoying the beautiful Sawtooth Mountains, Payette River, and natural hot springs. Whether you’re here to hone your bushcraft skills, practice primitive fire-starting techniques, or simply take a step back from the hustle and bustle of modern life, you’ll find a welcoming community and a place to reconnect with the wild. * August 3, Birmingham, Alabama Alana and I have been invited to be the keynote speakers at Integrating the Pieces: A Workshop on Resilience, Loss and Grief for the University of Montevallo. * August 23-29, Porto, Portugal I will be co-facilitating the Portugal Grief Trip alongside Rachel from Happy Grieving. There is still room for you. Learn more and book your spot! [https://grieftrips.com/portugal] October 2-4, La Le Jeune, BC Join me, Kayla and Simone this May at the Regulated Retreat [https://lljresort.com/regulated/]. I’m stoked to be speaking at Regulated - Autumn Exhale, a three-day nervous system reset retreat for people who are done surviving and ready to feel steady again, because most of us don’t need more motivation; we need regulation. And that’s what makes this experience different. This retreat blends nervous system science, movement, nature, and honest conversation to help your body downshift and reset. I’m honoured to create and be a part of this experience and would love to share it with you! How We Navigate Grief is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Thanks for reading How We Navigate Grief! This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit howwenavigategrief.substack.com/subscribe [https://howwenavigategrief.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

A Year After I Opened for Sir Richard Branson, and the Resilience Lessons That Stayed

A year ago today, the mountains held me. I remember the thin, bright air of Deer Valley, Utah, and the way an unexpected invitation can rearrange a life. My travel season was winding down, or so I thought, when Shauna’s message landed in my inbox. Come to the mountains. Take the stage with Sir Richard Branson. When the universe hands you a door like that, you don’t knock politely. You walk through it. Loudly. With sparkles. The night I spoke to a room full of change-makers That evening, I stood before a room of dreamers and builders and delivered my signature keynote, “The Five Secrets to Strengthening Your Resilience Muscle.” I spoke about bouncing forward through grief and trauma, not back, never back, and about the heartbeat behind The Global Resilience Project: the radical idea that our hardest stories, told out loud, become medicine for someone else. The energy in that room was electric. I could feel it move through the rows like the weather. And when it was over, the feedback wrapped around me like a warm coat on a cold summer night. Thirty seconds with Richard Branson The next morning came soft and unhurried. An intimate breakfast, a small circle of us, no fanfare and no fluff. Just stories and hard-won wisdom from a man who built an empire out of big ideas and bold action. I had thirty seconds with him. Just enough for an awkward hug, a quick photo, and to press a copy of Resilient A.F.: Stories of Resilience Vol. 2 [https://blairkaplan.ca/books/] into his hands. Here is what Richard Branson said that morning, words I’ve turned over like river stones in the year since: * “If you don’t come up with an idea to make someone’s life better, you don’t have a business.” * “Kindness is so important.” * “You have to believe in what you’re doing.” * “If you make people smile, people will appreciate that.” Sometimes the biggest breakthroughs aren’t new at all. They’re reminders of what you already know and already practice, handed back to you by someone whose voice makes you finally listen. That was exactly what I needed that week. What I carried back down the mountain A year later, I’m still unpacking those thirty seconds. I don’t know if Richard Branson ever opened the book. But I know he held it. I know the stories inside it are still making waves across the world, in inboxes and book clubs and quiet bedside-table moments where someone realizes they are not alone in what they’ve survived. The four truths he offered in that Utah dining room turned out to be a compass. Make a life better. Be kind. Believe. Make people smile. I’ve returned to them again and again this year, every time I’ve taken a stage, written a page, or sat across from someone who didn’t think they’d make it through. The mountains gave me a moment. What I’ve done with the year is the real keynote. The takeaway, one year on If Richard Branson believes in making people smile, then I think we’re on the right track. Resilience was never about hardening into something that can’t be broken. It’s about staying soft enough to be moved, and strong enough to keep walking forward anyway. A year ago, the mountains held me. This year, I’m learning to be the steady ground for someone else. XX Blair P.S. I am booking keynotes and workshops for fall and winter, into 2027. Interested in having me speak at your event or to your organization? Let’s talk: blair@blairkaplan.ca. Where’s Blair? * June 23-24, Unleash AI for Business Summit Learn the RIGHT Way to Use AI — And Get More Done in 1 Week Than Most People Will All Year For anyone ready to create more content, faster, without the burnout — whether you’re building a business, scaling a side gig, or looking to work smarter. SIGN UP HERE. [https://www.unleashaiforbusiness.com/link.php?id=864&h=9439bd982a] * June 24, online, Beyond Grief: a Roundtable on Living Fully After Loss What happens when grief isn’t as heavy as it once was? This candid, multi-voice conversation explores what it means to live fully after loss. While much of the grief space centers on surviving, this roundtable makes space for what comes after the initial sorrow that follows loss and life-altering change, when life begins to expand again, often in unexpected ways. Together, grief and resilience leaders, podcasters, and grief-informed creators explore meaning-making, post-traumatic growth, and the nuanced reality of carrying grief while also reclaiming joy, purpose, and possibility. This is the conversation for everyone who needed to know grief shifts, that joy and aliveness are possible, and for everyone who’s arrived at lighter and isn’t sure what to do with that. REGISTER HERE. [https://letsreimagine.org/76768/beyond-grief-a-roundtable-on-living-fully-after-loss] * June 25, Kamloops, BC I will be in Kamloops. BC, MCing a golf tournament for a private client. * June 28-July 2, Sawtooth Survival Skills Gathering, Sawtooth Mountains, Idaho, with Hazen Audel At the Sawtooth Survival Skills Gathering [https://www.hazenaudel.com/primitive-skills-gathering-2026], we believe that there’s nothing quite like the bond formed around a campfire, learning to craft a shelter with your own hands, or trading knowledge with those who share your love for the outdoors. Our gathering brings together individuals of all skill levels who seek to deepen their understanding of traditional skills, self-sufficiency, and natural living. Over the course of several days, participants will immerse themselves in hands-on workshops, demonstrations, and meaningful discussions led by experienced instructors. All the while enjoying the beautiful Sawtooth Mountains, Payette River, and natural hot springs. Whether you’re here to hone your bushcraft skills, practice primitive fire-starting techniques, or simply take a step back from the hustle and bustle of modern life, you’ll find a welcoming community and a place to reconnect with the wild. * August 3, Birmingham, Alabama Alana and I have been invited to be the keynote speakers at Integrating the Pieces: A Workshop on Resilience, Loss and Grief for the University of Montevallo. * August 23-29, Porto, Portugal I will be co-facilitating the Portugal Grief Trip alongside Rachel from Happy Grieving. There is still room for you. Learn more and book your spot! [https://grieftrips.com/portugal] October 2-4, La Le Jeune, BC Join me, Kayla and Simone this May at the Regulated Retreat [https://lljresort.com/regulated/]. I’m stoked to be speaking at Regulated - Autumn Exhale, a three-day nervous system reset retreat for people who are done surviving and ready to feel steady again, because most of us don’t need more motivation; we need regulation. And that’s what makes this experience different. This retreat blends nervous system science, movement, nature, and honest conversation to help your body downshift and reset. I’m honoured to create and be a part of this experience and would love to share it with you! How We Navigate Grief is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Thanks for reading How We Navigate Grief! This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit howwenavigategrief.substack.com/subscribe [https://howwenavigategrief.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

MAYhem: The Highest Highs, the Lowest Low, and the Mother’s Day That Ended My Marriage

Well, May. You had some high highs and very low lows. As I write this, I’m on my sister’s couch in Winnipeg, Manitoba. If I’m being honest, this is the post I almost didn’t write. It’s easier to show you the highlight reel. The stages, the microphones, the new friends, the good hair days. It’s harder to tell you that in the same thirty-one days, I had some of the proudest moments of my career and the single most devastating day of my personal life. May was mayhem. So here’s the whole story, the parts that made me glow and the parts that brought me to my knees. The short version: In one month, I hosted a retreat, spoke at events, recorded podcasts, co-MCed my Rotary club’s signature gala, and connected with brilliant people at one of the biggest tech conferences in North America. My marriage also ended on Mother’s Day. The Highs It started with Regulated The month opened with the work I’m proudest of in this world: Regulated, a retreat I got to host right in my own backyard. Twenty-one people. Eleven communities. One retreat. They came from Cloverdale, Burnaby, Prince George, Sooke, Vancouver, Terrace, Williams Lake, Lake Country, Surrey, Sun Peaks, and Kamloops. They drove. They flew. They showed up tired, brave, and ready for something to be different. Over one “weekend,” I watched people put down the weight they had been carrying for years. I watched walls come down quietly, without anyone having to say a word. I watched strangers become the kind of people who just get it. It was so special to plan a retreat in my backyard, to drive thirty minutes instead of flying thirty hours. Workshops, movement, nature, writing, colouring, a bonfire by the lake, stories, laughs, tears, free time, and lifelong friendships made. We did not fix anything that weekend. We did not have to. We just remembered what it feels like to be steady. To breathe. To exist in a body that is not in survival mode. That is the work, and it is the most important work I know how to do. To every single person who said yes to themselves that weekend: I will carry this with me. You changed the room just by walking into it. And, who would have thought that I needed this retreat just as much as each person there? Thank you to Lac Le Jeune Resort [https://www.instagram.com/laclejeuneresort/] for hosting us, to our incredible speakers Simone Lovell [https://www.instagram.com/simonenlovell/] and Stacey Owen [https://www.instagram.com/heystaceyowen/], and to everyone who trusted us with their hearts. Extra love to our sponsors who believe in what we are building: Castanet Kamloops [https://www.instagram.com/castanetkamloopsdigital/] and Tourism Kamloops [https://www.instagram.com/tourismkamloops/]. It was such an honour that we decided to do it again. Regulated returns October 2 to 4, so save the date. [https://lljresort.com/regulated/] If something in you just stirred reading this, pay attention to that, and come join us this fall. Web Summit Vancouver: AI, authenticity, and the right connections Then came Vancouver. I joined Web Summit Vancouver (May 11 to 14 at the Vancouver Convention Centre) alongside my friend Lou, and it was everything I hoped a conference like that would be. The conversation I kept coming back to was the tension between AI and authenticity. As the technology gets more capable, the human signal becomes more valuable, not less. The people who win in this next era won’t be the ones who automate their voice away. They’ll be the ones who get clearer about who they actually are and why anyone should listen. But the real win at Web Summit wasn’t a session. It was the people. The hallway conversations, the people we met networking, the “wait, you do that? I do that too” moments. I left Vancouver with a fuller phone, a fuller heart, and a few collaborations I’m genuinely excited about. I recorded some epic podcast interviews I also sat down for a run of podcast interviews this month, and I mean it when I say they were some of my favourite conversations to date. There’s something clarifying about being asked good questions. You hear yourself answer and realize what you actually believe. A few times this month, I surprised myself. Speaking locally, and remembering why I do this I spoke at events close to home, too. The big international stages get a lot of my attention, but the local rooms get my heart. These are the people in my own backyard, the ones I’ll see at the coffee shop next week. Showing up for them is its own kind of reward. Co-MCing A Bollywood Affair And then there was the night I got to co-MC A Bollywood Affair, my Rotary club’s signature event. Colours, music, a room full of people who give their time and money to make our community better, and me on the mic, helping hold it all together. Service has been my anchor for a long time. This month, more than I knew at the time, I was going to need that anchor. The Low On Mother’s Day, of all days And then there’s the part I choose to keep sharing, because leaving it out would make everything above a lie of omission. On Mother’s Day, of all the days on the calendar, my marriage ended. The Wasband (yes, that’s what I call him now) made it final. So, I packed up most of my life and put it in storage. I don’t have a tidy paragraph for this. There isn’t one. You spend years building a life, and then it fits into boxes, and the boxes go into a unit with a roll-up door and a padlock, and you stand in a quieter house, wondering how we got here? Mother’s Day will never be a neutral square on the calendar for me again. It was already hard because my mom and baby are both dead. Now, the day is even darker. I will be okay, and I can already feel myself healing. I’m making my peace with it slowly, the way you make peace with anything that rearranges you. What May taught me Here’s what I keep landing on, and it’s the reason I’m publishing this instead of deleting it. Two things can be true at once. You can be thriving professionally and grieving privately. You can stand in front of a crowd and feel whole, then drive home to an emptier house and feel like the floor is gone. Neither one cancels the other out. They just live side by side, the way real lives actually do. The highlight reel was real. So was the storage unit. And I think the bravest thing any of us can do is refuse to pretend otherwise. There’s a strange poetry in it, too. I spent the month teaching other people how to put down the weight, how to come out of survival mode and back into their bodies. And then life handed me my own version of that lesson. I’m doing the work I tell everyone else to do. Turns out it’s just as hard from the inside. May tried to take me out. It didn’t. I’m still here, a little more cracked open, a lot more honest, and strangely more myself than I’ve been in a long time. So here’s to June. I have no idea what you’re going to be. But after May? I’m ready for you. XX Blair P.S. I am in Winnipeg until June 23 and am open for speaking, workshops, coffee dates and anything else that is rad. Please connect. How We Navigate Grief is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Thanks for reading How We Navigate Grief! This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit howwenavigategrief.substack.com/subscribe [https://howwenavigategrief.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]