Holding Grief and Joy at the Same Time

In this deeply personal episode, Dr. Christine reflects on one of the most transformative experiences of her life: losing her mother at 37 weeks pregnant while simultaneously preparing to become a mother herself.

What began as a conversation about motherhood became a reflection on something much larger, the human capacity to hold seemingly opposite experiences at the same time, grief and joy. Love and loss. Expansion and heartbreak.

Through stories from her own journey, lessons from Chinese medicine, and reflections on nervous system health, Dr. Christine explores why emotional complexity isn’t something to fix, avoid, or simplify. Instead, it may be one of the greatest gifts of being human.

This episode is an invitation to rethink what it means to be resilient, to question the idea that regulation means always feeling calm, and to consider the possibility that some of life’s most difficult moments are also the ones that expand our capacity for love, depth, and presence.

⸻

In This Episode:

• The experience of losing a mother while becoming a mother
• Why life rarely asks us to feel one thing at a time
• The surprising gift of discovering our capacity to hold opposing experiences
• Grief, pregnancy, and the fear of “doing it wrong” emotionally
• A powerful conversation with a midwife that changed everything
• Why witnessing human emotion can be healthy and healing for children
• The difference between suppressing emotions and allowing them to move through us
• How grief helped shape Dr. Christine’s perspective on life and motherhood
• A Chinese medicine perspective on emotions and health
• Why nervous system regulation is about capacity, not constant calm
• The role of challenge, loss, and uncertainty in personal growth
• What “plot twists” can teach us about resilience and adaptability
• The importance of making space for life’s complexity and nuance
• Why humans are built for more emotional depth than we often realize
• The concept that “the intensity of life is a gift”
• How difficult seasons can expand our ability to love, connect, and be present

PODCAST INFO:
Podcast website: https://thedaoofhumaning.buzzsprout.com

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1869811351

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/79Llx5Um3cDSJqXG0JIsVL

RSS: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/2574021.rss

Support & Connect
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drchristine.sanmiquel/

Produced by: Reese Leanne
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shot_by_reese/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to another episode of The Tao of Humaning, where we explore the physical, energetic, emotional, and spiritual aspects of what it means to be human together. I'm your host, Dr. Christine, and I'm so thrilled you've decided to join me for today's conversation. In today's episode, I want to talk a little bit about our human capacity for holding grief and joy at the same time. And really what I mean by that is our capacity to hold complex, seemingly opposite things at the same time. This um this topic is very near and dear to me, and it really comes from, well, first it came from a conversation that I was having with another mom about, you know, all the ways in which motherhood transforms us. And there are so many. And I think, you know, we could have a podcast talking solely about that, and it could be a great podcast, actually. Um but we were talking specifically about motherhood, and it really got me reflecting on my own journey into motherhood and what that was like. And I had somewhat of a unique experience, but we all do, though, right? That's the thing about motherhood. It's like exactly what all of us need, but we don't know it at the time. So it feels just like I don't know. Motherhood is just a wonderful, mysterious, transformative process. Um, but my journey into motherhood was quite grief-stricken. And I was, gosh, 37 weeks pregnant when I lost my mom. And so I had this really interesting arc of losing a mom while also becoming a mom. And it was, you know, I mean, it's almost 13 years ago. So it's it's been a minute. And I think now I could maybe talk about it without crying, but it took a little time because that was not the plan. And, you know, you just imagine your journey into motherhood being a particular way. And for a lot of us, that is not the way that it goes. Um, we were actually planning on, you know, trying to see if my family could move out to the West Coast. And, you know, we had all these big ideas and we had quite a plot twist and ended up losing the mom while becoming a mom. And gosh, what I realized through that is just our incredible capacity to hold these conflicting things, right? Like here I was thrilled at being pregnant and then giving birth and having this indescribable heart-expanding experience of birth and motherhood, right? And all of a sudden there's this person that like now I can't, like, it's weird to think about life without my son in it. So weird. I had like a whole lifetime before he was here. But in that moment, it's like your heart just expands, right? And you have access to incredible joy beyond anything I had ever experienced before. And at the same time, I was experiencing incredible grief like I had never experienced before. And I was how do I describe how I was? I was uh, I don't know, I was in it, you know, and all of it. I was in the messiness and the amazingness, and I remember thinking, gosh, like I'm having all of these emotions, and in Chinese medicine, like the emotions affect our health. And oh my god, like what am I, am I like hurting the baby by having so much grief, right? Because he's still he was the due date baby. So he actually came on his due date three weeks later. Um, but I had this window of time before he was here, and the grief, you know, grief just comes, right? Like you can't control that. I don't think we should control that, but like it shows up in these waves and it's so intense and it's just so present, right? Like you can't really wish grief away. That hasn't been my experience with it, at least. Maybe some people can. I was not able to, and I remember having these concerns of like, oh my gosh, like, am I gonna injure my child's lung chi or like whatever it was, right? But I remember having this conversation. I was having coffee with a local um midwife, and I was sharing, you know, just where I was at and what was going on and my concerns, and she gave me this gift of reframing in that humanness, right? Like she was able to meet me in my humanness and allowed me to like, I don't know, other people maybe said that to me also, but there was something in the way that it was delivered in that moment that I was open and ready to receive it. But this idea that me feeling the very human emotion of grieving the loss of a mother was actually a really healthy experience for my baby, my unborn baby at the time, and even after he was born, to witness. And that was like, oh, right. And so then I was able to sit with it a little bit differently, and it made the experience more spacious, and there were, you know, strategies and meditations and supports in there that helped that. And I think ultimately being able to recognize the humanness of it and be like, oh, maybe I could just express what it is that I'm feeling and reassure this new person that's coming into the world here with us. Reassure them that this is a human experience and that I'm okay and that it will pass and the intensity is all right, right? Like there's nothing to be concerned about. Because I think a lot of times we feel that way, right? When we're human, we uh we see someone hurting, and uh, there's a natural tendency to want to ease that pain somehow, right? There's also such a gift in being able to allow people the space to have their pain and to actually feel it and to let it move through the body versus trying to think about it or rationalize it or make it go away or you know, all of the all of the things. Like, what if we just let it be? Right? And so I would do that even when Francisco was very little. I would say, you know, I would hold him and I would have a wave of grief come, and I would be like, mommy's feeling really sad right now. I'm really missing my mom. And I'm gonna be okay, you know, and I would just have these conversations with him as a human because he is was just a small human at the time. Um, but I've realized, and I even realized in the moment, that was such a gift. Not that I would ever have chosen that if I were able to pick like the bingo lottery of my life, right? I wouldn't have picked that particular recipe of things. And I also see the gift in being able to see that incredible capacity that we have as humans to hold big things and to hold big things that are real different from each other, right? Like the joy of becoming a new mom and having this love and like heart expansion, like indescribable. You can't like I still can't, even talking about it right now, I can't think of like words or what to it other than like wow, right? And also having that capacity to hold that grief. And I was thinking about this conversation and what you know, we can have many conversations about this because I do feel like it has really actually enriched my life and also made me a better practitioner and a better partner, probably, a better mom. I think it's just made me a lot better in life at realizing this human capacity that we have. Like I realized that I can do a lot more hard things than I thought that I could. And I think a lot of times nowadays when we are talking about nervous system work, which I love, that there are so many conversations happening about nervous systems. I think there's a disservice sometimes when we talk about nervous system regulation as being equal to being calm and be somehow being calm is being regulated, and being calm is like the goal. I would say that is not the goal. That is a piece of the experience of being human. But also to me, a healthy nervous system is really able to hold more life. And it's really about that capacity to hold life, to meet life with whatever it shows to us, because at the end of the day, we don't get to choose a lot of the bingo cards. We don't get to choose exactly what unfolds in terms of our losses and our loves and our you know different experiences that we have, right? Like life shows us what's next, right? It's like here, how about this? Like, what would you like to do with this? Right? It's asking us that question of like, what do we want to do with this? How do you want to show up in this? Right. Sometimes how we show up is messy, and it's okay, right? I talk to patients about this a lot and students a lot, about the messiness and the growth, and you know, not forcing ourselves into some made-up shoulds of, you know, needing to be calm and regulated. You know, that calm equals being regulated and calm equals like the way to be for your nervous system. I would say that's not the goal. The goal is compac is capacity. The goal is capacity and holding more of life. And I think that when we just move with life, right, our capacity naturally grows because we have more experiences, right? We have more time on this earth interacting with other humans and having more experiences, right? Our capacity naturally grows. And our desire, I don't know. Sometimes we have this like desire to shoot on ourselves. I don't know where that comes from, but we have this, you know, perfection. Maybe it's cultural. I don't know. It would be a fun conversation to get into. But we often want life to be simple. And when we talk about life being simple, sometimes that equates to like, well, I'm feeling one thing at a time. Right? I'm feeling sad, I'm feeling happy, I'm feeling grief, I'm feeling grateful, right? But that's not how real life is, right? We talked about this very early on in one of the episodes of the podcast. And it will be a recurring theme, I'm sure, because I really do believe that humans are built for complexity. We're not simple creatures living a simple life. We are complex creatures, all with our own past experiences and our own filters and beliefs, meeting up with other people with their own filters and beliefs, and then we're having these experiences together, right? Like there's gonna be complexity and there's gonna be nuance, and that is great, actually. It is a beautiful thing, and I think it's that increase in capacity and it's that complexity of life that actually really helps to shape us and really helps us to see what we're capable of, right? I remember when my mom passed away, I called um Llama Ellen and I called her to share what had happened, and we had been working together on some things. She was a teacher of mine for a lot of years, amazing, amazing human. Um I called her and I shared what happened, and what she said will always stick with me because it was so impactful, and it was such a moment of like she really could have hopped on any kind of story train, any number of story trains at that time. And what she said was, huh? Well, that wasn't what we had planned, was it? And I actually laughed. It actually brought humor to a moment that was just so sad and so overwhelming. And to have someone like meet me there and just be like, Well, shoot, it's not like this wasn't what we had planned, right? It was a plot twist. And that's one of the things that I enjoy training is embracing this idea of a plot twist in life. And so sometimes when there are big hiccups, big unexpected things, my husband and I will actually be like, Oh, plot twist. Okay, what are we gonna do with this? Crazy thing that came out of nowhere that we weren't expecting, right? But being able to have that, I don't know. And then of course she was like, I'm so sorry to hear it. How are you doing? Like, all of you know, the support things, but honestly, like having someone be like, wow, like honoring the fact that I was in a big plot twist was really impactful and so supportive. And it allowed me to just be in that space, right? There wasn't any like, oh, what are you gonna do? Like, there was no, there's none of that. It was just holding some space. And because I was able to have this space and this, you know, these different perspectives and ways of looking at, you know, being grateful for the gift of my mom and like, you know, shifting, moving with the energy of grief, and like having these toolboxes and these supportive people around me. And my husband, God bless him, was such a rock at the time. And yeah, it really allowed me to experience that in a way that I would never have expected was possible. And what shifted in me has been such a gift. And I feel like I'm really able to hold the space of depth for people, for other people now, and being able to see life with a broader perspective for sure, it gave me the perspective of you know, greater um perimenopause brain, um, greater like joy de vive. I'm like, what's the word for the like? I definitely am more grateful for the everyday little things because I realize how precious life is. Like, you know, I lost my mom, she was 62, like she's super young, right? And so there's inspiration there for me, right? Especially having a son when I was in my later 30s, right? Like I'm very inspired to age well and to take care of myself and like all of these, you know, control whatever I can, but there's also this surrendering that happens at the same time of understanding that I'm not in charge of how much time I get here. And that makes everything more precious. I wondered if I would get through today without crying. Nope. Um, but it is it's not a crying of grief and sadness, it's a crying of like wow, like life is really such a gift. And being able to feel that on, you know, a random Monday afternoon because I start talking about how inspired like all of these things are, right? And our complexity and this human experience, and like it's just brought so much joy and so much reverence for life. I think reverence is probably the word that I was maybe looking for. Reverence sprinkled with joy, whatever word that is, that's the one that I'm looking for. It's uh it's overwhelming at times in a really beautiful way. And I wouldn't have that depth of experience with those things if I didn't go through this thing that was really hard at the same time as something else that was really hard but joyful, right? And I, you know, for a lot of years I worked with the teacher, and the the saying, the mantra was the intensity of life is a gift. And that has just unfolded a lot more over the years. Like I I got it at the time that I was studying, and I also now am like, oh yeah, like I get it. Like those times when we feel just terrible, like we're really just feeling beat up by life and like you know, wishing that we could control things that are out of our control. And I don't know. I feel like all through life, right, we have these big moments of being challenged, whether it's like parenting or you know, marriage, or struggling to conceive, or having aging parents, right? Perimenopause, whatever the thing in our lives that has intensity to it, right, that is gonna be an opportunity and a moment that really shapes us, right? We've talked about this in other episodes about in Chinese medicine, we call these the gates of life, right? So for my example in giving birth, right? Also having this incredible grief and sadness as part of that, probably some anger too, right, at the situation and like just upset that it was happening. That time was a restructuring, right? It's that recalibration. Everything was discombobulated because I had just given birth and I was in this grief and lost time, right? But because of the way that I was able to embrace that intensity and not shut down to that intensity, I was able to actually open to the intensity of that time and be with it and allow it to shape me and to help me, you know, release whatever I needed to release and shore up and strengthen the areas that I needed to shore up and strengthen leaps and bounds, what a gift. I really, yeah, this could be more conversations for sure. But if you are in a space where you are holding a lot of things and you're also feeling a lot of joy, know that that is an amazing gift too. I talked to a lot of patients, I was just talking to a patient this week about it. She had done uh embryo transfer and had was talking about all of this gratitude that she was having and also fear that it wasn't gonna work, and also grief and you know, just all of the things, right? And being grateful because they already have one child, they're trying for their second, and like just all the humanness, right? Like that building, expanding, growing of our human capacity is really what it's all about, right? So that we can have more capacity for life, that we can show up with greater ease, that we can show up more open and more us at the end of the day, right? Without all of the shoulds, without all of the whatever expectations that we put on ourselves or put on other people. It's like let the and let the life do what it needs to do, right? Like we need to, we don't need to do anything. We could open to life, allowing life to show up and to see, like, I wonder how much more open I could be in this moment, right? Some moments it might not be all that open. That's okay too, right? Some moments you might be more mad, and some moments you might be more sad, and that's great. Allow that and make space, right? Making space for whatever it is that you need to be able to show up consciously. And we're gonna talk more about this in future episodes for sure, because this is delicious stuff here. Um, but if you are experiencing the intensity, know that it could be a gift. I wonder how much of a gift it might be for you, even if it doesn't feel like it in the moment. Know that you're not alone and know that you can handle way more than you think you can.

unknown 24:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Bye for now.