Few words have moved me more than the following written by poet and author Ellen Bass,
“to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.”
― Ellen Bass
I read those words and something inside of me opened up and whispered, “Yes. Yes! This is our most necessary practice, our deepest calling -to take our own ordinary/extraordinary lives into our arms and hold them close to our hearts. Even when they hurt. Especially when they hurt…
Spirituality, Therapy, and the Good Life 
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