The Grief That Speaks to Us in Dreams

Yesterday was my sister’s birthday. Today is my mother’s birthday. This week also marks two years of no contact with my family of origin.

I have noticed that healing does not erase the ache of what will never be.

As these dates approached, there was a quiet sadness moving through me. Not overwhelming or consuming, but more like a low hum in the background accompanying me throughout the day.

The daughter in me still wishes things had been different. The sister in me still wishes a loving and connected relationship had been possible. There is still a part of me that wishes emotional safety and connection could have existed in the same space.

The decision to step away was never about a lack of love. If anything, I think that is what makes grief so complicated. Sometimes we can love people deeply and still recognize that continuing to participate in the relationship is causing harm. Sometimes choosing emotional protection is the most loving thing we can do for ourselves.

Even after two years, there are moments when I feel the sadness of what never came to be. Not because I question the decision, but because there was a time when I hoped things could be different. I hoped for understanding. I hoped for repair. I hoped for relationships that felt safe enough for everyone to be fully themselves.

That night, after my sister’s birthday had passed and on the eve of my mother’s birthday, I had a dream.

Given the timing, it immediately caught my attention.

The daughter in me was already aware of the dates long before my conscious mind stopped to acknowledge them. The sister in me was already aware of the dates. Neither in a way that felt overwhelming, but in the way certain anniversaries quietly live in the background of our awareness while we continue moving through daily life.

In the dream, there were two women I was trying to befriend. I lent them my vehicles and they repeatedly returned them damaged or left exposed. Windows were left open. One vehicle came back with the windshield missing. A garage door would not close. The roof was leaking.

When I woke up, my thoughts immediately went to my mother and sister.

The timing felt impossible to ignore.

Their birthdays were already present in my awareness, and as I reflected on the dream, I found myself wondering if it was less about the two women themselves and more about the impact of spending years trying to create connection where emotional safety was absent.

The dream left me with a feeling I could not shake. It felt as though I was witnessing what it had cost to keep extending trust, hope, accommodation, understanding, and love while quietly carrying the hurt that came when those efforts were not met in the ways I longed for.

The more I sat with it, the more I realized the dream was not showing me what happened in a single moment. It was showing me what happened repeatedly over time.

The vehicles felt like my energy, my trust, and my willingness to keep showing up. The missing windshield felt like vulnerability and exposure. The garage door that would not close felt like boundaries that never fully protected me.

The leaking roof felt like the absence of the shelter, guidance, and emotional protection every child hopes to find within her family.

As I sat with the dream, I became aware of something deeper. Beneath the grief was a younger part of me who still carried the sadness of not feeling protected, not feeling understood, and not feeling fully seen.

And yet, alongside the sadness, there was something else.

There was peace. Not because the grief is gone and not because the loss no longer matters. And certainly not because the daughter in me has stopped wishing things could have been different.

The peace comes from no longer arguing with reality. It comes from no longer abandoning myself in an attempt to maintain connection. It comes from recognizing that the daughter in me can still grieve while the woman in me honors the choice that was made.

For much of my life, I believed healing meant finding a way to finally receive what I needed from the people I loved.

What I have come to understand is that healing looked very different than I imagined.

Through breathwork, somatic release, and parts work, I began developing a relationship with the daughter within me. I began creating space for emotions that had been held in my body for decades. Grief that had never been fully felt. Fear that had never been fully acknowledged. Longing that had never been fully spoken.

Little by little, I began coming out of survival mode.

Not all at once. Not because my circumstances suddenly changed. But because I stopped abandoning myself.

I learned how to stay present with the younger parts of me when they were hurting. I learned how to listen to what my body had been trying to communicate. I learned that the emotions I had spent years managing, suppressing, and outrunning were not problems to solve.

They were experiences asking to be witnessed. Over time, something began to shift.

For perhaps the first time in my life, I began feeling safe in my own body.

And as that happened, something else became possible.

I began creating safety in my world.

The peace I feel today is not the absence of grief. It is the result of learning how to remain connected to myself while grief is present. It is the result of no longer asking the daughter within me to carry everything alone.

As these birthdays pass and another year of no contact unfolds, I find myself holding both gratitude and grief. Gratitude for the peace that has emerged through the healing process and grief for the relationships I once hoped could exist.

Neither cancels out the other and they no longer create polarity in my system. Both belong.

Perhaps this is one of the quieter ways daughters become changemakers. Not because they stop loving.

Not because they stop grieving or because they stop wishing things had been different. They become changemakers when they learn how to remain connected to themselves while holding all of it.

The daughter in me still feels the sadness of what never came to be and the woman in me feels grateful for the peace that followed when I finally chose emotional safety.

Today, both are welcome.

I honor you,

Teresa Napierala

Somatic Wellness Practitioner

Founder, Energies in Motion

www.energiesmotion.com