By Bridget Nielsen, artist, guide, and international retreat facilitator | 9/20/26
Where to Begin… Again
I’ve been away from here, but with you in spirit!
This is the longest I’ve ever been away from content creation and communication since I was in my early 20s, but I needed it.
I needed to mourn my mom’s passing without needing to share or say anything about it while I was deep in the process. Time heals, and I’m about ready to share my journey with death as an initiation, and grief… Both are essential human passages for the dying and the witnesses, and so little of it is known or talked about in our culture… so more to come on that.
Even though I was away from here, I wasn’t able to create a healthy space for my grief. My mom’s death came with many blessings and new beginnings, including two big renovation projects that circumstances required me to manage.
Let me back up… to catch you up.
My Mom’s Passing and Our Family Home in Sedona
While my mom drew her last breath, we closed on our house in Sedona, Arizona. It was one of her dying blessings for us to have a rooted family home that we love…
Becoming a General Contractor Overnight
The timing was pretty wild, because a couple of days after her memorial [in month, year], I was on the job site, and I became a full-time general contractor, a role I’ve now held for 10 months…
Let me back up again, a little more now…
Growing up, my parents were real estate developers, and knew, and often did, every lick of the process. I’ve realized over the past many months that more rubbed off on me than I knew… and somehow I had the ability to do it too… for better and worse, lol.
Grieving While Building
It was good to have something keeping me moving, and especially creating during this time, but it was often too much given where I was emotionally. Still, I had time at night to get cozy and curled up in our back casita (the main house was under construction) to weep and wail… And being under the glittering presence of the stars and ancestral red rocks in Sedona has been, and continues to be, magnificent… supportive and needed.
It was very important for me not to bypass or push down any part of the grieving process, because I know “feeling is healing,” and I had been warned about the consequences of not grieving by our hospice team and others.
Rebuilding a Home, and Myself
It was amazing transforming our neglected house, creating a home on its solid bones… and in the process, rebuilding parts of myself and my family with it.
As summer wanes and the projects near completion, I find myself coming back from my deep descent into grief and praise… and regaining my balanced center, changed… stronger and lighter than before.
What Grief Has Taught Me About Life
I feel a much deeper capacity for… everything, a prayerful compassion for human existence, and a burning passion and gratitude for life.
We are so fortunate to have this body… to love… to feel… to have time… and to have this life.
I cherish it deeply and am humbled by its fragility.
What’s Coming Next
I haven’t spoken or shared since my mom’s decline last August, 2025, and I’ve realized that I authentically have a lot to say. I’m grateful for the tempered, circumstantial restraints on my outward expression, and I feel imbued with more wisdom and experience that will hopefully translate into the words yet to come, including death as initiation, grief as a human passage, feminine embodiment, and making the most out of life.
Bridget Nielsen writes about grief, death as an initiation, and the human passages our culture rarely talks about. After losing her mom, she stepped away to mourn, then rebuilt her family’s Sedona, Arizona home as its general contractor. She’s an artist, intuitive guide, and international retreat facilitator who brings people together to rekindle belonging and creative expression.