Befriending Grief

Website Mentorship YouTube Circles Individual Support Dear Reader, When I think back to the many losses I’ve experienced, I’m reminded of how deeply they’ve changed me. I know I’m not alone in that. While your losses may look different from mine, every one of us encounters transition - both big and small - and every transition carries with it some form of loss and grief. The only constant through a lifetime, it seems, is change. There is often a line drawn through the big transitions of our...

Website Community YouTube Facebook Instagram Dear Reader, There are so many messages we receive about grief and what we're supposed to do after someone we love dies. We're told that we need to let go, find closure, move on, and somehow learn to live without the person who has died. Ugh. I've come to question much of that advice, especially the idea that healing requires us to let go of the people we love. One of the most meaningful shifts in my own relationship with grief has been discovering...

Website Community YouTube Facebook Instagram Dear Reader, When a sibling dies, so much attention often goes toward supporting their parents, partner, or children. Meanwhile, those grieving a brother or sister can find themselves carrying a profound loss that often receives very little acknowledgment. Having lost two brothers myself - Rollo and Scott - this is close to my heart. Your sibling deserves to be remembered, and your grief deserves care, too. November is Worldwide Bereaved Siblings...

Website Community YouTube Facebook Instagram Dear Reader, As October draws to a close and we move into November, we enter a season that many cultures and spiritual traditions have long recognized as a sacred time of remembrance. There is an ancient knowing that during this time of year, the veil between the living and the dead grows thinner, making it a little bit easier to feel a deeper connection with those who came before us. I've always been drawn to the mystery of this season, and...

Website Community YouTube Facebook Instagram Dear Reader, One of the things I love most about facilitating my in-person grief circles is bringing elements of nature into our gatherings. I often collect leaves, stones, branches, and other little treasures to create a nature mandala that becomes part of our shared experience. Here's one from our last circle ... I believe nature has so much to teach us about ourselves. After all, we are nature, too. Recently, while gathering oak leaves from a...

Website Community YouTube Facebook Instagram Dear Reader, As I sit writing and gazing out the window, I watch the treetops sway in the wind, their leaves in various stages of letting go. Some are still green, others brilliant shades of yellow, orange, and red, while many have already made their way back to the earth. As I move through another fall season marked by the anniversaries of my parents' deaths, I've been reflecting on the ways grief shifts and changes with each passing year. The...

Website Community YouTube Facebook Instagram Dear Reader, I just have to say ... I was overwhelmed with gratitude by the responses that I received after my last writing. I think it hits a cord when we are vulnerable enough to be honest about what we are moving through! I know that I truly appreciate hearing those stories and perspectives from others - the stuff that makes us human. As I continue to begin again, I have decided to reinvent the way that I communicate. Some of you want to read...

Dear Reader, As we approach the upcoming Mother's Day weekend, I've been thinking so much about my own mom .. as well as my role as a mom .. This time of year has a way of bringing so much to the surface - love, gratitude, longing, grief… sometimes all at once. It can feel tender in ways that are hard to put into words. If this season is touching something in you, I want you to know you don’t have to move through it alone. I’m offering a free Mother’s Day Grief Circle this Thursday, May 7th...

Dear Reader, I hope you and your heart are navigating this crazy world with as much love, compassion, and kindness as you can muster, for yourself and for your community. That really does feel like what is needed most right now. I do not have any answers for what ails the world, but I know I feel most grounded when I stay close to what is in my immediate orbit: my family, my friends, my neighbors, and my life's work. Speaking of my life's work, I have been moving through a big, sacred turning...