Day 14: Griever—a definition Grief is not one thing. Grievers are not having the exact same experiences. And yes, grief looks and feels and shows up in different ways for each of us. And yet there are some similarities that are worth naming. The awareness and understanding of life’s fragility as a griever is one of them. This instant awareness can show up in so many ways—as increased anxiety, as the feeling of “when is the next shoe going to drop,” or “who is going to

Day 13: The 26th Whew. Many of the holidays have passed. And it’s ok to feel the immense relief. Even if you didn’t celebrate or acknowledge them. And even if you pretended this season didn’t exist this year. Holding you in my heart. #grief #bereavement #grieftherapy #griefcounseling #groundedgrief #acutegrief #traumaticgrief #disenfranchisedgrief #miscarriage #suicide #homicide #infertility #nondeathloss #divorce #petloss #complicatedgrief #griefeducation #ambiguousloss #

Day 12: The Holidays & Grief—what makes this a particularly tough combo? Holidays and Grief can feel like oil and water. They don’t seem to belong together. At all. However, the reasons they don’t belong together are not all the same. Here is my 5-Step Guide for navigating Holidays & Grief (see Day 54 for more): 1) Plan: The lead up to these days can often feel worse than the day itself. Making a plan for what you will do this day (who you will spend time with, how you

Day 12: Unexamined Loss Can Be Worse What makes this true? Why even be concerned about “examining” your grief when you are living the horror of it? Examining one’s grief is almost impossible at the beginning—because you can feel you ARE your grief, and completely blended with it. Grief can become your existence early on, and that is ok. However, the act of beginning to OBSERVE your grief IS a path towards the grief being able to evolve and shift and move. EXAMINING your

Day 11: I Hope This is True #ihopethisistrue There is a lot happening right now. For so many. Baal Shem Tov’s words are my offering of hope. Even if you cannot hold hope for yourself. I will hold it for you. #grief #bereavement #grieftherapy #griefcounseling #groundedgrief #acutegrief #traumaticgrief #disenfranchisedgrief #miscarriage #suicide #homicide #infertility #nondeathloss #divorce #petloss #complicatedgrief #griefeducation #ambiguousloss #childgrief #selfcompassion #b

Day 10: A Predictor of the Grief Journey I have learned over the years that the most impactful influencer of what one’s grief journey/process/experience is based on our relationship with the person who died—and in the words of my profession—based on the nature of that attachment with that person. When a person dies, our grief focus tends to be on the event—meaning the death—the circumstances of it, the trauma of it, the suddenness of it or prolonged nature of it, and e

Day 9: Back to Basics on Harder Days I find myself returning each year around this time to pithy, direct and truthful statements about grief. The holidays and the darkness of winter are hard enough when your life hasn’t just imploded with loss, and then with that happening, sometimes the simple is all that one can take in. I do not believe that our love for our person or people dies when death happens. I believe that love is, among many other things, a biological pheno

Day 8: Let’s Redefine “Strength” in Grief The word “strong” in grief continues to get thrown around in unhelpful ways. Here is what I hope we can adopt when we speak about “strength” in grief… Strength in grief is braving the intensity of your feelings. Strength in grief is riding the immense ups and downs. Strength in grief is allowing the pain to exist. Strength in grief is acknowledging that you’re not sure about who you are, nor your future. Strength in grief is allowi

Day 7: In Grief (and sometimes in life), Explanations are Irrelevant Grief has taught me to notice when 1) I feel the need to explain myself and 2) when others feel the need to explain their behavior. Explanations often serve as a cover for defensiveness, a way for us to steer away from the impact of an action/behavior instead of a simple owning of how an action/behavior (regardless of intention) was hurtful. When we stand in our truth, there is no need to explain--even

Day 6: The True Waves of Grief = The Layered Waves of Grief This metaphor for grief—waves and oscillation from moments of ok-ness to times of utter depths—holds up for the most part in what I observe in myself and in my clients. The waves of grief are what separate it from depression and many other life experiences. Yet I believe that this metaphor needs a slight update. I propose for the waves to be called the layered waves of grief. In grief, anyone will tell you ther

Day 5: Grief can Bring Great Clarity I’ve had some people tell me that when they look back to the initial months of their grief, while they never wish themselves back to that place, they have an odd longing for some of the clarity it brought—an almost austere, harsh, distillation of knowing of what is important, what doesn’t work, and what is worth one’s time or not. Perhaps there is more freedom to say no. Or yes. Or whatever feels right in the moment. A permission th

Day 5: In Grief, Feeling More Raw When You Have More Capacity is a Thing One of the most maddening and disappointing aspects of grief is when you do all the things—get the sleep, eat well, move your body, take time to be still and quiet, etc--sometimes your grief can feel more raw, more searing, more accessible. Our system (meaning our mind/body/heart) is programmed to heal. We can see this with our eyes when we get a cut—the blood rushes to the spot, the wound aches to

Day 4: The Symbiotic Relationship of Grief and Trauma There are a myriad of opinions about whether grief and trauma are separate entities, or innately tied to one another. For me, the main questions are can trauma exist without grief? And, can grief exist without trauma? If we define trauma as a necessary adaptation in order for survival and grief as the necessary biological healing mechanism for something that is unfixable and irreversible in our lives, then I believe

Day 3: A Trauma Response I am nervous that the word “trauma” may be on a path towards dilution. This word is used more casually than ever. I hear increasing chatter about “Big T” traumas and “Little T” traumas and what kinds of trauma is actually “traumatic.” I find all of this talk troubling because it gives so much power to the EVENT and not to what is actually more relevant to someone’s overall well-being—the person’s RESPONSE to the event. I am proposing a new defi

Day 2: Hope is Heavy to Hold When You’re Grieving We aren’t supposed to be able to hold hope alone in challenging times. Truly, we aren’t. It’s impossible in early grief, as well as when the waves of acute grief reemerge and pummel us. Think of it like this—when we go into flight, fight or freeze mode, unnecessary bodily functions for survival (such as executive functioning, emotional regulation, digestive and reproductive systems) shut down temporarily to prioritize t

Day 1: Want your Child to become an Emotionally Healthy Adult? I’ve noticed many weigh in on what it means to raise “emotionally healthy” children lately. I do not claim expertise in work with children (although yes, I do have experience with them), but I do know what I see when I work with adults. When folks brave the internal work in therapy that is actually transformative, we tend to work with their child or younger parts. These versions include the younger selves wh

Day 100b: 100-Day-Project. Check. Thank you. For following. For reading. For the encouragement to keep this up. This 100-day project was born out of a way to hold onto something everyday, amidst my own personal winter. It has seen me through to the finalization of my divorce, kept me (somewhat) centered as my dad received a heart-wrenching cancer diagnosis, and every day, reminds me that my nervous system needs me to pick up a pen to draw and write—preferably something v

Day100a: Healing in Grief is not a Matter of Time The brutal truth in grief is that the widely accepted definitions of healing, such as going back to normal, do not apply. I have spent many years thinking about what “healing” actually means in grief and how this “healing” occurs. This post is about the “how” of healing, more than the “what.” I’ve noticed a pattern in my clients who find a way to live within their grief—these folks receive compassion and empathy (NOT pi

Day 99: Holiday Reminders I wish this could be standard holiday etiquette. And this is certainly not comprehensive. What would your list entail? #grief #bereavement #grieftherapy #griefcounseling #groundedgrief #acutegrief #traumaticgrief #disenfranchisedgrief #miscarriage #suicide #homicide #infertility #nondeathloss #divorce #petloss #complicatedgrief #griefeducation #ambiguousloss #childgrief #selfcompassion #bereavedparents #bereavedfamilies #bereavedfamilies #bereavedmot

Day 98: Grief is an Act of Expansion You Never Wanted The more years I do this work, my conceptualization of what grief truly is and how us humans can best navigate it has distilled into something quite simple. At its core, I find that my work is to companion grievers as they learn to tolerate immense pain and begin to remember they are still alive, somehow. So many of us have not been taught to sit WITH. We have been taught to FIX and to PROBLEM SOLVE. Any griever wi