Sometimes grief and how it shows up is obvious. Other times we might not recognize our experience as grief until something shifts our perspective. This was true for Juniper Wong, MSW, LICSW, a therapist who specializes in supporting those who are grieving through self-compassion, mindfulness, somatic experiencing, and Internal Family Systems (IFS).

Juniper shares how caring for her father during the final weeks of his life changed her understanding of grief, sparking a recognition of how much of her own life had been shaped by the loss and grief passed down her family line.

What if some of what we call burnout is actually grief we haven't learned how to name? In this episode of the Breaking Patterns Podcast, Skye Nicholson sits down with our very own Alyssa Rose, a grief tender, ritualist, and trauma-informed somatic practitioner in Portland, Oregon, to explore a part of wellbeing our culture often asks us to keep behind closed doors: grief. 

This conversation continues that exploration by asking what happens when we expand wellbeing beyond productivity, mindset, and symptom management—and make room for ritual, creativity, embodiment, community, and meaning.

While loneliness can strike for a number of reasons—moving, feeling disconnected from your people (we’re busy!), or struggling to bond with those around you—the solutions are often the same. Developing emotional intimacy, finding shared values, and connecting over common interests with others are the foundation for feeling seen and appreciated. "Going out in public might make you feel less alone, even if you aren’t connecting with people while you’re there," says grief and trauma therapist Katherine Hatch, LCSW. "You can work at a coffee shop, go window shopping, or do whatever makes you feel comfortable, but the point is just being among humanity."

You know that strange sense of loss you feel before something is actually gone? Yep, this is that.

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What is anticipatory grief, exactly? Though it’s not a diagnosable disorder, it’s defined by a mix of anxiety and sorrow, according to the American Psychological Association (APA). And though the APA says it’s “experienced by someone who expects a loved one to die within a short period,” it isn’t limited to impending death.

“No amount of time [or] loss history can prepare us for what it feels like to actually navigate an absence,” says grief and trauma therapist Katherine Hatch, LCSW. 

The brutal truth in grief is that the widely accepted definitions of healing, such as going back to normal, do not apply. Katherine Hatch has spent many years thinking about what “healing” actually means in grief and how it occurs. She truly believes that the key ingredient of healing is not a matter of time—it is a matter of connection and feeling as though someone feels and sees us in our experience.

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And to go one step further, Katherine believes that the most effective and sustainable mechanism for healing (whether this is related to grief or trauma) is in feeling witnessed and seen by ourselves. There is great power in feeling witnessed by others—and there is even more settling when the parts of us that have been deeply wounded and are grieving know that WE see them and are paying attention.

Losing anyone or anything can be difficult, but if and when you find yourself full-teeth grinning at a random commercial or laughing at a ridiculous meme, know this: It's totally normal to feel bad about not being sad every moment of every day. In fact, joy is an essential part of the actual grieving process.

“I haven’t met too many of my clients who don’t have that [guilt], but the term I use for it is disloyalty,” says grief and trauma therapist Katherine Hatch, LCSW. That’s because feeling crappy for having moments of OK-ness usually stems from fearing that you might be forgetting the person or thing you lost. "Grief is meant to go up and down,” Hatch explains. “We're meant to have moments of engagement with our pain and disengagement with our pain.”

For people who’ve lost a mother figure or a child, are grappling with infertility, or have a complicated (maybe even non-existent) relationship with their mom, Mother’s Day can really suck.
 
If you’re thinking, Yes, this is me, you’ve probably been feeling uneasy about this weekend ever since the first “50 Best Gifts for Mother’s Day!” subject line hit your inbox. The anticipation or dread of a holiday that “highlights absence in a very visceral way” can make the leadup even worse than the day itself, says grief and trauma therapist Katherine Hatch, LCSW. The things we see and hear in the days before Mother’s Day (or on the day itself) can bring up the grief around what could have been, what we hoped for, and what’s no longer possible, says Hatch.​

According to Katherine Hatch, a former grief and trauma psychotherapist at the Wendt Center for Loss and Healing and owner of Grounded Grief Therapy, a grief-focused therapy practice, mourning gathers force with the passing of time: “I often see grief becoming more intense down the road,” Hatch told me.

“This is something that I don’t think people realize; it takes a ton of time to relearn the world without this person in it and for people to internalize that this death has actually happened. Feeling worse down the road doesn’t mean necessarily that someone is getting worse or moving backwards. It is often a sign that the grief process is moving through someone in a healthy way.”

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