Grief Immersion for Death Workers

Grief Immersion for Death Workers: a Six-Week Online Course
Facilitated by Will Daddario, PhD and Joanne Zerdy, PhD 

We understand death work, grief work, and the work of living as intertwining activities. If we resist thoughts, feelings, and activities related to death and grief, aren’t we limiting what it means to be alive in this world? Some questions we ask of the very broad category of “death work” include: How does a death worker’s experience with grief influence their ability to be fully present during the work of dying, letting go, grieving, and healing? How can creative, embodied, and collaborative grief projects inspire us to think more broadly about grieving and healing? How can the natural world inspire our thinking about life, death, and grief? How does grief connect us all?

Grief Immersion for Death Workers welcomes a broad range of folks interested in the work of grief as it relates to their professional and/or personal interests. Our 8th & Final Grief Immersion course in its current 6-week Live format will run on Sundays, October 13 - November 17, 2024. We’ll be re-configuring the class into a hybrid self-paced/live offering for 2025.

**This is a Trans Inclusive Class. The Course is limited to 15 participants. Classes will be recorded for those who cannot attend live. Registration is on a sliding-scale basis, and payment plans are available.

We - Will Daddario and Joanne Zerdy - designed this course and will be alternating our facilitation duties throughout the six weeks. For those unfamiliar with us, we are active grievers, educators, arts and humanities scholars, creative thinkers, published authors, and grief workers.

CLASS DESIGN
Each week we provide you with detailed assignment prompts that may include short readings, film viewings, reflective writing, body awareness activities, and so on. We ask you to complete these assignments before we meet.
Our class meetings are modeled on advanced undergraduate seminars (though you need not have attended college in order to join us!). Instead of discussing each assignment in great detail, we build on the ideas, perspectives, and questions presented in the readings and recordings. We share, process, brainstorm, and engage in activities aimed at broadening and deepening our understanding and awareness of grief.

As a small group, we will work together to:
- increase our individual and collective grief literacy
-work with our personal grief in creative and critical ways
-challenge conventional paradigms of grief and bereavement
-delve into new perspectives and methodologies for understanding, embodying, and honoring grief
-share grief project ideas that could become new services/offerings for you
-build on our connections with one another to model compassionate- and collaborative-minded approaches to death and grief work

Topics Overview:
*This course includes 15 hours of Online Instruction/Group Meetings + approximately 9 hours of Individual Preparation and Reflection = 24 Hours of Grief Work.

WEEK 1 :: Getting to know Your Grief

Week 2 :: Challenging Grief Paradigms and Conventions

Week 3 :: Approaching Grief as a Radically Social Phenomenon
*We will be joined by Guest Participant Ash Williams (he/him)- Ash is an abolitionist community organizer and abortion doula

Week 4 :: The Ecosystem of Grief: Seen and Unseen Forces and Alliances
*We will be joined by Guest Participant Naila Francis (she/her) - Naila is a death midwife and grief coach

Week 5 :: Embodied Grief: Where and How do we Carry it?
*We will be joined by Guest Participant Siegmar Zacharias (she/her) - Siegmar is an artist and death doula

Week 6 :: Griefwork for/with/in Communities

Participants Receive:
-Detailed assignment prompts
-Resources for further study
-A Certificate of Completion for the 24-hour Course (*for those who attend or make up all sessions)
-Unlimited Email access to Will and Joanne throughout the six weeks
-An Individual Meeting with Joanne or Will following the Course to discuss insights and/or brainstorm ideas
-Discounts on other Inviting Abundance offerings, including our self-paced Grief Mapping, Race & Philosophy, and Write Brightly courses

more Testimonials:

From Jeremy Damec, @JEREMYDEATHANDGRIEF —
”I highly recommend this course! I was part of the [inaugural] cohort this fall [2021]. Joanne and Will are amazing. I learned and have been gifted with a deeper and more full awareness of grief in my life and in my work. A deep bow to Will and Joanne. ❤️”

From Johnnie Stone @homiebonics —
“I had the best time in Grief Immersion. We cried, laughed, & shared our stories. We were really able to open a container to our grief and enrich our personal lives and hopefully our communities. The guest speakers were all lovely and brought great experience and knowledge to the group. This course is suitable for any death worker no matter what stage they are in their work or background. I left with way more understanding on the world of grief and I’m immensely grateful for the opportunity to take this course.”

From Maria Renée, @maria.reneej —
“The Grief Immersion course was a powerful experience through the world of grief -- from the personal to the collective and the cultural to ecological. Joanne and Will are deeply thoughtful, insightful, and compassionate facilitators who offer a multi-disciplinary approach toward grief work. I feel much more aware of the dominant attitudes toward grieving and the many ways we can reorient to grief and support one another in its profound presence.”

From Yuvelca Magdalena Reyes—
”The Grief Immersion Course took me on a journey to explore and understand my own grief work- first as an individual, next as part of the collective and then as a professional. Learning about how grief is embodied in different expressive ways in nature, music, art, sound and even in silence, had me take note that all I had to do is mindfully look to observe, listen to absorb and just allow myself to feel intuitively. By the time it came to say goodbye to the intimate group formed in this learning experience, I felt very comfortable in the container, safe, supported and included. Thank you for this amazing experience.”

From Niki DiGaetano @numbereddays.death.ed - Preciousnumbereddays.com —
“Through the Grief Immersion course, I was encouraged to not merely sit with my grief, but to name it too, even those griefs which I had banished to the shadow. Will and Joanne held this space for me and the other participants in a setting that was intimate, open, and loving. After participating, I feel softer than I already did towards sadness, more aware of and compassionate towards my and others’ grief.”

From Rev. Michael Brazell michaelbrazell.com —
”This course was truly transformative. As a death doula, one of the biggest missing pieces in my journey has been an honest focus on grief. This course not only showed me how I could be of greater service to those I work with, but it also helped to tap into my own grief in a healthy way. The course is structured in a way that takes you on a deep journey, and the best part is you're part of a group of others also tapping into that deep, wild and beautiful thing called grief. The course is amazingly supportive, and I highly recommend it for everyone looking to explore grief.”

From Marielle @thedeathengineer —
”This course helped me expand what I thought I knew about grief. It provided a space for me to explore grief from different angles, all while having meaningful discussions with others. It helped to hear others' perspectives and openly share our thoughts in a safe online space. I ended the course with creative ways to process my own grief and ideas for how I can support my community.”

From Kathryn Blau, Practitioner-in-training with Ancestral Medicine —
“The Grief Immersion was my first official grief course after having been deeply initiated into the realm of grief after my mom and aunt died. This course was invaluable for me as someone on a path to learn how to hold space for the grief of others and to embody a full spectrum grief practice. Joanne, Will, the guest presenters and the other participants were all amazing and opened my eyes and heart to the many facets of grief that exist within the human experience, and the diverse ways that we can be in relationship with our own grief and with others.I highly recommend this course to anyone seeking to deepen their own grief journey and to walk with others on this path.”