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WE BELIEVE

Grieving and healing are inextricably linked. Opening to grief leads to an improvement in one’s quality of life, and closing to grief causes more pain, sorrow, and further suffering in the short and long terms. Reaching out to others for support, aid, camaraderie, and inspiration is a sign of great strength and courage. Experimenting with creative approches to grieving can enrich one’s healing journey.

WE KNOW

Popular culture in the United States (and likely in many other places) does not want anything to do with grief. The word itself scares people away. Yet, many, many people are grieving something heavy on a daily basis, and the work to alleviate the stigma of grief is necessary, timely, and healing in itself. Grief offers us opportunities to lead more meaningful, connected, and reflective lives.

WE HAVE SEEN

How permission to grieve lightens the heart. How communities of people with little in common form tightly around the shared experience of traumatic loss. How working together to soothe grief’s sting transforms into deeply meaningful interactions in everyday life. How healing helps us on individual, familial, community, and societal levels. How sharing our stories and listening to others’ tales of loss and grief increases our collective grief literacy and emboldens us to make healthy changes in our lives.

We understand that the term “Grief” can apply to dozens of situations: the current global health crisis, racial and social injustice, chronic health problems, a terminal diagnosis, struggles with infertility and/or pregnancy loss, the death or decline of a loved one, forced migration, job loss and financial precarity, the decline of national institutions, the end of a serious relationship, the pain felt from environmental catastrophe and the suffering of animals, and on and on….

We recognize this grief, and its accompanying feelings of pain, loss, disappointment, and/or sorrow as a weight you are learning to carry — perhaps awkwardly, perhaps gracefully. Our endeavor is to support you as you cultivate a sustainable and sustaining grief practice that acknowledges all of the contours of your grief experience AND generates practical, creative, and empowering ways for you to continue the work of living. We want to assist you with your grief work, not only so that you can heal yourself but so that you, too, can walk alongside and assist fellow grievers.

Grief Work Offerings:

Creative Grief Mentorship (see below)

Testimonials for Our Grief Work

Creative Grief Work Mentorship

Interested in having creative & compassionate partners with whom to process your grief? We see ourselves in this mentoring relationship primarily as your supporters. Through attentive listening, creative proposals, and heart-led responses, we meet you where you are in your grieving journey and accompany you for the next leg of it.

How We Work with You:

After an initial conversation (by phone, video chat, or in person), we draft a Grief Work Proposal. This document includes 4 recommended activities based on your interests, hobbies, and goals. During an agreed-upon timeline (say, 2 months), we make ourselves available to meet with you after you complete each activity in order to process what you did, how you did it, and any insights about your grief that became apparent during the process.

  • Your Personalized Grief Work Proposal may include:

    • Suggestions for reading, listening, writing, and/or viewing based on your experience and interests;

    • Recommendations for physical activities/exercises that you can do to help open your heart, feel grounded, and connect to your intuitive knowing;

    • Detailed ritual activities that aim to honor and process your loss(es), mark a transitional time in your life, and deepen your self-awareness and self-compassion;

    • A Reiki Session with Will to tap into the embodied knowledge related to your grieving and healing;

    • Art-making activities based on your interests

  • When we Meet with You after each activity, we may:

    • Ask Questions aimed at opening up and deepening your experience from another angle;

    • Share Additional Resources (texts, art projects, podcasts, meditation exercises, etc.) to deepen your insight and/or inspire you in your grief work

    • Introduce Practical Strategies regarding, for example, interacting with others, expressing your needs, and carving out time and space for healing;

    • Offer Verbal and/or Written Responses to your grief work that offer another perspective on where you have traveled and what you have learned thus far along your grief journey;

  • In addition to these 4 sessions, we offer:

    • Unlimited Email Support during our scheduled time working together, which you can use to solicit advice, brainstorm ideas, respond to questions, or think through writing;

    • a 50% Discount on Joanne’s Grief Mapping online class for you or a friend

Package Cost - $250-$400 (*pay what you can within that range)

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Explore what’s possible when you work with your grief…