Grief & Ritual Support
Why Grief Support?
“Crazy Good Grief,” is what author Paula Stephens calls it, who wrote the insightful book, From Grief to Growth. I know it sounds crazy, how could grief possibly be good?
Grief is an incredibly powerful emotion - it seems to have the uncanny ability to stop time in its tracks and bring us to our knees. In many ancient cultures, grievers are deeply honoured, supported and held by the community, as the grief process is viewed as an initiation. In North America, many of us have grown up in grief and death-phobic families and communities, and this has led to a tremendous amount of unprocessed grief. The lack of supportive spaces to bring our grief has meant that it has often been passed down through the generations. Unprocessed grief can show up in our lives in many ways, including withdrawal and aggression, which can negatively impact our current relationships. Learning how to tend to your grief, no matter how big or small, is a radical act of love for yourself, family, community and our world.
A mentor in Grief Tending, Francis Weller (you’ll hear me talk about him a lot!) says: “When our grief cannot be spoken, it falls into the shadow and re-arises in us as symptoms. So many of us are depressed, anxious, and lonely. We struggle with addictions and find ourselves moving at a breathless pace, trying to keep up with the machinery of culture.”
Learning to companion our grief and keep it warm is vital, so that it can be integrated into our beings instead of frozen in our bodies, creating an emotional backlog. In my experience, grief is not something that we get rid of, because grief is a direct result of loving and part of being human. We can experience grief in many forms; loss of a loved one, loss of dreams, disconnection from parts of ourselves, systemic/eco-grief, loss of connection to community, relationships and sense of belonging, and ancestral grief that has been passed down. Grief and grieving are the most human things and they are reflections of how deeply we let ourselves love and be-loved. Your grief deserves to be honoured.
“Grief and love are sisters, woven together from the beginning. Their kinship reminds us that there is no love that does not contain loss and no loss that is not a reminder of the love we carry for what we once held close.”
― Francis Weller,The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief
So here is the good news, we CAN build our capacity for grieving, and offering ourselves a supportive, loving vessel for grief to be witnessed, felt and moved through. I believe that we CAN be transformed by our grief into the most authentic versions of ourselves. Grief has the power to illuminate what really matters and re-orient us to truth in our lives. We NEED to get better at being with grief so that we can reclaim our vitality and ultimately live healthier lives, connected to our hearts, relationships and souls’ purpose.
A space for grief that refuses to be domesticated. For nervous systems that need space to breathe and time to re-orient to safety. For those seeking care that is both professional and deeply human-centred.
In my explorations, grief is understood as a living, embodied experience — not a problem to solve, but something to be witnessed and tended. Drawing from the teachings of Francis Weller, in his book The Wild Edge of Sorrow, he offers a compassionate map for the many ways loss shapes our lives. In a communal space and through a somatic lens, we explore how these gates may be held in the body and nervous system, creating the possibility for grief to be acknowledged, honored, and gradually integrated.
Francis Weller teaches that grief enters our lives through five primary gates (and now several more have been articulated as possibilities). These gates help us recognize that grief is not limited to death alone, but is woven throughout the human experience.
The Five Gates of Grief
as Articulated by Francis Weller in The Wild Edge of Sorrow
Everything We Love, We Will Lose
This gate speaks to the tenderness of loving in an impermanent world. It includes the loss of loved ones, relationships, health, places, identities, dreams. This is often the gate that initiates us into grief.
The Places That Have Not Known Love
Here lives the grief of unmet needs and expressions of self — our parts that were not fully seen, welcomed, protected, or affirmed..
The Sorrows of the World
Gate three opens us to collective grief — ecological devastation, injustice, violence, and systemic harm. It is the ache we carry as sensitive beings in a disconnected world.
What We Expected and Did Not Receive
This threshold invites us to consider the grief we carry for things that we may not even realized we have lost. It is the sorrow that we carry as a result of our loss of “village” the support, the container...the web to catch us when we fall apart.
Ancestral Grief
Some grief does not begin with us. This gate holds the inherited losses, traumas, and displacements carried through our lineage — grief that can move through families and cultures across generations.
In this framework, grief is not something to fix, but something to be tended. Each gate invites a slowing down — a listening — so that what lives in the body, heart and soul may be acknowledged, witnessed, and gradually integrated.
“Grief is subversive, undermining the quiet agreement to behave and be in control of our emotions. It is an act of protest that declares our refusal to live numb and small. There is something feral about grief, something essentially outside the ordained and sanctioned behaviours of our culture. Because of that, grief is necessary to the vitality of the soul. Contrary to our fears, grief is suffused with life-force.... It is not a state of deadness or emotional flatness. Grief is alive, wild, untamed and cannot be domesticated. It resists the demands to remain passive and still. We move in jangled, unsettled, and riotous ways when grief takes hold of us. It is truly an emotion that rises from the soul.”
― Francis Weller
So, how do we do this?
We must have safe enough spaces to bring our grief just as it is - raw and untamed….
Our dominant culture in North America has sent a message that grief is something we should relegate to the shadows, lock away and deal with on our own. However, when grief is shared, it can actually bring us closer together as a human family, as we re-member this thread that unites and connects us. The truth is that we are NOT alone in our grief and culturally this a slowly starting to shift. We can undo the aloneness of grief by choosing to bring it to spaces where it will be witnessed, honoured and companioned – and Breath and Being strives to be one of those spaces. We believe that grief is best held in connection and community, so we have a couple of options for you to explore.
Offerings
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Grief counselling offers a one-to-one space to tend to the many shapes grief can take. Together, we explore loss, change, and the ways grief lives in the body, relationships, and everyday life. These sessions move at a pace that honours your experience, allowing space for reflection, emotion, and meaning-making over time.
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Ritual creates space for grief to be witnessed in ways that words alone cannot always hold. These in-person gatherings may include simple practices, seasonal markers, or symbolic acts that honour loss and remembrance. Held in small, intentional settings, ritual invites connection with land, body, and community as part of the grieving process.
** Pricing varies depending on session length, location and number of people. Please email to discuss pricing and your unique needs.
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Grief can feel isolating, yet many people find meaning in being with others who understand loss. These facilitated groups offer a shared space for reflection, listening, and gentle conversation. Both in-person and online groups create opportunities for connection, community, and the collective tending of grief.
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“Another facet of our aversion to grief is fear. Hundreds of times in my practice as a therapist, I have heard how fearful people are of dropping into the well of grief. The most frequent comment is “If I go there, I’ll never return.” What I found myself saying one day was rather surprising. “If you don’t go there, you’ll never return.” It seems that our wholesale abandonment of this core emotion has cost us dearly, pressed us toward the surface of our lives. We live superficial lives and feel the gnawing ache of something missing. If we are to return to the richly textured life of soul and to participation with the soul of the world, we must pass through the intense region of grief and sorrow.”
― Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief
I offer a free 20 minute complimentary consultation as an opportunity to get to know each other, discuss your unique needs and ensure that pursuing grief support from me feels like the right fit for you.