“Healing doesn’t mean the damage never existed. It means the damage no longer controls your life.” — Akshay Dubey
As a certified Grief Recovery Specialist since 2014, I combine my education and life experience as a movement instructor, somatic bodyworker, circus aerialist, street medic, and massage therapist in my approach to teaching The Grief Recovery Method, a proven recovery program for those experiencing the confusion, isolation, and loneliness caused by loss.
In a program of 8 weekly sessions, that are ~90 minutes each, we will:
- Define grief and loss in a tangible, straightforward way
- Dismantle some of the myths and misconceptions regarding “the grief process”
- Learn to respectfully enroll others in our grief experience safely.
- Address what about your most impactful loss is left incomplete, and complete it.
- Leave with a repeatable structure from which to efficiently approach future (and past) grief experiences.
- Enable ourselves to better support loved ones through loss.
The Grief Recovery Method is a program of action that will help you change. I will teach you measurable steps to peel away your own layers of rationalization and avoidance to get to the heart of what continues to trouble you.
What is Grief?
“Grief is the conflicting feelings caused by the end of, or change in, a familiar pattern of behavior.”
Grief is a stigmatized and misunderstood emotional experience that is most often automatically met with immediate and relentless intellectualization. To cope with this incongruence, we most often focus on our circumstantial stories of the loss in attempts to make sense of what we are refusing to feel, and then just get on with life.
But conflicting emotions are your normal, natural response to loss, and what we commonly learn about navigating them encourages us to quietly poison ourselves, holding on to what is meant to move through us.
Most of us in what is known as the Western world have been presented with loads of advice about how to procure things, maintain things, and aspire to gather more things, with virtually no relevant, useful guidance regarding how to handle the inevitable loss of the things we amass and covet; a skill that our ever-changing planet, failing economies, evolving consciousness, and sociopolitical climate demand of us more and more every day.
Common grief-related beliefs and behaviors are rooted in ways of thinking that keep us fundamentally disconnected from the relief and social interconnection that comes from authentically experiencing the impacts of loss before moving on. Shit like:
There are 5-7 tidy “stages” of grief
Time heals all wounds
Replace the lost thing as soon as possible
Grieve alone
Be strong for everyone else
Don’t feel bad about it
Keep busy and avoid it
You probably not only recognize, but have likely heard and experienced these pervasive, insidious myths about grief in constant roiling feedback loop for most of your life. If your response to the list above was something like “YES!! What a bunch of BULLSHIT!” you and I will probably get along.
For example: “Don’t feel bad” often takes the form of statements like “It could have been so much worse”, “Remember the good times you had together”, “Don’t cry”, “She wouldn’t want you to be sad”, “She’s at peace with God now”, and “Look on the bright side”.
Another example: “Time Heals”. It’s one of the most common of the myths about grief, and potentially the most devastating of them as well, because it paralyzes us into non-action when waiting for time to heal your emotional wounds is like waiting for time to fill a flat fucking tire.
Try looking at it this way; Whether the wound be present in the physical tissues of your body (which respond automatically with inflammation, fluids, and fibroblasts to begin the repair process), in the form of teargas burning your face, or in the emotions of your perceptive being: correct and appropriate actions are what heal, not time.
Imagine for a moment, “being strong”, and “staying busy”, hastefully attempting to “replace your loss”, while “grieving alone”, trying “not to feel bad” about it, all while plowing down the road of your life on flat tires, and your response to yourself being; “What is wrong with ME?”. Seems a little fucking silly doesn’t it?
You are not alone
Let’s go even a step further into this analysis: Do you feel a sense of frustration, anger, resentment, or hopelessness simply due to the expectation that you must respond with gratitude to these invalidating platitudes? What about the part where, despite knowing deep down that something isn’t right about it, YOU still can’t seem to do anything else yourself?
Embodying the myths of grief and grieving is what most of us have been taught, so that is what we do, because we only have immediate access to what we have already learned, and we are also taught to stigmatize ourselves (and each other) for what we don’t already know. Especially about the touchy-feely shit like death and divorce, but also things like changing jobs, moving, having a child come into your life, loss of health or status, which are all forms of loss as well.
As I first learned in my bodywork practice and even teaching aerial to beginners, for many people, the decision to simply commit to doing something new to help themselves is a profound turning point in their life. So if that’s all you get from reading this far and I never hear a single word from you about doing a program with me, I’m still glad. Move differently now that I’ve confirmed what you already knew.
About the program
Though often offered in church and organized community settings, The Grief Recovery Method® program is itself a secular program that will work for anyone, regardless of your faith, spiritual belief system, or other forms of orientation. Similarly, all kinds of people are certified to tech GRM – I am personally trans, neurodivergent, queer, agnostic, leftist, anticapitalist, antiracist, swear an awful lot, and am crushing the patriarchy with every breath I take as my true self. If that’s not your jam, the website will quite likely have someone in your area who is more your style.
The Grief Recovery Method® is not a support group, counseling, or extended open-term therapy. It is a method of completing grief through simple and small actions outlined in The Grief Recovery Handbook.
It is possible to work through this book alone. It’s not recommended, not the least of which because of the role that isolation and shame plays in our misguided understanding of grief. But if you’re sitting here reading my words, believing that you will never join a group or seek a specialist, weighing the option of getting the book or not; get the book, with my encouragements for a successful solo recovery “aHA!!” experience.
Material and time commitment
You’ll need your own copy of The Grief Recovery HandBook, and a notepad/pen every session. Expect to do 2-4 hours of ‘homework’ between our weekly meetings.
Group sessions are up to two hours, one on one sessions are usually an hour to 90 minutes.
Please note that it is often very difficult for me as an itinerant artist to organize a group; they generally only happen when a participant enrolls their community in creating one (group accessibility, in my opinion, is one of the reasons GRM is so often offered in church settings). Keep in mind, though, that lovers, partners, family, and very close friends should not work together in the same group. Groups are hella cheaper though, and offer a level of support and community I can’t give you alone.
If you have questions, interest, or would like to talk with me about offering grief recovery to yourself or your wider community, please fill out the form below.
You got this.