Workshop Replay: Clearing Space for Grief
Because we are all worthy of care, guidance and community in seasons of loss.
If this workshop title calls to you, we need to tell you two things:
We are so sorry for the loss that brought you here.
We are also so grateful that you found us.
For this workshop, I invited my friend Emily Marlowe, LCSW, PMH-C, to join me as a co-facilitator. Emily is a licensed clinical social worker based in Louisville, KY, who specializes in trauma therapy. Since then, we have both felt called to enter the world of grief work ourselves. We have co-taught around fifty of these grief education and support sessions together. The participants we have worked with have been through some of the toughest forms of trauma that exist in the modern era—medical abuse, stigmatized grief, termination for medical reasons, late pregnancy loss.
And we absolutely love what we do.
There are few things I do, in fact, that feel more impactful than this sacred work.
As Emily and I talked about in our recent interview together:
Grief is going to find expression. And it’s really just a question of what kind of expression it’s going to find.
And so that experience of being in bed for 6 months–that is grief finding its expression. And there’s also an opportunity to choose consciously how we would like for our grief to find its expression.
Sometimes I think of what we offer to participants, in terms of supporting them with creating rituals and supporting them in doing some reflective writing, I almost think of it as preventative care.
Because it is very early on in the process introducing this idea of agency. You didn’t choose this grief. Very often there’s a grappling with, “Did I cause this grief?” And we invite people to sit with that question in whatever way feels right for their particular spiritual background. But also, “What am I going to do with this grief?” … If I have this deep need to nurture, and I don’t have this living person in front of me to direct that towards, where do I direct that energy?
In this workshop, we help you to answer these questions for yourself. To set aside the time and the space to consider:
What will you do with this grief?
Where would you like to direct the energy?
These are questions only you can answer. At the same time, we also aim to provide you with as much explicit guidance, concrete examples, and warm, compassionate care as our time will allow, inside a well-held container.
In this 90-minute video session, participants are guided to:
Set intentions for the workshop, meditating on why this title or topic feels relevant
How to turn towards big feelings like grief with mindfulness, and without fear—rather than feeling like you’ve just been caught in a tidal wave of emotion, and there’s no boat in sight
The science behind writing and ritual work for grief—so that you understand how to engage with these supports in ways that will actually help you heal, and that aren’t particularly woo-woo or religious
How to slowly re-claim a sense of coherence and agency through making creative choices
A common refrain you’ll hear from Emily and I, one we’ve borrowed from our friends at RTZ Hope, is this:
Choosing is more important than doing.
Making choices that are in alignment with your current capacity and values is how you begin to heal from an experience that may have robbed you of a sense of all choice, and/or the opportunity to show up the way you wanted to show up.
So, as you move through this workshop, know that everything that we offer here is just an invitation. Please feel free to pause, breath, step away, take what you need, and leave the rest.
Here’s a snapshot from the workshop:
If this timing and framing feels supportive for you, we invite you to clear some space in your schedule, and move through Clearing Space for Grief at your own pace.
Folks who signed up for this workshop, and/or who are participating in the Mentorship program here at In Tending, can scroll down now to access these workshop materials virtually below, which allow you to do the following:
Watch the video and follow along with the exercises.
Listen to the audio, akin to a podcast, and do the same.
Read the transcript at your own pace.
We can’t wait to hear what you think in the comments!
Don’t have a Mentorship subscription? You can click here to view your options, and upgrade to unlock the workshop materials below.
You can name your own price for the Mentorship program, which also gives you:
A 1:1 personalized support session from me. We can use this time to co-create trauma-informed mindfulness and writing practices that are just for you, which can further support you in bearing witness to your grief, and calling in the kind of community that can help you to hold the hard. (Learn more about these here.)
An all-access pass to all of our 2026 workshops. This includes the next scheduled workshops in this series, which includes Tending Your Spiritual Truth with Sarah Kokernot on April 8 and Marking Complicated Mother’s Day with Lisa Sibbett on May 6. It also includes access to the workshop archive, including Coming Home to the Body, Re-Imagining Intimacy, and Re-Claiming Our Power.
May this workshop be of benefit on your path to personal and collective liberation. And we hope to see you at the next one!
Warmly,