What are you grieving?

As we collectively live through intense times, there is so much to mourn—loss of safety, loss of stability, the inconceivable loss of lives as we witness multiple genocides. And that’s not including the personal sorrow we’re moving through in our lives.

It can seem literally impossible to try to feel and process it all. Maybe there’s even a fear that if you try to contend with your grief, you’ll get stuck in it, unable to get out of those heavy feelings. But what do you do with your grief in the meantime?

Maybe the impulse is to keep your grief at an arm’s distance, to not let it get too close to you. Maybe it’s to compartmentalize it, to wait for the right time to properly deal with grief when conditions change or things feel easier. Or maybe it’s to intellectualize grief, processing each of its five stages with your mind.

If your body could have a say, how would it want to grieve? If you were to bring grief into your body, what joy would that create space for?

During Grief/Joy, we’ll be with our grief somatically as a way to honor the mourning our bodies want and need to do, and to also remember the joy and pleasure that lives alongside the sorrow.

We’ll explore the textures, sensations, and needs of our grief, giving it a soft space to be inside of us, so we can carve out space for our joy. I’ll guide us through this grief/joy journey using movement, breathwork, senses-based practices, writing exercises, and community witnessing.

The way we are with our grief can either complement or complicate the way we are with our joy.

Grief/Joy will help you reflect on and heal the inseparable relationship between grief and joy, somatically, without letting either one unground you.