Dedicated to Spirit.

This post is dedicated to my beloved cat Spirit — who recently passed after 20 beautiful years together on this plane.

Thank you for being my companion and guardian.

May you be zooming amongst the stardust of which you were made. 

Take a 5 Minute Break…

INSIGHT ^{_{(what we need)}}

We can be better prepared for death in both body and mind. 

Death is hard. It is an outcome we will all face, for ourselves and some loved ones. But research shows we don’t prepare well for this inevitable end in a modern culture obsessed with longevity, vitality, and “living our best lives”. Perhaps we need to take a note from the ancient Egyptians and turn our focus on “dying our best deaths.”

Our discomfort with death, focus on productivity, and lack of collective mourning rituals leave us ill-equipped to navigate loss. I remember a “death dinner” I held in my 20s with friends. My youthful desire to provoke a taboo conversation about our inevitable destination revealed how unprepared everyone was. Especially myself as the host: treating death as a “topic” and lacking the literacy of dying and grieving to address those in the room whom had dealt with loss with the right language and consideration. Beyond the usual silence and “I’m sorry for your loss.” It was apparent we all needed a new level of openness, compassion, and renewed emphasis on communal support during these times. As well as real strategies that could help with moving through the process.  

Reorienting to a new reality. Coping exists on many levels but two of them hold the key to moving through the process smoothly: logistically and emotionally. Those who compartmentalize well, will turn off the valve to their emotional floodgates and start managing tasks. Those who can access full release are paralyzed by the tsunami of emotions and unable to process the practical matters that need tending. We all fall somewhere on this spectrum of familiar coping — finding shelter where we need — while navigating unrecognizable parts of ourselves trying to reorient to a new reality.

Preparedness can be a helpful form of security and comfort. Only a mere 27% (Source: Guaranteed) follow through with the discussions to be had during end-of-life scenarios as they are challenging to address when the person is around. Things like medical choices, financial arrangements, and personal wishes need a lot of clarity during this time and can be the difference between sitting on a decision for days and weeks to a swift choice. But without those conversations, we are confronted with more chaos and confusion during the transition period. 

Integrated models of support are growing. Luckily, lifting taboos on death along with an acknowledgment that there is a need for more end-of-life dignity care have sprouted some innovations. From digital wills to GriefBots to tech-enabled end-of-life care, founders are filling needs in the market from tough personal experiences. There’s an understanding that dynamics at end-of-life are complex and unique, requiring more expertise and data-driven insights that can lead to better outcomes, financial transparency, and tailored care. Care Circles and Grieving Support Systems also acknowledge that focus needs to shift solely from the patient to a wider scope of people affected by the loved one passing. This integrated model of alleviating stress on the system in it’s many forms (financial, medical, emotional) is so important to the long term healing process knowing everything was in place. 

Moving through the shape of sorrow. When we grieve, there is also a chasm of resistance that opens between the love we were experiencing, and a life of loss ahead. The overwhelming pain of losing a loved one can feel so unbearable that denial becomes a refuge. Caught in loops of “if only” and “what if,” the bereaved may resist the finality of death, shielding themselves from its permanence. Denying themselves the space internally to be with the void a different way. When someone we hold dear is gone, the familiar contours of life vanish too. Sudden, shocking, or profound loss often feels like a fracturing of the self—a loss of identity, grounding, and sanity. It’s like being adrift in a vast sea, while the world carries on, oblivious to your pain. The isolation can be heavy and take on a ‘shape’ in your body – why most grieving involves physical signals from not eating to insomnia to illness.

Grief changes shape, but it never leaves. This isolation is heavy and can leave one feeling forgotten in a world that has grown grey, unsafe, and unrecognizable. Social connection frays, comfort zones contract, and for a time, the world is reduced to the narrow perspective of grief. There is an actual somatic “shape” to this sorrow, beyond concept, which needs deeper understanding as it morphs in the person — never really “moving on” but getting integrated into their new way of experiencing life without that loved one who shaped them in some way. Without learning how to grieve or be with others who are grieving, we run the risk of holding onto sorrow that has not been processed. Rather than a beautiful testament to the love we’ve had that has now been integrated into something we can carry through life with grace and gratitude. 

INSPIRATION ^{_{(what i want)}}

Shapes of Grief: grief training for healthcare professionals and grief literacy for everyone.

An award-winning Grief Training Program that helps professionals who come across patients and clients who are dealing with the loss of frameworks, language, and strategies to help us adapt to a new way of life.

• Founded by Grief Psychotherapist and Educator Liz Gleeson who has been studying the bereavement experience for several decades.

• Designed with the help of over 30 different professionals in the field of loss and grief to pull together a succinct and accurate curriculum backed by professional experience and the wisdom underpinning the felt experience of grief by these professionals.

• Tailored for healthcare professionals, educators, HR managers, coaches and anyone who supports people who are grieving (as well as the bereaved themselves). 

• Work through different levels of training to learn about the psychology of grief, how to deal with loss, how to listen and speak to individuals who are experiencing loss, and how to manage prolonged grief disorders. 

• Liz also has a podcast to demystify and normalize grief for those who want to hear meaningful conversations with everyday people about their experience of loss and how they are navigating the process. 

INNOVATION ^{_{(what i wish for)}}

Sorrow.ai - a bereavement buddy who can support the somatic shifting of pain when you experience grief or loss (of any kind).

No need to ‘show up’ to another human in a certain way: but still have a witness to your loss who can help navigate the feelings you and others may not understand.

• Designed for anyone who wants to process grief as it shows up in the body by becoming intimate with the somatic experience of loss. 

• Become intimate with the shape of grief with an embodied visual that the bereaved designs through descriptive depictions to match their felt experience.

• Feel less alone in your process by working with a highly trained ai grief expert who is fluent in the somatics of processing the painful sensations of sorrow.

• Trained in trauma-sensitive situations, Sorrow works with you to understand your window of tolerance and works gently to open up your receptivity to releasing charged patterning that has become imprinted on your system.

• Make the transition out of your head into your body easier through a visual map of your grief through your own description to help process the feeling through your body in real time. 

• Skilled at working through various stages of grief to create less attachment (denial, anger, holding) and more opening in your system for processing. 

• Programmed to be culturally-sensitive to various belief systems around death.

• Go through guided meditations, breathing sessions, memory journeys and conversations that help you understand this new variation of love through loss.