“As a facilitator, Ellen conjures connectedness, intimacy, boundaried space and, above all, permission to access one’s creativity and bravery—and all of this via Zoom which seems impossible but is not with her steady and compassionate guidance. She teaches us how to witness ourselves and each other through the writing and listening process and in so doing, expands my sense of what’s possible.”
GRIEF BECOMES US: Navigating Heartbreak, Grief, Loss & Sorrow Through Writing **
An online 5-week writing group that honors the different kinds of losses we carry
-including: anticipatory grief and/or ongoing grief due to the death of a loved one, relationship change/loss, life transitions, health changes, addressing losses/heartbreaks from long ago, ambiguous sense of loss, environmental & political grief, .
Being alive in such a fleeting and tenuous world requires us to grapple with losses of all kinds. Our hearts get broken in ways that can’t be easily mended. Whatever sorrows you are carrying it’s possible to know more about how you are living inside new losses or old ones. How do you live this? What is loss, grief, sorrow like for you—what is it like in your bones, breath, heart, mind?
One of the ways that can help us navigate the unpredictable turns of loss is creative expression—using writing as a healing practice that names, honors and recognizes grief while also tethering us to our inner resourcefulness and wisdom. Grief Becomes Us offers a gathering place for those wanting to experiment with writing as a practice to traverse losses of all kinds. No previous writing experience required.
This class is not a grief repair vision or a loss and sorrow mending workshop. But just because you can’t fix grief doesn’t mean there is something more to know about and to offer tenderness to parts of ourselves that may feel tremendous sorrow. This writing immersion is an opportunity to be intimate with ourselves. In this course there is an opportunity to be with what we know and what we don't know yet. Caring for ourselves through loss and sorrow can be an intense, intimate, deep experience and when shared, perhaps we can welcome our whole-hearted selves a little more fully. When we shift from fixing to tending to grief, loss and sorrow there is something perhaps that has gone unknown or invisible that can now be made more visible and known.
In this 5-week virtual writing intensive there will be:
• a short guided meditation
• brief check-in
• writing prompt of a poem (and/or other prompts) and time to write
• opportunity to share your writing if it feels right
• follow-up email and writing prompt for week
NEW SPRING DATES! Now Accepting Registrations!
Tuesdays 7-8:30pm EST
April 7, 14, 21, 28, May 5
Fee: $300-385 sliding scale, limited partial scholarships available
NOTE: Individual therapy may be a helpful support alongside this group. This group is not psychotherapy and therefore is not reimbursable by insurance. A 15-minute orientation phone call is required prior to registration to ensure that it is the right fit for you. To schedule a call, please fill out the form below and in the message box, let me know that you are interested in the “Grief Becomes Us” class. After orientation call, payment for the class can be made through Venmo.
** This immersion series was first developed in collaboration with my friend and colleague Maya Stein, who served as editor of “Grief Becomes You,” a collection of writings and photographs on the subject of loss from more than 60 contributors.