Beyond (y)our individual grief

Towards collective healing and liberation

While many individuals may come to The Grief Space seeking relief from personal losses, this work holds transformative potential beyond individual healing.

Over the years, I've witnessed how people often arrive through the doorway of personal grief - maybe the death of a parent or the end of a relationship - but through the container of grief tending, they begin to access deeper layers of collective experience.

For instance, someone grieving the loss of their mother might begin to recognise patterns of intergenerational trauma, leading to insights about systemic oppression or cultural wounds. A person grieving environmental destruction might discover how their personal sense of disconnection from nature echoes a broader cultural severing from the living world.

This ripple effect is powerful. As we create spaces where all forms of grief are welcomed, people naturally begin to make connections between their personal pain and our shared human experience. They might recognise how their individual struggles with self-worth connect to cultural messages about productivity and value- or how their unmet longings for community reflect a deeper ancestral knowing about how humans were supposed to live.

The art lies in holding space for this expansion without overwhelming people or rushing them beyond their personal process. Sometimes this means simply acknowledging broader dimensions of grief when they naturally arise. Other times it means carefully introducing frameworks like Francis Weller’s gates of grief that help people contextualise their experience within a larger tapestry. Always, it means trusting that as people feel truly seen in their personal grief, their capacity to engage with collective healing naturally grows.

What makes this work radical is its potential to challenge the individualistic, grief-phobic culture we live in. Every time we create a space where grief is welcomed, witnessed and metabolised in community, we're not just supporting personal healing - we're participating in cultural repair, helping to restore our innate human capacity to tend sorrow together.

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The Art of Grief Tending

Six-month online training

Begins May 2025

A compassionate, inspiring and practical programme for those feeling called to hold space for grief in their work, family and community.

Apply here