I mentioned this on social media, but this week, I’m shaking things up a bit as a way to answer questions I’ve been receiving about how to “deal with” death. Even though I’m a grief recovery specialist, this question is a bit outside my area of expertise. So I’ve invited Lisa Marie Conine to share her experiences with grief to the Moonshot Mentor community.
Lisa serves as a trained Death Doula, Yoga Instructor, and Plant Medicine Guide, offering 1:1 and group containers. She supports folks by providing spaces to explore transformation by leaning into the wisdom of our bodies, sacred plants, and the earth. Lisa specializes in utilizing specific plant allies to aid in one's journey alongside somatic tools for regulation and embodiment. Her work intends to honor the transformative rites of passage present in life and death.
If you respond to her writing and work, please consider heading over to
and subscribing.For now, here’s Lisa’s guest blog which has a lot of similarities to the work I do with dis-enfranchised grief.
When I share with folks that I serve as a Death Doula, I get a number of common reactions. Some of those reactions come in the form of questions or stories. People will share with me the story of a loved one passing. They will ask me how to navigate their grief or how to best show up for someone in their life dealing with loss.
A common theme I've observed in those shares is how people express their regrets or what they see as mistakes.
People feel they are doing the death and grief thing all wrong.
There's an impulse of regret for not spending enough time with someone or not responding in a loving way to someone's pain. I see that impulse as pure, I feel it coming from the heart.
People want to do good.
However, the collapsing I witness in folks who are ashamed of their grief and who want to get it "right", feels more like shaming energy coming from the outside, instead of from the heart.
It feels like a collective lie we've been told. A lie that there is a neat way to do this. The lie is that if we do grief "right", maybe it won't hurt as much or be a burden to the ones around us.
If we do grief "neatly", maybe we can continue to go on being productive members of society and not disrupt the status quo.
In other words, it's the collective expectation that a week or two after the "event", like a funeral, everything goes back to normal! Work, family, and community resumes to its regularly scheduled programming, and if you are the one who was impacted the most... Well, you're on your own now.
In its essence grief is a disruptive energy. It doesn't care about what your plans or ideas are. It definitely doesn't care about the to-do list or the humdrum of society.
Grief demands one thing only... and that is to be felt.
Feeling grief is disruptive and hurts like hell. So instead of us learning how to do that, we have this collective lie that has become a collective agreement.
Ultimately, this collective lie keeps us from the wisdom of grief and the wisdom found in our pain. This lie of grieving "neatly" attempts to glaze over the reality that comes from being human. We will all experience loss and grief, just like we will all experience joy and love.
Based on my own lived experiences and the witnessing of clients, I believe the only thing someone can get "wrong" about grief is thinking (or being told) that they are doing it wrong.
Grief is not something we can mess up. It is our world that gets it wrong.
Modern culture lacks the strong space and holding required for folks to move through their grief uniquely.
Grief is uncomfortable. It is cyclical and sometimes unpredictable. It has an intelligence of its own and grief is not something we can control or put into a neat box. You can't get it wrong. Grief moves through you and you are transformed by it... and that process is unique to you.
In my experience, there is no set timeline that applies to all people. There is no one-size-fits-all plan for tending to grief; no clear answer that "works" for all people.
What I have witnessed as the most supportive tool, is the space and witnessing from loved ones and a helpful guide to validate someone's process and hold them in the highest love as they move through it.
When someone is held in a way where they are empowered to navigate grief on their own terms, a natural alchemy takes place. Their wisdom emerges and the grief transforms them.
Many people want to know how to do grief "right". They want to know the "steps", the timeline, and the answer. Unfortunately, I don't have those answers. Fortunately, you do.
My biggest advice for folks is to find a trusted person to share the reality of their grief with. Through this holding and witnessing, we all can build the capacity to be with grief and remember that we don't have to try to change it or get rid of it. We can be with it, learn from it, and be transformed by it.
And through that process, we find our own answers.
🙌🏾 Want to work with me? I offer private coaching sessions as well as in-person and virtual group work. Reach out directly here to set up a complimentary consultation. - Laverne McKinnon
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Grief is a crazy thing that sometimes pops up and hits you in the heart. On Tuesday I was giving a lead at a meeting and spoke about my partner who committed suicide quite a few years ago, and I found myself on the verge of tears and breaking down like it was yesterday. Do we ever really get over it?