Your body carries so much when you are grieving. Remember, grief is in your body, in your neuro-chemistry. Pay attention to it instead of pushing it away or ignoring it. The Loving-Kindness for the Body Meditation by Trudy Goodman, a renowned Buddhist meditation teacher and Harvard-trained psychotherapist, may guide you. Trudy’s practice is also great to do in bed upon waking, right…
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Grief Support Groups Serving West Los Angeles, Encino and Agoura Hills
Grief Support Groups Serving West Los Angeles, Encino and Agoura Hills
Posts by Jo Christner, Psy.D.
“Healing Grief… Moment by Moment” is a podcast created and produced by HOPE Connection. In each short episode Dr. Jo Christner or another HOPE Connection therapist offers a meditative exploration of a different aspect of grief and the healing process. As you listen, we wish you love, light and comfort. This episode: “Grieving Alone” (April 2025) — Jo Christner, Psy.D.
As you might know, anxiety can be inextricably connected to grief and is considered a normal part of the grieving process. For some, it can become a constant companion in the grieving process. What is anxiety? Basically, it’s feeling a sense of worry, nervousness, unease and excessive apprehension. Honestly, it can just feel plain terrifying and awful, as though you’re going crazy…
There is a famous line in the 1932 classic movie, Grand Hotel, where Greta Garbo says… “I want to be alone.” That phrase says so much. Alone… is it healthy or unhealthy? Well, that depends upon many factors and circumstances, especially when you are grieving the death of a loved one.
Animals, when wounded, seek isolation to lick their wounds and hopefully heal. It’s a self-soothing behavior that occurs naturally. Is it normal for human beings, when emotionally wounded from loss, to want to isolate and be alone?
Disenfranchised Grief
Have you ever experienced a loss so heartbreaking and no one was there to console you, to hold you, to hear you, to listen to your story, to cry with you, to help mend your broken heart? There was no Rabbi or Pastor to turn to, no group to give you a safe and non-judgmental place to mourn your loss, to heal your broken heart. This is what Disenfranchised Grief looks like. You feel utterly alone and silenced.
It can be 20 days or 20 years since your parent(s) has died and still there is a painful nostalgia that accompanies thoughts and reflections on our lives when our parent(s) was alive. Whether you perceived your parent as a loving parent or an unloving parent, this remains true. In one way or another we register the uniqueness of our relationship with…
Are you grieving a parent you considered unloving, not present or abusive? You may wonder, “Why do I feel so grief-stricken?” You may not have felt loved nor feel like you loved your parent. You may not have experienced “unconditional love” and wonder, “ Why am I so sad? Why am I so anxious and confused? Do I really care?” Perhaps, more…
HOPE Connection facilitates Parent Loss Groups as well as Spousal Loss Groups. People who have a parent who has recently died often have questions about grieving the loss of a parent. They wonder if a Support Group is beneficial. The following Q&As may be helpful as you grieve the loss of a parent or as you consider joining a Parental Loss Support…
Losing a parent can be one of the most traumatic events that an adult will go through. It can also present a rare opportunity for potent changes in life. When we lose a parent one of the ways we heal is by finding benefits and gifts that come out of a traumatic loss and the healing process. Often, this requires that we…
When your spouse dies, there is a process that you go through — your very own individual process. As painful as that process is, it also presents you with the chance to walk down a perhaps wholly unanticipated path — one that allows you to redefine your identity and goals. Grief changes you and takes you to a different place inside and out. That place might be the next chapter of your life.