FLOW Facilitator Training, new events, and a new team member!
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Hello Good Grievers,
It brings me deep pleasure to be meeting you all virtually. My name is Olivia Shehan (she/her) and I recently joined the Good Grief Network team as their Administrative Assistant. I am excited to connect with you all, share a little bit about myself, and highlight all the ways GGN and our amazing partners are striving to provide connection this winter. I know I am not alone when I say it is deeply needed.
So please settle in, take a deep breath, and I invite you to soak in your surroundings.
Today, I am writing to you from New York City. The desk where I usually find myself overlooks Broadway, one of the busiest thoroughfares in the city. It’s a truck route, so there is almost constant rumbling and chatter, punctuated by the occasional horn or shout. I grew up in NYC so I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard “Oh the noise, the crowds – I could never live there,” but the truth is, the city also takes a break from time to time.
In fact, my favorite moments in New York are the lulls. Quiet, early mornings before 8 am where the loudest noise is bird chatter; the pause between traffic lights when I hear kids excitedly screaming to get to the park; or fantastic sunsets that make you stop in your tracks. When the weather is particularly pleasant, I get to enjoy a local saxophonist playing outside on my block, creating a beautiful reminder to pause. I find comfort that the city that never sleeps finds time to rest…so I try to as well.
Before coming to Good Grief Network, I ran sustainability programming and conducted climate research within higher education. I wore many hats, but I always found joy in events that brought students together and increased accessibility to sustainability programs on campus. Along with the learning and innovation so often found on college campuses, I witnessed the comprehension of the scale of the polycrisis and the grief associated with it. The burnout was extensive, and it was only heightened by the pandemic. I came home to New York City to pursue my masters degree in climate science at Columbia. I knew there had to be more than grinding through solutions, hoping one would stick. The word sustainability has so many uses and I found it ironic that when we pursue environmental sustainability, we often struggle to create sustainable systems for ourselves.
Joining this community has been a powerful reminder of the importance of pausing so we are stronger together in the long run. I am so grateful for the warm welcome I have received and would like to especially thank Julie Souza, LaUra Schmidt, Aimee Lewis Reau, Becky Watkins, and Katie Flint for bringing me on board. I hope wherever you are joining us today, you are able to find peace in your surroundings amidst the chaos of the world.
When you are ready, we hope you will join us for one (or more!) of our upcoming offerings for you. Programs like our "FLOW Facilitation Training" start in mid February where you learn tools, techniques, and philosophy for hosting life-changing peer support healing sessions in your local communities. We also have new 2025 events to share. Right now, we're enjoying hosting a space for elders to gather, connect, and support one another. Then in early March we have "Feeling the Feels in the Polycrisis" on the schedule. GGN is also partnering with Mirabai Starr for a powerful offering too.
Finally, we are overjoyed to be celebrating our cofounder Aimee Lewis Reau's birthday this month! Commemorate Aimee's birthday with us by donating to a special fundraiser for her favorite GGN programming. Scroll down if any of this is of interest to you.
But first, grounding is a critical component of what we teach in any of our events and programming. We invite you into a practice we teach and share:
5,4,3,2,1 Grounding Exercise
This grounding exercise offers us an opportunity to tune into the present moment via five of our senses, sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. Every moment that we tune into the here and now this way, helps to ground us in our body and gently grows our capacity to be with our direct experience.
What I am about to offer are suggestions, if the steps of this exercise feel nourishing to you, great! If what I offer feels activating or like it doesn't serve you, I invite you to find an exercise that brings a sense of calm to you.
Get comfortable. Notice your breathing. Turn your awareness to the present moment.
Name 5 things that you can see (e.g., I see my houseplant or table) Name 4 things that you can hear (e.g., the sound of the heating or voices) Name 3 things that you can feel (e.g., the sensation of fingertips touching or texture of clothing) Name 2 things that you can smell (e.g., I smell cooking or damp air) Name 1 thing that you can taste (e.g., I can taste the lemon from my tea) Notice your breathing. Offer yourself thanks for taking the time to pause in this way.
FLOW Facilitator Training
Last call for this round of FLOW Facilitation Training.
Your community needs you. Join us for this 12 week intensive course where you’ll learn how to hold spaces for collective healing and connection in unraveling times. We’ll explore the inner and outer work of these times, embodiment, grounding, reclaiming our personal agency, conflict resolution techniques, and alternative perspectives to collapse.
By the end of our time together, you’ll feel empowered to organize and run our 10 week resilience-building program, climate cafes, or other peer support offerings.
“Rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion.” — bell hooks
After completing the training, you’ll also be enrolled in our facilitation membership program to connect with our global network of facilitators, additional trainings, and ongoing support and opportunities to collaborate.
There are two sessions of this training that will run concurrently.
We will meet for 3 hours per week, over the course of 12 weeks (13 weeks with one break). You will need to factor in another 1-3 hours for resources and out of course connection.
Apply to either of the following course sessions:
Sundays: 16 February - 11 May, 5 - 8pm Eastern Time (U.S.). Skipping 20 April 2025. (Every Time Zone)
or
Tuesdays: 18 February - 13 May from 1 - 4pm Eastern Time (U.S.) Skipping 22 April 2025. (Every Time Zone)
Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis until the course fills or starts.
You can contact laura@goodgriefnetwork.org directly with any questions about the FLOW Facilitation training.
GGN Events
Tending the Fire: A Circle for Elders
Join our heart-centered, non-judgmental, peer support offering for elders, on the first Monday of the month, as we gather to explore our roles in the polycrisis and in an age of collapse.
If you identify as an elder, an aspiring elder, or if you are just curious about eldership, you are welcome to join this circle, any time or on a regular basis.
An opportunity to collectively reclaim the status and relevance of elders, dive into traditions of wisdom in these dark times, bridge between different cultural views of elders, and hopefully reignite intergenerational conversations and work in our communities.
Registration now open for Mondays 3rd March, and 7th April 2025 9 - 11am PT / 12 - 2pm ET (check your time zone)
Join this peer-supported community online gathering, along with your confusion, fear, anxiety, anger, optimism, hope, love, messiness. All of it is welcome.
Whether it’s concerns around climate change, world politics, wars around the world, inequality, colonialism, you are warmly invited to gather with us to share and connect
To take place at 9 - 11:30 PT/ 12 - 1:30pm ET on 10 March 2025.
Interested to meet members of our board and learn more about their role in Good Grief Network? Join us for our annual public meeting on Monday 24th February at 9 - 10:30am PT/ 12 - 1:30pm ET
We have news of two community 10-step online offerings:
Waterspirit are offering a 10 week Eco-Anxiety Support program, running from February - May 2025. Sign up for a free information session on Thursday 20th February here.
Join FLOW Facilitators Ronnie Gelman & Ruth Hartmann for a 10-week program running from April 2 to June 4, 2025.
Partner Events
Climate Grief & Collective Care with Aimee Lewis Reau, LaUra Schmidt, & Mirabai Starr
We are committed to hosting peer support spaces in these painful times. But we need your support to continue our work. If you've been positively impacted by GGN and one of our programs or events, share some love. Click the link below to donate $5, $15, or $500 today to ensure that our work lives on.
Good Grief Network is excited to announce more ways to give! We are now accepting stock gifts, endowments, and Donor Advised Fund Grants. **All cash donations over $500 automatically reserve 4.22% into an endowment.
