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- 1 day until... Virtual Catharsis Theater for Grief, Loss, and the Healing Power of Presence
1 day until... Virtual Catharsis Theater for Grief, Loss, and the Healing Power of Presence
A gathering of stories and strength in uncertain times.
Brian Stefan
August 08, 2025
🧭 TL;DR | This Week at a Glance
🌟 Joan of Arc: Voice of Faith and Fire
Teenage mystic. Fearless warrior. Her courage still echoes today.
🎭 Virtual Catharsis Theater — Saturday, Aug 9
A psychodrama-inspired space for grief, presence, and release.
🕯 The Tangled Net #6: The Bonsai and the Bomb
How global violence spreads—and how healing still takes root.
🧠 Mental Health Breakthrough: Authenticity as Survival
New research shows authenticity shields young Black men from racial trauma.
🌍 Crisis in Sudan: Genocide Without Cameras
A civil war the world refuses to see—told by those risking everything.
🧑💻 Teen Grief and Online Extremism
How loneliness and loss are being weaponized in digital spaces.
🚨 Illinois Bans AI from Acting Like a Therapist
New law draws a boundary between human care and artificial advice.
🎓 Free Event: When the Therapy Work Ends — Aug 8
A virtual NASW gathering on grief after client death, disappearance, or departure.
🌲 Stillness in the Canyon — Aug 16
Nature-based retreat for nervous system repair with InsightLA.
♀️ Wildwomxn Retreat — Aug 23
Grief, gratitude, and resilience through ritual, song, and nature.
🕯 HOPE Group — Aug 30
Mindfulness and suicidal struggle with Zen teacher Patrick Park.
🎂 Celebrating Jack Kornfield & Trudy Goodman’s 80th — Sept 27
An afternoon of joy, wisdom, and shared presence.
🌊 CGC Therapy, Groups, & Training
You don’t have to grieve alone.
💌 Dear friends of The Grief Wave,
Facing the hurt — together.
Some weeks feel like a collision of ancient fire and modern ache.
This one brings us Joan of Arc’s fierce clarity, the burning silence of Sudan, and the quiet courage of young Black men refusing to be broken by racism. We witness teens pulled into darkness online, the rise of AI in spaces once held by humans, and the grief of lives interrupted—sometimes without warning, sometimes without goodbye.
And still—there is resistance. There is remembrance. There is the will to return.
In the midst of it all, we gather. To witness. To feel. To hold what hurts. And to keep choosing presence.
Welcome to this week’s wave:
From Joan of Arc to Sudan, from teen grief to global hope—facing the hurt, together.
May it meet you where you are. May it move you toward healing.
🌟 Honoring a Voice of Faith and Fire: Joan of Arc
Visionary. Warrior. Martyr. A girl who changed the fate of nations.
“Joan of Arc at the Siege of Orléans” (1887) by Jean-Jacques Scherrer shows Joan raising her banner as she leads French troops in a turning point of the Hundred Years' War.
Joan of Arc, whose defiance and devotion continue to echo through history.
At 17, Joan of Arc stepped onto the stage of war-torn France—not as a soldier or scholar, but as a teenage peasant girl who heard the voice of God and followed it. Her boldness turned the tide of the Hundred Years’ War. Her fate was sealed not by defeat, but by the fear she stirred in those in power.
She’s been canonized, mythologized, politicized—and still, she burns bright. Beneath all the interpretations remains a real, brave girl who heard voices and believed them holy.
“She knew who she was,” writes Scott Alexander.
“And the world couldn’t bear it.”
🙏 Thank you, Joan. Your fire still lights the dark.
🎭 This Saturday: Virtual Catharsis Theater for Grief & Healing
🗓 Saturday, Aug 9 | 1:00–2:45 PM PT | Online
A stage for sorrow. A space for healing.
You don’t need a diagnosis to grieve.
And you don’t have to grieve alone.
Join us for a psychodrama-inspired gathering for emotional release, truth-telling, and collective healing.
✨ What makes it powerful:
– Not performance, but presence
– Not scripted, but emotionally safe
– Not clinical therapy, but deeply therapeutic
💻 Speak if you're ready. Be quiet if you need. Just show up.
🎟️ Tiered pricing. Limited spots.
✨ The Tangled Net #6: The Bonsai and the Bomb
How violence went global—and what still grows.
In the tangled net of our connected world, destruction and healing travel the same paths.
On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima burned. But just two miles from ground zero, a 400-year-old bonsai tree survived. Today it grows in D.C.—a living witness to what outlasts the bomb.
We live in a world where harm travels faster than healing:
A drone strike can cross oceans
A lie can fracture a democracy
A carbon cloud can drown distant islands
But the same systems that spread violence also carry aid, connection, and resilience.
We are all gardeners now—tending bonsai in the shadow of annihilation.
🧠 Authenticity as Survival: A Mental Health Breakthrough
New research shows authenticity protects young Black men from racial trauma.
Dr. Donte T. Boyd is an Associate Professor at OSU whose research explores how social and contextual factors impact HIV prevention, mental health, and family support among young Black men.
A 2025 study by Dr. Donte T. Boyd and colleagues reveals that young Black men who report higher authenticity experience fewer depressive symptoms and less suicidal ideation—even when facing racism.
Authenticity, they found, doesn’t just help—it heals.
Dr. Boyd’s research and public advocacy offer a path forward rooted in truth, culture, and connection.
🌍 A Humanitarian Catastrophe in Sudan
Civil war. Famine. Silence.
Soldiers with the Sudanese Armed Forces return from the front line in Khartoum. (Photograph by Lynsey Addario for The Atlantic)
As Sudan collapses into violence, the world looks away. Over 14 million displaced. Mass rape. Starving children. No meaningful global intervention.
This is not just Sudan’s tragedy. It may be a glimpse of our future.
🧑💻 Groomed in the Shadows: Teen Forums and Extremist Recruitment
Online communities are weaponizing loneliness.
Dana’s 14-year-old son was groomed by predatory online networks that target vulnerable teens and encourage self-harm and violence. NPR is withholding her full name for safety reasons. (Joanna Kulesza for NPR)
NPR documents how extremist groups are targeting grieving, isolated teens through forums and gore sites. One mother’s story reveals how her son was “taken hostage” by radicalization and despair.
This is preventable grief.
But only if we start paying attention.
🚨 Illinois Bans AI from Acting Like a Therapist
New law says: healing must still be human.
What happens when we start mistaking code for care? (Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios)
Illinois became the first state to prohibit AI from providing therapy or diagnoses. In a world where care is being automated, this law draws a line.
Even in the age of artificial intimacy,
some wounds still need a witness.
📅 Upcoming Events
🎓 Free Virtual Event | When the Therapy Work Ends
Making Meaning of Client Departures
Friday, August 8 | 12–1:30 PM PT | Virtual on Zoom
One flame remains, the other fades—but both offered light. A reflection on the beauty and grief of therapeutic endings.
This free NASW-CA session explores how clinicians can process the emotional impact of client loss—whether through completion, rupture, death, or disappearance.
You’ll Learn:
8 types of clinical endings
Brain-based grief responses
A community ritual for shared loss
Trauma-informed practices for goodbye
🗓 Friday, August 8 | 🕛 12:00–1:30 PM PT | 💻 Zoom
📍 For social workers, therapists, peer support, and healers.
🌲 Stillness in the Canyon
Retreat Day | Saturday, August 16th | 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM | Benedict Canyon, LA
InsightLA’s Benedict Canyon Retreat House
Silence, meditation, and nature for nervous system repair.
Suggested donation. All are welcome.
🗓 Saturday, August 16 | 9 AM–3 PM | Benedict Canyon
♀️ Wildwomxn: Honoring Grief, Awakening Gratitude
Retreat Day | Saturday, August 23rd | 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM | Benedict Canyon, LA
Alexis Slutzky has over a decade of experience gently guiding individuals and communities through grief and change with empathy, humor, and deep insight.
A day of ritual, journaling, nature, and song to explore how grief deepens our hearts. For female-identified and non-binary individuals.
Suggested donation: $75–$150
Hosted by InsightLA’s Wildwomxn Circle
🗓 Saturday, August 23 | 10 AM–5 PM | Benedict Canyon
🕯️ HOPE Group: Sitting With the Unbearable—Mindfulness & Suicidal Struggle (with Patrick Park)
Virtual (Zoom) | Saturday, August 30th | 10:00–11:30 AM PT
HOPE for all.
Since 2020, HOPE has offered quiet refuge from chaos—a space for reflection and presence.
🧘♂️ This month’s theme: Mindfulness, Deep Suffering, and Sitting with Suicide
With special guest Patrick Park, a senior Dharma teacher in the Zen tradition.
💛 Donation-based & open to all
✨ A Joyful Celebration: Honoring the 80th Birthdays of Jack Kornfield & Trudy Goodman
Saturday, September 27, 2025 | 2:00–5:00 PM PT
Jack Kornfield and Trudy Goodman—beloved teachers, partners, and pioneers in mindfulness—sharing a joyful moment ahead of their 80th birthday celebration.
Join for a heart‑opening afternoon of mindfulness, storytelling, and embodied presence as InsightLA’s beloved teachers celebrate their 80th birthdays. Over decades, Jack Kornfield and Trudy Goodman have brought the Dharma to millions—through wisdom, compassion, and example.
What to expect:
Guided presence and meditative reflection
Stories and teachings from cherished teachers: Dan Harris, Sharon Salzberg, George Mumford, Joseph Goldstein, Tara Brach, Spring Washam—and more. Each offers a favorite insight.
Genuine connection, gentle laughter, and a shared offering of gratitude
Why this matters:
Jack and Trudy are not just teachers—they are elders of our community, carriers of lineage and love. Their lives have shaped what it means to carry grief with open hearts, to hold presence under pressure, and to teach kindness as a form of resistance.
Your presence is a gift: Proceeds support InsightLA’s mission to bring mindfulness into all corners of our world—through access, equity, and unwavering care.
📍 First Presbyterian Church, Santa Monica + Live Online
🌊 Grief Help from the California Grief Center
Brian Stefan, LCSW
Founder & Clinical Director
California Grief Center
You don’t have to grieve alone.
Whether you've lost someone, lost your way, or carry unspoken sorrow—there’s a place for you here.
💬 What We Offer
🧠 Grief Therapy
Individual, couple, and family sessions available in-person (Los Angeles) and virtually across California and nationwide.
Specialties include: suicide loss, traumatic grief, anticipatory grief, and hidden or disenfranchised grief.
🎭 Catharsis Theater
Monthly in-person and virtual psychodrama gatherings.
No performance. Just presence. Just healing. Just truth.
🌐 Virtual Support Groups
Facilitated, confidential spaces for:
– Suicide loss survivors
– Those navigating ambiguous or complicated grief
– People experiencing identity transitions, isolation, or emotional stuckness
📚 Grief Counselor Training – Fall 2025
Become a certified CGC Grief Counselor (coaching model).
Includes experiential learning, somatic tools, and trauma-informed practice.
💡 Our Philosophy
We don’t treat grief as a problem.
We treat it as a passage.
✨ Consultations are always free.
When you’re ready—we’ll walk beside you.
💛 With care,
Brian Stefan, LCSW
Founder & Clinical Director
California Grief Center
✅ P.S. Know someone quietly grieving?
👉 Forward this letter. You never know who needs it.
💌 To get these in your inbox, sign up for The Grief Wave Newsletter.
Facing the hurt — together.