🌀 The Grief Wave – July 22, 2025 | California Grief Center

🧭 TL;DR | This Week at a Glance

🌟 A Milestone Moment
Dr. Berenecea Johnson Eanes becomes the first woman president of Cal State LA—a historic win for equity and leadership.

🎭 Upcoming Events & Healing on Stage
Catharsis Theater returns this Saturday (7/26) in Culver City for our 38th grief gathering—an experiential space for release and renewal.

🧠 Grief 101
Modern psychology is still growing up—and we’re only beginning to explore the oceanic depths of loss.

📉 Women’s Health Setback
A troubling FDA ruling downplays long-known risks—reviving dangerous myths about women’s health and pregnancy.

🏳️‍🌈 A Lifeline Lost
The LGBTQIA+ youth crisis line quietly shuts down—leaving thousands without trusted support in a time of rising need.

🕊️ A Promise Broken
Afghan allies who risked everything for the U.S. are being detained by ICE—a betrayal of safety, trust, and conscience.

👨‍👧‍👦 New Fatherhood Groups
Two new groups launch in LA to support men in the quiet grief and growth of early fatherhood.

🏕️ Camp Erin Seeks Families
Know a grieving child or teen? Help us spread the word about this free one-day grief support camp in Los Angeles.

🌊 Support from the California Grief Center
We offer nationwide grief therapy, virtual groups, communal healing, and professional training—so no one has to grieve alone.

💌 Dear friends of the California Grief Center,

In a time of distortion, we look to those who still tell the truth.

We are living through an age of revision: of science, memory, policy, and care. If we’re not careful, we risk slipping backward into the very shadows we’ve fought to leave behind.

This past week, truth has felt slippery—especially in mental health. Misinformation swirls. Old wounds reopen. Beneath the noise, grief deepens—unspoken, untreated, often misunderstood.

This week’s Grief Wave holds heartbreak and hope side by side: the closure of a lifeline for LGBTQIA+ youth, the betrayal of Afghan allies, new offerings for grieving families, and a healing theater space for anyone carrying the weight of sorrow.

Because to heal honestly, we must name what’s still broken—and feel it together.

🌟 Honoring a Woman of Courage: Dr. Berenecea Johnson Eanes

Dr. Berenecea Johnson Eanes will be formally invested as the Ninth President of Cal State LA on Monday, August 18, 2025—the first woman to hold this role in the university’s 78-year history.

She leads with presence, not just policy. A social worker by training and a champion of equity, she listens deeply, plans boldly, and acts with care. Her "100 Days of Listening" affirmed what we know: real leadership starts with human voices.

In a time of division, surveillance, and fear, Dr. Eanes leads with courage. We need leaders like her—and we’re lucky to have her.

At Cal State LA. In Los Angeles. In this moment.

🌱 Upcoming Gatherings for Collective Healing

Because some sorrows are too heavy to hold by yourself.

🎭 This Saturday: Catharsis Theater for Grief & Loss

July 26 | 1–4:30 PM | Blue Door Theater, Culver City

You don’t need a diagnosis to grieve. 

And you don’t need to grieve alone.

Catharsis Theater is a powerful, in-person healing experience for anyone carrying sorrow, loss, or emotional pain. Rooted in the time-tested methods of psychodrama and sociometry—pioneered in the 1920s by Dr. J.L. Moreno and embraced throughout the 20th century—this gathering blends classic therapeutic theater with modern, trauma-informed care.

Since 2023, we've welcomed participants to 38 gatherings and counting, each one a space for truth-telling, connection, and emotional release.

✨ Why it works:

• Not traditional therapy—but deeply therapeutic.

• Not performance—but raw, real, and restorative

• Not scripted—but structured for emotional safety

👉 For any loss, change, or transition—personal, professional, relational, political, planetary, past or future.

💬 What participants are saying:

🎟️ 40 spots available | Tiered pricing
💸 Use code NASW for a free ticket if needed

📍 July 26 | 1–4:30 PM | Blue Door Theater, Culver City

🙏 Special thanks to ArtsUp! LA for hosting. 
A portion of all proceeds supports their vital mission: inclusive, accessible healing arts for LA communities.

🕯️ HOPE: Mindfulness & Healing for Deep Suffering

Saturday, July 26 | 10–11:30 AM PT | Virtual (Zoom)

Since 2020, HOPE has created space for quiet reflection and shared presence.
This month’s theme: Mindfulness, Disability & Change, featuring guests from ArtsUp! LA.

🧘‍♂️ Guided meditation, reflection, and grounding ritual
💛 Donation-based & open to all

🪻 Rooted Together: Support During the Political Storm

Thursday, July 31 | 12:00–1:00 PM PT | Virtual | Free

Co-hosted with NASW-CA, this free weekly support group welcomes social workers, helpers, and all impacted by state violence or political grief.

Led by Brian Stefan, LCSW and NASW-CA facilitators.
✨ A place to exhale.

🧠 Grief 101: Psychology Is Still Growing Up

Modern psychology is still an adolescent science. Theories like Continuing Bonds and the Dual Process Model laid groundwork in the 1990s, but we’re still only scratching the surface.

Today, EMDR, somatic therapy, and plant medicine show that grief doesn’t live in tidy stages — it lives in the body, the breath, and the oceans beneath language.

📉 The Yellow Wallpaper, Rewritten: Psychiatry and Misogyny Today

A recent FDA advisory panel shocked many in the field by downplaying the risks of antidepressants during pregnancy—contradicting decades of research and promoting misinformation that could harm women’s health and safety.

It’s more than bad science. It’s a reminder that the medical world is still too comfortable labeling women as irrational, fragile, or unreliable narrators of their own pain.

It’s The Yellow Wallpaper all over again—a woman locked in a room, her truth erased by the very people meant to care for her.

We must not go back.
We must center lived experience. We must trust women. And we must never forget that grief is not a pathology. It’s a truth-telling force.

🏳️‍🌈 The Quiet Death of a Lifeline: LGBTQIA+ Crisis Line Closes

Last week, one of the only 24/7 suicide prevention lines for LGBTQIA+ individuals shut down operations. In a time of rising anti-LGBTQIA+ policies and violence, this loss is devastating.

For many, it wasn’t just a hotline—it was a lifeline. A place where identity and suffering could coexist without judgment or fear.

The Trans Lifeline remains open and continues to serve the community with care:
📞 877-565-8860 | www.translifeline.org

We need more spaces like this, not fewer.
We cannot allow those in pain to fall through the cracks.

🕊️ Betrayal at the Border: Afghan Allies Detained by ICE

Over 100,000 Afghans worked alongside U.S. and coalition forces during the war in Afghanistan. They were promised safety, visas, and a new life in the U.S.

Now, many are being detained by ICE and threatened with deportation.

This is not just a betrayal of a promise—it is a betrayal of conscience.
Grief is not just personal. Sometimes, it’s political.

We’ll share more soon on how you can support refugee rights and honor the lives of those who risked everything to stand beside us.

👨‍👧‍👦 New Fatherhood Groups for Men in LA

If you’re a man—or if you love one—this is for you.

In a time when too many men are silently suffering, cut off from safe, nurturing relationships and expected to ‘hold it all together,’ fatherhood can bring both immense joy and quiet grief.

Whether you're expecting your first child or deep in the chaos of raising young kids, these new small groups—led by licensed therapist and parenting coach Brandon Gross, LMFT—offer something rare:
A space for men to be honest, heard, and supported.

This isn’t therapy. It’s not performance. It’s real talk and real connection for men navigating one of life’s biggest transitions.

🫂 All who identify as male are welcome.

📍 Two Group Tracks

• Group 1: Expectant Fathers

• Group 2: Fathers with a child ages 0–5

📆 What's Included

• 4 weekly Zoom sessions

• 1 in-person gathering

• Tools, insights, and the strength of group wisdom

• A space to breathe—and not feel so alone

💰 Cost: $250 total
(Sliding scale available — no one turned away)

Because the opposite of pain isn’t numbness.
It’s connection.
Not the absence of suffering, but the presence of understanding, camaraderie, and shared humanity.

📨 Next Steps
To save your spot or schedule a brief, no-pressure call with Brandon:
📧 Email [email protected]

Know someone who might benefit? Share this with him. Sometimes the hardest part is simply starting.

🏕️ Camp Erin: A Healing Summer for Grieving Kids in LA

When a child or teen experiences the death of someone close, the road ahead can feel unbearably lonely, confusing, and heavy with emotion. But thanks to Camp Erin Los Angeles—hosted by the dedicated team at OUR HOUSE Grief Support Center—young people don’t have to carry their grief alone.

🗓️ Camp Erin 2025 is a free, one-day grief support camp held in Glendale, California, on Saturday, August 23 or Sunday, August 24. It’s open to children and teens ages 6–17, along with their parents or guardians.

Through powerful and creative activities like plate smashing, music therapy, therapy ponies, rock climbing, and camper sharing circles, Camp Erin helps grieving families express themselves, connect with others, and take meaningful steps toward healing—together.

💬 One camper shared:

Another young attendee said:

Grief doesn’t disappear. But it can be held, witnessed, and softened in safe, compassionate spaces like Camp Erin. Grief shared becomes a little more bearable. These moments of connection help children and families find a way forward—with courage, care, and community.

🧡 Know a family who might benefit? Please help spread the word. While volunteer roles are currently full, Camp Erin is still welcoming new participants.

📞 To learn more or refer a family, contact:
Juliana Sanabria, ACSW, MSW
Clinical Coordinator of Camp & Children’s Programs
📧 [email protected]
📱 (310) 231-3186
🌐 ourhouse-grief.org/camp-erin

Because grief is too much for a child to carry alone. And they shouldn't have to.

🌊 What the California Grief Center Offers

Whether you’ve lost someone, lost your way, or are holding unspoken sorrow—we’re here.

The California Grief Center offers:

• 🧠 Grief therapy (individual, family, couples)

• 🌎 Virtual support groups (nationwide)

• 🎭 Catharsis Theater events (monthly)

• 📚 Grief counselor training program (Fall 2025 launch)

We meet people in their grief—and walk with them toward meaning.

✨ Consultations are always free.
Whenever you're ready—we're here.

💌 Closing Words

Grief doesn’t ask us to be strong.
It asks us to be honest.

Thank you for helping carry this wave of truth, meaning, and care into the world. The world is a little softer, a little braver—because you’re in it.

Until next time, stay tender. Stay awake. Stay human.

💛 With care,
Brian Stefan, LCSW
Founder & Clinical Director
California Grief Center

✅ P.S.
Know someone quietly grieving?
👉 Forward this letter. Everyone belongs. You never know who needs it.
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