The Grief Wave: Holding Each Other in the Quiet

🧭 TL;DR | This Week at a Glance

🌟 Dr. Jennifer R. Levin: Guiding Light in the Wake of Sudden Loss
Honoring an expert whose wisdom, tools, and deep compassion help people find their way through the unsteady, aching terrain of traumatic grief.

❤️ Grief 101: When Grief Refuses to Move On
Understanding Prolonged Grief Disorder, why naming it matters, and how to move forward when love feels trapped in time.

🎭 Catharsis Theater for Loss & Grief Relief — Saturday, August 30 (Los Angeles)
For anyone carrying loss, past, present, or to come. Be witnessed, find release, and feel less alone. Our 40th event since 2023.

🏭 Pittsburgh’s Grief After the Headlines Fade
In the shadow of the U.S. Steel tragedy, a community begins the quiet, ongoing work of remembrance and care.

🌍 When Public Health Falters
Losses that could have been prevented, and what it takes to rebuild trust in the systems meant to protect us.

💊 What’s in Your Medicine Cabinet?
Safety alerts on widely used prescriptions and the unseen risks that can bring harm to already vulnerable lives.

🛑 When Obsession Turns Into Harm
Recognizing stalking for what it is: a threat that isolates, frightens, and leaves lasting emotional wounds.

📷 The Company That Missed the Moment
Kodak’s fall as a cautionary tale of denial, change, and the grief that comes when we refuse to adapt.

🌲 Stillness in the Canyon — Saturday, August 16 (Los Angeles)
A nature-based retreat for nervous system repair, quiet reflection, and space to breathe again.

🌿 Wildwomxn Retreat — Saturday, August 23 (Los Angeles)
Ritual, song, and the natural world as companions for grief, gratitude, and resilience.

🕯 HOPE Group — Saturday, August 30 (Online)
Mindfulness practice and gentle presence for those living with suicidal struggle, guided by Patrick Park.

🎂 Celebrating Jack Kornfield & Trudy Goodman’s 80th — Saturday, September 27
An afternoon of joy, wisdom, and shared presence with two teachers who have shaped generations of healing work.

🌊 CGC Therapy, Groups, and Training
Loss was never meant to be carried alone. Support, connection, and guidance for every stage of the grief journey.

💌 Dear friends of The Grief Wave,

Some weeks are not marked by breaking news, but by what follows: the long, slow ache after the cameras turn away.

This week brings the quiet persistence of grief in Pittsburgh after lives were lost at U.S. Steel, the unshakable reality of loss that refuses to move on, and the healing work of those who guide others through its rawest terrain. We meet Dr. Jennifer Levin, whose wisdom and tools help people survive sudden and traumatic loss. We return to the stage of Catharsis Theater, where grief takes form in story and movement. We look at public health crises stealing lives, the medicines we trust, and the moments when safety is threatened in intimate and public spaces alike.

And still, there is remembering. There is gathering. There is the will to carry love forward without being crushed by it.

In the midst of it all, we come together — to witness, to feel, to hold what hurts, and to keep choosing connection.

From Pittsburgh to the theater stage, from the medicine cabinet to the canyon, this is a week for holding grief — and each other — in the quiet after the headlines.

May it meet you where you are.
May it move you toward healing.

🌟 Dr. Jennifer R. Levin: Guiding Light in the Wake of Sudden Loss

Honoring an expert whose wisdom and compassion guide people through the aching terrain of traumatic grief.

Dr. Jennifer R. Levin, PhD, LMFT, FT, has been a steady hand in the wilderness of traumatic grief. Not as a detached observer, but as a therapist, educator, and fellow traveler, she has walked into the most shattered moments of people’s lives and offered a way forward.

Her work does not erase pain. It honors it, making space for both sorrow and strength. She has been a voice for those who felt voiceless, and her impact is measured in the lives that have found meaning, connection, and hope through her guidance.

Beneath the titles and credentials is an expert who listens deeply, speaks truth, and refuses to turn away from suffering.

🙏 Thank you, Dr. Levin. Your light continues to lead us through the dark.

❤️ Grief 101: When Grief Refuses to Move On

Understanding Prolonged Grief Disorder — why naming it matters and how to move forward when love feels trapped in time.

In March 2022, grief entered the DSM-5-TR. For the first time, Prolonged Grief Disorder had a name. Long before it was clinical, it was human — something our ancestors knew in their bones.

We live in a world where love can get trapped in time:

• A wedding ring still warm in your palm

• A chair forever empty at the dinner table

• A memory that plays on loop

The same heart that clings to what was also holds the power to heal. Naming grief is not pathologizing love. It is finding the door when you have wandered the same hallway for too long.

🎭 Catharsis Theater for Loss & Grief Relief

Saturday, August 30, 2025 | Culver City, CA

For anyone carrying loss — past, present, or to come — be witnessed, find release, and feel less alone in this psychodrama-inspired space.

Our 40th Catharsis Theater gathering since 2023 — a psychodrama-inspired, trauma-informed space for emotional release, truth-telling, and collective healing.

📅 Saturday, August 30 | 1:00–4:30 PM (arrive 12:30–12:45)
📍 Blue Door Theater, Culver City
🎟️ ~40 spots available

What is Catharsis Theater?
A gathering rooted in psychodrama, sociometry, and proven group methods that help people get unstuck, restore connection, and move forward. No performance. No fixing. Just truth, tenderness, and release.

✨ 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.
With gratitude to ArtsUp! LA for hosting.

🏭 Pittsburgh’s Grief After the Headlines Fade

In the shadow of the U.S. Steel tragedy, a community will quietly work to remember and care.

An explosion at U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works in Pennsylvania claimed two lives and injured many others. Like past industrial tragedies in Texas City, Monongah Mine, and Imperial Sugar, the deepest grief work often begins after the news crews leave.

This is the quiet phase of loss, when a community turns to memorials, survivor networks, and the hard work of advocating for safer workplaces. It is the long walk together after the rest of the world has moved on.

🌍 When Public Health Falters

Preventable losses — and how to rebuild trust in the systems meant to protect us.

U.S. vaccination rates are falling for the fifth year in a row, measles cases are at a 30-year high, and funding for science and global health is being cut.

Millions of preventable deaths could follow. Budgets can be restored, but rebuilding trust will take much longer.

💊 What’s in Your Medicine Cabinet?

Safety alerts on common prescriptions — and the hidden risks to vulnerable lives.

A ProPublica investigation found the FDA has quietly allowed more than 150 drugs from banned foreign factories into the U.S. since 2013.

Intended to prevent shortages, the exemptions were hidden from the public and rarely tested, leaving questions about safety and harm.

📅 Upcoming Events for Help & Healing

🌲 Stillness in the Canyon

Retreat Day | Saturday, August 16 | 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM | Benedict Canyon, LA

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 23 | 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM | Benedict Canyon, LA

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 30 | 10:00–11:30 AM PT

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

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

🌊 Get Help from the California Grief Center

You do not have to grieve alone. Whether you have lost someone, lost your way, or carry unspoken sorrow, there is a place for you here.

💬 What We Offer
🧠 Grief Therapy — In-person and virtual
🎭 Catharsis Theater — Monthly gatherings
🌐 Virtual Support Groups — Confidential and facilitated
📚 Grief Counselor Training — Fall 2025

💡 Our Philosophy
We do not treat grief as a problem. We treat it as a passage.

✨ Consultations are always free. When you are ready, we will 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.
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