The Grief Wave: Last HOPE Gathering This Saturday

🧭 TL;DR | This Week at a Glance

✨ Profiles & Ideas
🩺 Dr. Aditi U. Joshi — Building a future where digital health serves humanity
🌊 Grief 101: The Body Keeps Score — How grief lives in our physical being and why mourning hurts everywhere
🕯️ Disability Awareness Month (October) — Fostering inclusion, accessibility, and equal opportunities for all

📰 News & Reminders
🌱 Healing After War — Ukraine’s efforts to rebuild lives of a million veterans
🚒 A Lifeline for California’s Incarcerated Firefighters — Higher pay on the horizon
💔 A Silent Crisis — The surge of firearm suicides among older women

🎉 Events & Gatherings
🎉 Sep 27 — Jack Kornfield & Trudy Goodman’s 80th Celebration (Santa Monica | Virtual)
🌅 Sep 27 — September Mindfulness & Deep Suffering HOPE Group — Final Session (Donation-based | Virtual)

🌊 California Grief Center
Therapy, groups, Catharsis Theater, and training for every stage of grief.

💌 Dear friends of The Grief Wave,

Each season brings its own reckonings. Autumn asks us to notice the quiet shifts—the shortening days, the falling leaves, the way light softens and changes the world around us. Grief moves with these same rhythms: endings that whisper into beginnings, tides that recede yet leave their mark.

This week’s newsletter carries reflections on how grief shows up in the body, how societies struggle to support those carrying trauma, and how communities—whether in Ukraine, California, or our own circles—create spaces of resilience.

Grief is not only absence. It is also presence, binding us to one another in memory, in meaning, and in the work of beginning again.

✨ Profiles & Ideas

🩺 Dr. Aditi U. Joshi

Building a future where digital health serves humanity

Dr. Aditi U. Joshi, MD, MSc, is transforming how we deliver healthcare in a digital age. After more than a decade on the frontlines of emergency medicine and virtual care, she has become one of the field’s clearest voices, ensuring that innovation serves patients first and foremost.

As co-creator of the globally adopted Telehealth Success Framework, CEO of Ardexia and founder of Nagamed Consulting, Dr. Joshi has built and scaled digital health programs that work in real-world practice. She has held leadership roles at Doctor on Demand and Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, and she now advises health systems, startups, and governments on clinical integration, reimbursement, and digital empathy.

Her vision is bold: a healthcare system where digital tools expand access without eroding humanity, where evidence drives adoption instead of profit alone, and where every patient encounter—virtual or in-person—remains rooted in care, dignity, and connection. She wants to ensure that medicine remains rooted in humanity and ensures a safe space for patients.

🌊 Grief 101: The Body Keeps Score

How grief lives in our physical being and why mourning hurts everywhere

Grief is the body’s echo, and when it rises, the whole self feels unsettled. Sleep fractures, breath shortens, appetite fades, and muscles ache as though love itself were lodged beneath the skin. Doctors may find nothing wrong, yet the body insists that loss is real. Each symptom is not weakness, but a signal of bonds broken.

Science traces these patterns in the heart, the immune system, and the rhythms of stress hormones. They are not illusions but evidence—blood pressure shifting, dreams disrupted, inflammation rising. The body keeps score of absence, even when language cannot.

Our task is to defend this truth—listening to what the body tells us, choosing care over dismissal, so that mourning can become a path toward healing rather than a burden to silence.

🕯️ Disability Awareness Month (October)

Fostering inclusion, accessibility, and equal opportunities for all

Disability Awareness Month is remembered not just as an observance, but as a testament to resilience and progress. Born from decades of activism, it honors the value, talent, and contributions of people with disabilities while reminding us that inclusion is a civil right. It proves that equity is not optional—it is the foundation of a thriving community.

Over generations, advocates redefined what accessibility means, leading to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act—now marking its 35th anniversary. The law stands as both a milestone and a call to action, urging us to continue dismantling barriers and creating spaces where all can belong.

The legacy endures—in every workplace that embraces inclusive hiring, every classroom that opens to diverse learners, and every community that chooses access not as a checklist, but as its guiding principle.

📰 News & Reminders

🌱 Healing After War

Ukraine’s efforts to rebuild lives of a million veterans

A new NPR report details how Ukrainian veterans are struggling to return to civilian life after years on the front lines. Many carry visible wounds and invisible trauma, facing loneliness, addiction, and the weight of loss. Programs like the Lviv Habilitation Center offer rehab, therapy, and community, but resources remain scarce compared to the scale of need.

The story highlights more than one man’s recovery — it shows how a nation must learn to reintegrate over a million veterans. Local leaders, psychologists, and families are stepping in, creating spaces for healing and connection. Read the full article to see how Ukraine is confronting this challenge.

🚒 A Lifeline for California’s Incarcerated Firefighters

Higher pay on the horizon

California’s incarcerated firefighters may soon see a dramatic change in pay, after lawmakers approved a bill to raise their wages from just over $1 per hour to the federal minimum of $7.25 while assigned to active fires. The move comes after years of calls to improve conditions for the roughly 2,000 inmates who volunteer for the dangerous work, clearing brush and cutting fire lines on the front lines of the state’s wildfire battles.

The legislation underscores more than one labor fight — it shows how California is rethinking the value of incarcerated workers who risk their lives during fire season. Supporters argue higher wages could help reduce recidivism, allow savings for life after release, and acknowledge contributions long overlooked. Read the full article to see how lawmakers, opponents, and advocates are weighing the costs and stakes.

💔 A Silent Crisis

The surge of firearm suicides among older women

A new study by researchers at UCLA Luskin and Boston University found that firearm suicides are rising sharply among women aged 65 and older, reversing decades of decline. While older men remain 13 times more likely to die by firearm suicide, the proportion of suicides by gun among older women grew from 34.9% in 2014 to nearly 40% in 2023, highlighting shifting risks tied to increased gun ownership.

Experts noted that more than 90% of the 63,599 firearm suicides among adults 65 and older during this decade were men, but the pace of increase among women outstripped that of men. They emphasized that firearms are the leading method of suicide in older adults, with survival far less likely when guns are used. Researchers also pointed to differences across states, with southern states showing the highest firearm suicide proportions, while states with stricter gun laws had lower rates.

The findings underscore the urgent need for interventions tailored to older populations, particularly women, as the U.S. senior population grows. Researchers urged healthcare providers to ask older patients about firearm access and to expand mental health care, noting that open conversations and stronger policies could save lives in an aging society.

🎉 Events & Gatherings

🎉 A Joyful Celebration: Honoring the 80th Birthdays of Jack Kornfield & Trudy Goodman

Saturday, September 27, 2025 | 2:00–5:00 PM PT

Guided presence, shared stories, and gratitude for two beloved mindfulness teachers. Proceeds support InsightLA’s mission of access, equity, and care.

📅 Saturday, September 27 | 2:00–5:00 PM PT | Santa Monica + Live Online

🌅 Hope Group: September Mindfulness & Deep Suffering Gathering — Final Session

Virtual (Zoom) | Saturday, September 27, 2025 | 11:00–12:30 PM PT

After more than five years together, it is time to bring the HOPE Group (Healing Ourselves through the Present Moment) to a close. What began as a space for mindfulness practice and honest conversations about grief, despair, and deep suffering has become a community of care, presence, and resilience.

We are deeply grateful to Trudy Goodman, Rosamaria Segura, and the entire InsightLA family for supporting this one-of-a-kind practice group. Our heartfelt thanks also go to the many guest dharma teachers and facilitators who have shared their wisdom over the years, including Carolina Huete-Lehman, LMFT, Dr. Jamie Gamboa, Patrick Park, Natasha Morisawa, LMFT, and many others.

And a special thank-you to Trudy, who joined us each year to guide us through teachings on endings and beginnings.

As we close this chapter, we turn gently upstream, carrying forward the spirit of presence into a new gathering devoted to grief, loss, change, and transition. Starting in October, we will meet this new age of grief with mindful awareness, heartful practice, and a compassionate online community.

All are welcome to join our regular Mindfulness-Based Grief Relief (MBGR) series.

💛 Donation-based & open to all.

🌊 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.

💛 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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