The Grief Wave: The Tides of Grief and Gratitude

🧭 TL;DR | This Week at a Glance

✨ Profiles & Ideas
🌍 Malala Yousafzai — The girl who spoke, then listened

💔 The Ache of Democracy — When politics breaks your heart and how to get through it

📰 News & Reminders
🎗️ Cancer Doesn’t Care, But People Do — Fighting for life, not party lines

🌐 The End of the Internet as We Knew It — When everything is fake, what’s the point of social media?

🎉 Events & Gatherings

🌿 Oct 23 — From Pressure to Peace: Understanding Anxiety, Stress, and Finding Relief (Rooted Together Series) with Brian Stefan, LCSW (Hosted by NASW)
(Virtual | Free)

🧘 Oct 23 — Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction with Christiane Wolf, MD, PhD
(Santa Monica)

🔔 Nov 1 — Living Deeply Retreat with Elizabeth Stomp and Lulu Toselli
(Santa Monica & Virtual)

🙏 Nov 15 — Community Grief and Gratitude Ritual
(Santa Barbara)

🌅 Dec 3–8 — 2025 Ram Dass Legacy “Open Your Heart in Paradise” Retreat
(Napili Kai Beach Resort, Maui)

💔 The Traumatic Loss Companion Course — An online program for navigating sudden, unexpected, or traumatic loss
(Virtual | Self-Paced)

🌊 California Grief Center
Virtual grief counseling in CA and nationwide, support groups, Catharsis Theater, and companionship for every stage of loss.

💌 Dear friends of The Grief Wave,

Grief and gratitude are twin teachers—each reminding us how alive we still are. One cracks the heart open; the other fills what’s been emptied. When held together, they become a kind of alchemy—a way of turning loss into love, ache into offering.

This week, we gather around both: the courage of those who speak truth in dark times, the ache of democracy when justice falters, and the sanctuaries where people come to sing, weep, and remember.

If you’re near Santa Barbara, the Community Grief and Gratitude Ritual on November 15 offers such a space—a full day of song, silence, and shared humanity. Wherever you are, may you find your own small ritual of belonging: lighting a candle, writing a name, breathing in the simple grace of being alive.

✨ Profiles & Ideas

🌍 Malala Yousafzai

The girl who spoke, then listened

Malala Yousafzai dedicated her life to education and the courage to speak truth to power.
Born in Pakistan’s Swat Valley, she was a schoolgirl when the Taliban closed schools and banned women from public life. Refusing silence, she began speaking out for girls’ right to learn—a decision that nearly cost her life. In 2012, at age fifteen, she was shot in the head while riding home on a school bus. Her survival transformed her into a global symbol of resistance and hope, praised and politicized in equal measure.

At seventeen, she became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate in history. The honor, she later admitted, felt both humbling and heavy: it recognized not only what she had done but all she was yet to do. Leaving home for Oxford, she wrestled with identity, expectations, and trauma. Her new memoir, Finding My Way, explores that period of self-discovery—failing exams, falling in love, breaking rules, and confronting the lingering shadows of violence.

Through her Malala Fund, she continues to advocate for girls’ education worldwide. Her voice now carries both conviction and vulnerability: a reminder that healing from harm takes time, and that even heroes must learn to live as humans again. Yousafzai’s journey—from a silenced student to a global advocate—remains a testament to the enduring power of knowledge, recovery, and resilience.

💔 The Ache of Democracy

When politics breaks your heart and how to get through it

When democracy falters, grief begins quietly. A headline refresh, a map turning red—small signals of safety slipping away. Psychologists call it political grief: the ache that comes when beliefs, rights, or identity feel erased. It’s not just disappointment, but a loss of safety, agency, and trust in the world we thought we knew.

This grief lives in the body—tight shoulders, sleepless nights, hearts heavy with fear. Naming it helps. So does community. Each act of care, each moment of truth-telling, becomes a quiet form of resistance. Political grief reminds us that even in despair, connection is still possible, and healing is still work worth doing.

📰 News & Reminders

🎗️ Cancer Doesn’t Care, But People Do

Fighting for life, not party lines

In 2025, as partisan tensions deepened and a federal shutdown dragged on, more than 500 volunteers from all 50 states gathered in Washington, D.C., to remind Congress that cancer transcends politics. Organized by the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the citizen advocates — survivors, caregivers, and loved ones — urged lawmakers to sustain funding for cancer research, expand screening, and preserve health insurance subsidies crucial to patients.

Many had lost family members or friends to the disease, and all shared frustration over the country’s growing divisions. Yet for a day, they stood united in blue shirts and purpose. “Cancer doesn’t care,” said volunteer Lexy Mealing, echoing the event’s message of shared humanity. As rain fell over the National Mall during a candlelight vigil of 10,000 glowing luminaries, participants honored those lost and those still fighting — proof that compassion can bridge even the widest political divides.

🌐 The End of the Internet as We Knew It

When everything is fake, what’s the point of social media?

In 2025, a story about a girl, a puppy, and a kind police officer went viral — a perfect dose of online hope. But soon, viewers realized it wasn’t real. The car’s details were wrong, the source unknown. The post was just another product of “AI slop,” the flood of synthetic images designed for clicks. Across platforms, the launch of Sora 2, OpenAI’s new video model, brought waves of hyperreal content: popes wrestling rappers, children swept into storms, strangers placed in homes that weren’t theirs. The internet, once a place for connection, now felt like a hall of mirrors.

Critics warned that social media had become a machine for confusion — a space where truth and fabrication were indistinguishable. Some, like digital ethicist Kashyap Rajesh, argued that the loss of trust might push people back toward the tangible world. Others, like Grant Besner, began organizing “Month Offline,” inviting users to step away and rediscover life beyond the feed. What began as a medium for friendship had devolved into frictionless unreality — and perhaps, finally, the moment humans started wanting to be human again.

🎉 Events & Gatherings

🌿 From Pressure to Peace: Understanding Anxiety, Stress, and Finding Relief with Brian Stefan, LCSW

Virtual (Free) | October 23, 2025 | Thursday 12:00–1:00 PM PT

Anxiety is rarely one emotion—it’s a mix of many. Beneath the surface lie fear, sadness, anger, shame, and exhaustion—all competing for space in the nervous system. When we learn to name and work with these emotions, something shifts: clarity returns, and relief becomes possible.

Join Brian Stefan, LCSW for a 60-minute experiential session exploring how anxiety takes shape and how we can regulate the body and mind to find calm again. Together, we’ll learn simple tools for identifying emotional signals, separating stress from meaning, and restoring presence in daily life.

This practice-based session includes guided exercises, group reflection, and shared moments of renewal. Cameras on are encouraged to foster connection and presence.

💛 Open to all NASW members, colleagues, or anyone who is in a helping profession/role in their life. Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025, online via Zoom.

🧘 Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction with Christiane Wolf, MD, PhD

Santa Monica | October 23-December 18, 2025 | Thursdays 6:30 PM - 9:00 PM PT

For over 20 years, InsightLA has offered mindfulness teachings to people from all walks of life—a community gathering to find balance, peace, and well-being.

This fall, we meet at the Santa Monica Meditation Center for an eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction & Mindful Self-Compassion series with Christiane Wolf, MD, PhD. Rooted in decades of research, this program supports greater resilience, healing, and connection in daily life.

Each session welcomes both newcomers and longtime practitioners, offering guided practices, reflection, and tools for managing stress, pain, and uncertainty.

💛 Registration open now. Thursdays, Oct. 23–Dec. 18, 2025, Santa Monica.

🔔 Living Deeply Retreat with Elizabeth Stomp and Lulu Toselli

Santa Monica & Online (Hybrid) | Saturday, November 1, 2025

For over 20 years, InsightLA has welcomed people from all backgrounds into a community of mindfulness—spaces to pause, restore, and reconnect with the heart.

This fall, we gather at the Benedict Canyon Retreat House for a daylong Living Deeply Retreat with Elizabeth Stomp and Lulu Toselli. Rooted in mindfulness and compassion, the program offers guided meditation, movement, walking practice, and gentle silence in a peaceful natural setting.

Each retreat invites both newcomers and longtime practitioners, providing tools for steadiness, clarity, and care amidst life’s uncertainty.

💛 Registration open now. Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. PT, Benedict Canyon.

🙏 Community Grief and Gratitude Ritual

Santa Barbara | Saturday, November 15, 2025 | 9:30am - 5pm PST

For over two decades, Wild Belonging has gathered communities to honor the sacred connection between grief, love, and belonging—a shared space to remember, release, and renew the heart.

This fall, we meet at Trinity Episcopal Church in Santa Barbara for a Community Grief and Gratitude Ritual, a full-day gathering guided by Alexis Slutzky, MA, MFT, Elisabeth Gonella, Kolmi Majumdar, and Rene Tonalli. Inspired by ancestral and earth-based traditions, the ritual invites us to express sorrow, sing, move, and be held in the beauty of togetherness.

Each ritual welcomes all—whether you come with fresh loss or quiet gratitude—offering a place to tend the heart, transform pain into care, and remember our shared humanity.

💛 Sliding-scale donation $40–$120. Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025 | 9:30 a.m.–5 p.m. PT | Trinity Episcopal Church, Santa Barbara.

🌅 2025 Ram Dass Legacy "Open Your Heart in Paradise" Maui Retreat

Napili Kai Beach Resort | December 3-8, 2025

Since 2008, the Ram Dass Legacy Retreat has been a sanctuary for seekers—a gathering to reflect, connect, and return to the heart.

As we approach December, we meet once more at the Napili Kai Beach Resort for Open Your Heart in Paradise, honoring Ram Dass’s vision with music, meditation, teachings, and community. This beloved retreat continues to welcome pilgrims, newcomers, and longtime friends alike on the spiritual path.

All are invited to join this immersive six-day experience of silence, song, practice, and celebration in Maui.

💛 Registration open now. Dec. 3–8, 2025, Napili Bay.

💔 The Traumatic Loss Companion Course (Virtual)

An online self-help program for individuals living with the aftermath of a sudden, unexpected or traumatic death of a loved one

Since its creation, the Traumatic Loss Companion Course has been a refuge for the grieving—a guided path through pain, chaos, and the search for meaning.

As you face the aftermath of a sudden, devastating death, you are invited to join this online program led by Dr. Jennifer Levin. With warmth and clarity, she offers video modules, guided practices, and community calls designed to support you through trauma and grief, step by step.

All are welcome to begin this self-paced journey of healing, understanding, and connection with others who truly understand.

💛 Enrollment open now. 12 modules online + monthly live calls.

🌊 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.

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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