People and practices for meeting loss with care
Grief moves at its own pace. It shows up in more forms than we expect, after a death, or the quieter loss of a life you thought you were building. No calendar tells it when to arrive or when to ease. For anyone sitting with loss right now, or walking beside someone who is, we gathered a few people and practices that meet grief with care.
Grief lives in the body
Grief lives in the whole of us, and the body carries its share. You might feel it as tension in your chest, or an exhaustion that sleep doesn’t touch. Two people we admire teach ways to work with grief where it lands.
Bernadette Pleasant, a grief educator and somatic healer, has spent years teaching movement as a way through loss. She created Femme!, a practice that pairs movement and sound so people can release what words alone cannot reach. In her Flawless Talk Shake It Out: Movement, Grief, and Somatic Healing, she shows how the body holds what the mind has not yet processed, and offers gentle ways to begin.
Dr. Scott Lyons approaches grief through the body as well. A clinical psychologist and mind-body medicine specialist, he founded The Embody Lab and developed Somatic Stress Release, a method for working with stress and trauma where they live, in the nervous system. His teaching gives people practical tools when grief leaves them feeling stuck. You can explore his work at The Embody Lab.
More than five stages
Many people know grief through the five stages that Elisabeth Kübler-Ross named. David Kessler worked alongside her, and later added a sixth: finding meaning after loss. He founded Grief.com and wrote Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief, offering language and community for people who are grieving. His work makes room for the idea that meaning does not erase loss, and can grow beside it.
Saying it out loud
Talking about loss can make it lighter. On his podcast All There Is, Anderson Cooper sits with others in their grief and shows how much honesty helps. We wrote about what his conversations offer in Finding Healing Through Grief, a reflection on why speaking grief aloud loosens its hold.
When the loss is to suicide
Losing someone to suicide carries a grief of its own, often tangled with questions that have no clean answers. You do not carry it alone. Flawless keeps a page of Resources for Suicide Loss Survivors, gathering support for this specific kind of loss.
Showing up for someone who is grieving
Two small acts help more than most people realize. Say the name of the person they lost, out loud, without fear of reminding them. And keep checking in after the first week, when the meals stop arriving and the calls slow down. Grief outlasts the attention around it.
Why we gathered this
Flawless treats the whole person, not a diagnosis or a single symptom. Grief asks the same of us. It affects us on every level of our being, and reaches the people nearby. The people and practices here are a place to begin, whichever one meets you where you are.
Further Reading and Resources
Shake It Out: Movement, Grief, and Somatic Healing with Bernadette Pleasant
The Embody Lab with Dr. Scott Lyons
Finding Healing Through Grief: Anderson Cooper’s All There Is
All There Is with Anderson Cooper
Resources for Suicide Loss Survivors
If you or someone you know needs to talk to someone right now, call, text, or chat 988 for a free, confidential conversation with a trained counselor, available 24/7.
