What is a Grief Wheel?

In all my 27 years of practice as a therapist and almost 10 years as a grief coach, I have helped 1000’s of people deal with grief and trauma. And I want to add that I have helped with any kind of grief not just death loss. Grief is so much more than death loss. 

I am a firm believer in this quote by Francis Weller: “Not all grief carries trauma, but all trauma carries grief.” 

In fact, I had one session with a woman that speaks to the truth of that statement. She lost her dad to an “in-order” death, he was in his 80’s and it had been expected. I gave her some tools to be with her grief. We had another session scheduled but she called me and said-“Thanks for the tools you gave me, I feel like they are really helping me and I realized that all I really need to do is just be with my emotions as they arise. So I don’t think I need to come again.”

Sometimes grief is simple, and sometimes it’s not.

Most of my clients are the opposite of her, they are the ones who are stuck in their grief. Their grief is complicated. Or as my grief mentor Sobonfu Somé would say-their grief is complex and compounded. It’s grief that needs the community or another witness to hold.  It’s multi-layered It is grief that’s connected to what she referred to as old moldy grief- the kind of grief that has been shoved deep down in boxes and set aside or hidden. It stays in the dark and affects you emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually. 

Ultimately it hijacks your life energy. It steals your ability to feel joy and limits your capacity for any kind of pleasure. 

My own grief is an example of this. It wasn’t a death loss though so much of my life had died. For those of you who are new here, my main loss was losing my partner Michael’s able body to quadriplegia from a mountain biking accident. 

I didn’t feel full authentic joy for three years. 

What complex grief needs is movement. Thus the Wheel of Grief was born-it is a program designed to help you keep your grief moving so you can have more life energy again. 

In the first module we’ll dive into what your grief is so you can bring more understanding to the nuances and complexities of your loss.

The second module brings in body support so you can BE with everything that is arising as you begin to move your grief. Grief happens in the body, and so you need tools to help support your physical being and nervous system. We will dive into the language of your body so you can tend to it as grief arises. You will work with your body not against it. This is important as you pull out those old moldy boxes and begin to unpack them. 

The third module– now that you have body support, you will begin to explore and express all of your emotions so you can manage them as they often come in all at once. You will receive my most popular tool so you can map out your grief in a way that isn’t overwhelming to your system. You will work with this map going forward.

In the 4th module you will begin to learn about the Wheel of Grief. The Wheel of Grief brings in the medicine of the four directions or Medicine Wheel as it is named here on Turtle Island. The wisdom brought forward is from one of my teachers from the Lakota tradition and another Shamanic healer rooted in the Huichol tradition. It is also informed by other world traditions such as Celtic and Nordic, which are some of my ancestral roots. 

We will begin in the West and then the next week we will start with the East. 

The West is all about the heart and emotions. You will be in the wisdom of the west so you can be with the complicated emotions that grief often brings. Then you will go to the wisdom of the east so you can learn how to begin again. The East is also about the mental body, so you will be given tools so you can be with your thoughts in an easier way.

The next module is all about the directions of the North and South. 

You will be steeped in the wisdom of the South-the area of joy, pleasure and play so you can lighten the load your heart is carrying. Then you will spend time in the North where you will focus on the mystery of grief with the support of your ancestors so you can truly know you aren’t alone and begin to understand the meaning of your loss, You will begin to feel a tiny thread to answer the question-why.

The next module will be to pull all the directions together. You will begin to see that the wheel of grief is another tool for you to use as you navigate your losses. We will take time in this module to honor your grief through ceremony so you can feel supported by the elements, the directions and our group community. You are not alone in this.

If you feel the call to join this group, I invite you to sign up for a Grief Transformation Call so that we can chat more about the group. Bring your curiosities and questions. I would be honored to chat with you about your grief. Sign up here: https://l.bttr.to/Yq9jT

Also, I if you’d like get a taste of how I work, come to my next free online masterclass called: Transform Grief: 3 Keys to Cultivate Joy and Rekindle Purpose. It’s Tuesday, August 12th from 5:30-7pm MST. I have added a new piece to these classes with a Grief Circle time-you will be able to share your grief and be witnessed by the group. I heard you say-we need more grief ritual spaces and places to share our grief. This will be an ongoing monthly practice going forward. Sign up here to join: https://transformgrief-cultivatejoy.eventbrite.com

Thanks for being here, for living whole-heartedly, for letting your hearts break so our spirits don’t have to. In honor of Andrea Gibson, who I’m still grieving. 

Let’s continue to be Grief Astronomers.