Navigating Personal & Collective Grief During the Holidays

The holiday season can intensify grief in profound ways—especially when you’re navigating the loss of a loved one or carrying community-wide sorrow after a disaster like Hurricane Melissa. This 90-minute online workshop offers a compassionate, trauma-informed space to slow down, breathe, and receive support.

Using evidence-based grief education (including holiday-related grief responses, STUGs, boundaries, and self-care strategies) and whole-person healing practices, we will explore how to move through this emotionally charged time with intention, safety, and support.

You will leave with tools, clarity, and nourishing practices to help you honor your grief your way this holiday season.

WHO THIS SPACE IS FOR

This workshop is for you if you are:
• Grieving the death of a loved one
• Holding community-level grief after Hurricane Melissa
• Feeling disconnected, overwhelmed, or anxious about the upcoming holidays
• Unsure how to balance traditions, expectations, and emotional pain
• Seeking a supportive environment to pause, reflect, and heal

WHAT WE WILL EXPLORE

1. Why Holidays Intensify Grief
We discuss the emotional, physical, cognitive, behavioral, and spiritual effects of grief, including the pressure of traditions, memories, and expectations that often make this time of year especially challenging .

2. Personal + Collective Grief After Disaster
We acknowledge how grief may be amplified by displacement, cultural disruption, uncertainty, and community-wide trauma—experiences many are facing after Hurricane Melissa.

3. Making a Plan That Aligns With Your Grief
A grief-informed approach to setting expectations, choosing what to participate in, and creating a holiday plan that feels safe, supportive, and aligned with your emotional capacity .

4. Boundaries With Others — and Yourself
Learn how to communicate needs, limit overwhelm, and allow space for emotions without guilt or pressure. Explore ways to honor both your grief and your energy this season.

5. Honoring Loved Ones & Creating Rituals
We introduce simple rituals—candle lighting, storytelling, playlists, donation traditions, or quiet remembrance—that help maintain connection across time and space .

6. Meaning-Making & Spiritual Grounding
Gentle reflection on what you want this holiday season to symbolize for you now. Space to explore new or evolving meanings that support your healing journey .

7. Coping Skills for Holiday Grief
Practical tools such as grounding exercises, journaling, grief time-outs, nature-based practices, and supportive community engagement.

WHAT YOU WILL RECEIVE

• A compassionate, culturally attuned grief workshop
• Grounding practices to help regulate emotional overwhelm
• A guided exercise to create your personalized “Holiday Grief Support Plan”
• New rituals you can incorporate into your holiday season
• Community connection with others who truly understand
• A follow-up resource sheet with coping practices and readings

WHAT TO BRING

• Openness to being supported

Facilitator

Nia Dezonie

Holistic Psychotherapist, Ph.D. Student, End-of-Life Doula & Founder of The Wholistik Living Project LLC

Nia integrates trauma-informed care, community healing frameworks, and holistic practices rooted in ancestral wisdom to support individuals and families navigating grief, loss, and collective trauma. Her work centers compassion, cultural dignity, and whole-person healing.

ACCESS INFORMATION

This workshop will be hosted via Zoom. A link will be emailed immediately after registration.