Through the Dark Woods
Community Membership
Join a Live Zoom Support Group Where Grief in All Forms is Welcome
what people are saying about Through the dark woods
Do you love knowing the Structure & Details Up Front?
Through the Dark Woods Community Membership includes 3-4 Grief & Praise sessions/month, 1 Meditation for Nervous System Regulation & Emotional Healing session/month, as well as bonus calls which feature guest teachers and seasonal rituals.
There is the option to join a session (almost) every week. You do not need to attend all sessions though! Most people choose to join 2 or 3 sessions per month.
Grief & Praise sessions are primarily process-based – including writing practices, somatic/embodied practices, and group as well as partner/trio work. If you miss a live session, they will be recorded so you can listen and do the practices on your own or with a friend.
Elizabeth Claire Burr facilitates our Meditation for Nervous System Regulation & Emotional Healing sessions. Elizabeth is Josea’s long-time mentor & dear friend and holds a very powerful heart-centred space for transformation & awakening into our true nature which is LOVE. We are blessed to have the opportunity to sit with her in this group!
We also have a vibrant online community forum that is open 24/7 where you can connect, ask for support and receive compassionate witnessing as you practice the skills you’ll be learning alongside a group of other folks deeply committed to this work. Other perks include playlists for the journey, weekly gratitude practices, writing prompts and reflections, and poetry.
This is a deep dive and the ones who are drawn in show up as real, raw and engaged.
IMPORTANT:
No Way But Through: 4 Real Life Skills for Navigating Grief & Trauma is a Prerequisite to join Through the Dark Woods
Come as you are.
Membership is $125 USD a month or $333 for 3 months, minimum commitment is 3 months.
After that stay as long as you like or cancel anytime. Partial scholarship available for BIPOC and low income folks.
NO REFUNDS – MINIMUM 3 MONTH COMMITMENT – HERE’S WHY:
Through the Dark Woods is an ongoing membership group with an initial 3 month minimum commitment. After that you can cancel and opt-out anytime simply by sending us an email a minimum of 7 days before your next payment.
It’s important to us to create a safe, supportive container for this deep work. To help create that, when the core group welcomes someone new in, we want to know you are committed to at least journey a few months with us. We also want you to make that kind of commitment to your own healing. Be willing to give it a fair go – this kind of deep work doesn’t transform us overnight – it is a long slow process, and it should be that way. Sometimes when we’re in the depths of despair it can feel like we will never have a different experience. You will, but it won’t happen overnight. You need to give it time and commitment, just like anything we want in life.
Another reason we don’t offer refunds is because we offer a wonderful way for you to experience TTDW prior to joining via a prerequisite intro session, No Way But Through. If you have not attended one of these yet, please sign up HERE: https://darkwoodsofgrief.com/nwbt
Through the Dark Woods sessions take place on either Mondays or Wednesdays.
Grief & Praise sessions are 5-7pm PST on Mondays and 9:30-11am PST on Wednesdays. Meditation for Nervous System Regulation & Emotional Healing sessions with Elizabeth are 5:30-6:45pm PST on Mondays.
Dates of Autumn/Winter Grief & Praise Sessions:
Monday evening sessions are 2 hours @ 5-7pm PST
September 9th
October 7th & 21st
November 4th
December 2nd & 16th (Winter Solstice Releasing Ritual)
January 6th
Wednesday morning sessions are 1.5 hours @ 9:30-11am PST
September 25th
October 16th
November 13th & 27th
December 11th
January 15th
Dates of Autumn/Winter Meditation for Emotional Healing Sessions with Elizabeth:
Monday Evenings @ 5:30-6:45pm PST
September 16th
October 14th
November 18th
December 9th
January 20th
registration closes February 7th 2025
One of my core values is that money should not be a barrier to healing, and unfortunately in our post-colonial society, it often is. While we DO need to make a living at this work & support our families, we try to make it as accessible as possible. For every 3 people who pay in full, we are able to offer 1 partial scholarship. If you would like to join the monthly membership and need to apply for a partial scholarship, you can APPLY HERE.
If you would like to support our scholarship fund please email info @ darkwoodsofgrief.com and let us know!
We all walk through the dark woods of grief & trauma - but doing it alone can be unbearable.
Most of us aren’t raised with an intimate understanding of grief.
We can go through our days barely noticing that it’s there, under the surface of things.
Other days, we find it hitting us like a tidal wave and taking us down to the ground.
Sometimes we don’t know we’re stuck in grief. We can be feeling heartbreak, anger, resentment, stuckness, depression, and even anxiety and not realize that this is simply a form of unprocessed emotion.
In our culture, this is only really discussed when someone dies.
"As soon as I opened the app and experienced the exchanges, videos, and prompts, I felt safe. This is a newish experience for me. It validates that I'm on my path and as lost, uncomfortable, and weary, I feel at times. I am doing, creating and becoming who and how to be in this physical body. The tears come easy for me, this has been true for most of my life. I honor them now. I'm grateful for this community."
—Kimberley, Community Member
And yet isn’t grief innately a part of our human experience?
Martin Prechtel says that grief is totally inseparable from love.
Francis Weller says it this way: “Everything that we love, we will (some day) lose.”
For over 20 years I have been holding space for thousands of people who are on a journey of connecting more deeply to their souls. What I have seen is that for every human, simply through the very nature of being ALIVE and by virtue of being deeply connected to ourselves, each other and nature, grief is a companion we cannot avoid.
Nor would we want to, once we understand it more.
What I’ve witnessed is the more you get connected to your soul, the more you recognize grief.
As human beings, the truth is, we are pretty much guaranteed to experience loss, disappointment, & unmet needs.
A lot, if we live a long time. As Stephen Jenkinson says, “Look into the eyes of anyone over 80, and you will see someone who knows grief…”
This work isn’t just for, “Some people.”
This is for everyone.
It’s not a matter of “if” as much as a matter of, “when…”
If you feel the resonant call, I hope you will join us.
Why grieve in Community
When the world falls apart around us, we need each other more than ever….
One of the most beautiful things that I see happen over and over again in this group is the de-shamifying of each person’s grief experience.
Because society teaches us to isolate and keep our difficult emotions hidden, and show up with a smile on our faces, we often think that no one else around us has the kind of feelings we do.
We carry around not only our grief, but also a story that says, “I am alone, I am different, I am secretly broken or weird.”
Within the context of authentic sharing that happens in Through the Dark Woods, this long carried and very heavy story dissolves, and we realize we are all in fact, at our core, exactly the same.
Human. Broken. Beautiful. Alive.
And our wounds are, in fact, deeply connected with the very unique gifts we bring to the world.
Grieving is healing.
With every trauma held in our nervous system, there will come grief as we heal. As we heal, we grieve for the parts of ourselves that may have suffered for a very long time until now when they have an opportunity to have a different experience.
Grief is innate in the process of healing
"It has been incredibly helpful and valuable to learn new tools to experience and allow my anger and grief. These emotions have felt stuck for what feels like forever, and through the practices we've learned and done together, I can feel that energy leaving my body in healthy and appropriate ways. It's such a relief."
—chanda
Grief, honoured in community, helps us to find the beauty in our common humanity.
We see and feel in our bones that we are truly not alone.
This builds resilience and increases our capacity to be with the harder emotions.
Being witnessed in a compassionate and mutually vulnerable group increases our ability to have deep compassion for ourselves and others.
When we share and witness each other’s grief in community, we transform in a profound way that simply is not possible in isolation or in 1:1 therapy.
From Wounds to Gifts…
What if instead of carrying around the weight of grief & trauma as a burden, you could learn to transform it into the gifts you are here to give in this lifetime?
What if the pain, suffering and hardship you have experienced could be transmuted into a sacred offering for the world and the future generations?
This isn’t something we can force or rush, and we can’t approach it in a goal oriented way. The way of the soul is non-linear and a winding, spiralling path.
collective wounds
…Such as systemic racism, isolation, ancestral trauma and colonial structural trauma must be healed collectively, together, not in isolation.
Personal grief, when witnessed & supported in community, slowly metabolizes into something that is easier to carry on our own.
This process-based group is intended as a container to touch deeply into emotions that society has rejected – emotions that are rooted in love and our sense of justice for self, community, culture and planet.
All forms of grief are welcome – this includes personal loss and trauma, both ‘minor’ and devastating, as well more transpersonal/collective grief. All is welcome.
Why grieve in Community?
I believe firmly in the intertwined health of individual, community & ecosystem. As the world falls apart around us, we need each other now more than ever. We need to hold and be held by each other through our grief, so we can bring back resilience and vibrant health to ourselves, each other and our earth.
“I have LOVED the groups! This is an incredible, wonderfully safe group you founded. Blessings!"
—Hilarie Heinz, Counsellor
feeling the
Feels
When we make big life changes, even if we’re excited about moving in new directions, and becoming more of who we are, we need to grieve the person, life, and experiences that we’re leaving behind.
Not to mention the grief of the world around us, seemingly not ours, yet still felt by our soul, our body, and our hearts as we are interconnected with all things.
If we are sensitive and attuned to the reality of our current life on this beautiful planet, there will be grief alongside our love and gratitude for life.
I’m not saying we need to be sad all the time – no!
Quite the contrary!
As a grief-worker and therapist, I probably laugh more than most people I know. And there’s a reason for this.
The more we allow our “e-motion” to move in a skilled way, the more capacity we build in our nervous system to experience the full range of emotions – joy, anger, gratitude, sorrow, fear, courage, hopelessness and the creative tension of pure potentiality…we gain access to a full range of feeling our experience.
With every loss, every life change and transition, every personal evolution, every deep connection, there is an emotional process that needs to unfold.
"I feel more peaceful since joining this group and doing the work. I can still wake up in the early morning hours and fall into old anxiety patterns that in the past led me to deep despair. Lately I have been more willing to seek out a resource to help me stay present with my feelings and allow it to move in its own time."
— Susan, Community Member
but what actually is
Grief?
Most of us aren’t raised with an intimate understanding of grief.
We can go through our days barely noticing that it’s there, under the surface of things.
Other days, we find it hitting us like a tidal wave and taking us down to the ground.
Sometimes we don’t know we’re stuck in grief. We can be feeling heartbreak, anger, resentment, stuckness, depression, and even anxiety and not realize that this is simply a form of unprocessed emotion.
In our culture, grief is only really discussed when someone dies.
Yet with every loss, every life change and transition, every personal evolution, there is an emotional process that needs to unfold.
Even if we’re excited about moving in new directions, and becoming more of who we are, we need to release the energy of the person, life, and experiences that we’re leaving behind.
Not to mention, we carry in our bodies the trouble in the world around us, seemingly not ours, yet still felt by our soul, our body, and our heart as we’re interconnected with all things.
This too, we need a place to metabolize.
Through the Dark Woods Membership Group is a carefully curated container to address grief in ALL its forms. A consent-based place where emotion is welcome.
“Grief is the expression of healing in motion. As you make the seemingly bottomless descent, it helps to remember that grief is the downpour your soul has been thirsting for. Because what remains hidden for too long doesn’t change. It is calcified in place, often sealed by shame, left untouched and forgotten by time. But when it can finally come into the open to be seen, it is exposed to new conditions and it begins to move. It rises on a salty geyser of tears, sometimes sung to the surface by a terrific moan, streaming down our cheeks until it moistens the soil where we stand, preparing us for new growth.”
—Toko-pa Turner, Belonging
THIS IS FOR YOU IF YOU:
- Have experienced a major loss or trauma recently or in the past and want more understanding around how to process it
- Want to understand how depression, burn out, numbness, overwhelm, reactivity or unexplained waves of emotion can be connected to old unprocessed grief and trauma
- Feel like you’re carrying the weight of the world around climate change, environmental destruction, systemic racism, genocide and other global issues
- Want to know what it means to release old grief & fears that are preventing you from experiencing full intimacy & connection in your current relationships because of past hurt
- Want to understand more about how old ancestral trauma and grief could be affecting your life now and how you can help both yourself as well as future generations
"I'm learning so very much in my work with this group. This week I allowed myself to really feel and process some of the anger I've never felt comfortable with in regards to the deaths of my brother (30yrs) and mother (3years). I haven't cried so much or so often over their deaths, as I have this past month. that's a lot of years of emotional repression. i can't explain how wonderful it feels to be witnessed in this process and held in a safe container no matter what comes to the surface. Thank you for this work. It is changing my life."
~Angela, Website Designer
"I have noticed I am not afraid of my grief or other perceived “ negative “ emotions that I just seemed to have always manipulated the universe in order to avoid feeling, fear , pain sadness etc . it’s all in play now . as i develop gratitude and experience an ongoing fellowship with my grief I notice I no longer avoid circumstances that I normally would stay away from in fear of activating shame and or feelings I am afraid of . I just seem to fear forward now and I am not so concerned about how I will feel about something. my feelings don’t scare me so much anymore thus I am letting go of a lot of control."
~Stephen, Community Member
Meet the Team
We are committed to helping people access the innate wisdom of their physical & emotional bodies as a doorway to deeper awakening and freedom. We believe that while 1:1 therapy can be profound and life changing, there are things that can only be healed in the presence of community/group work.
We are a diverse team of humans and are committed to honoring the full spectrum of racial, cultural & gender identity. We recognize that we are learning and will not be perfect, but that our intention is to create a safe space where all who wish to do this work are welcome!
Josea Tamira Crossley
Team Lead, Mentor & Founder of Through the Dark Woods Community
For over 20 years, I’ve been working with grief & trauma. Through practices that work with the nervous system & rewiring the brain learned through my studies in Somatic Therapy, Attachment Theory, Deep Nature Connection, Craniosacral therapy, Shamanic Study, Tibetan Buddhism and Yoga, I’ve learned to support people to completely transform how they experience the world and themselves. As a survivor of severe childhood abuse, learning these skills was a matter of necessity.
In terms of walking through the dark woods and returning with gifts, I am a living, breathing example, and this work is my offering to you.
It is my mission to create spaces in this world where people can experience enough safety & belonging, and can gain enough skillfulness to be able to heal.
The body does the rest.
I am deeply and forever grateful to my mentors Elizabeth Claire Burr & Sonara Medicine Wolf, and for my teachers Francis Weller (author of the Wild Edge of Sorrow), Mariah Moser (Opening to Grace Relational Somatic Psychotherapy), Peter Levine & Diane Poole Heller, Irene Lyon, Jon Young, and for the influence of Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Martin Prechtel, Gabor Mate & Robert Moss.
I am a Registered Therapeutic Counsellor through ACCT Canada and can provide receipts for both 1:1 counselling and group work.
I currently live, work & play in the seaside mountain town of qathet, BC, on the traditional territory of the Tla’amin people.
Elizabeth Claire Burr
Team Mentor & Meditation for emotional healing Facilitator
Elizabeth has been studying the Vajrayana & Nature of Mind teachings in the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition with Mingyur Rinpoche since 2008. **She has taken the Bodhisattva vow, and her deepest aspiration is to support all beings with wisdom and compassion and to practice this in the world as best she can. This has come to manifest in many forms; meditation and yoga teacher, cranial sacral and somatic therapist, founder/owner of a healing arts center, kirtan leader, doula, mothering, mentoring and sacred partnership.
She embodies compassion and joy in a way that is rare in this world, and people often say they experience Love of the Divine, self and each other in a way they haven’t before when being in her presence. She currently resides by the ocean on the traditional territory of the Ligwilda’xw people; the We Wai Kai, Wei Wai Kum and Kwiakah First Nation.
Jane Spielman
Team Elder & LGTBQ2S Community Lead
Jane worked as an educator for 50 years, supporting transformative, inquiry-based literacy for children from birth through teenagers to undergraduate and graduate teacher candidates. She helped build trauma and healing informed school programs all over New York City that got to the root of what was in the way of student’s learning. When her wife of over 3 decades fell ill, she began her study of caregiving and grief. Jane believes that learning how to grieve and face trauma in safe-enough spaces is essential to physical, emotional and spiritual life; and is absolutely essential in the process of discovering the gifts we have to offer the world.
Jane has studied with Zen and Tibetan Buddhist masters, hospice providers and is a graduating student in the Dark Woods Grief Tending & Ritual Facilitation Training. Her work is grounded in these lineages as well as Somatic tools, Internal Family Systems work & Reiki.
Jane is a Jewish anti-Zionist who believes we were born for these times, and a lifelong activist, with a focus on allyship in anti-colonist struggles. She is also a proud lesbian who has always represented and collaborated with other LGBTQ2S folx.
Jane has built her own active practice in Sow the Seeds of Healing to support individuals as well as groups in somatic grief and trauma work.
Daniela Abedrabbo
BIPOC Community Lead & Facilitator
Daniela is a clinical counsellor, MPCC and RPC with the Canadian Professional Counselling Association. With over a decade of experience as a Counsellor and Certified Coach, Daniela brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to her practice.
Daniela is a highly skilled therapist with a passion for nurturing the connections that bind us together. Her expertise extends beyond the realm of traditional therapy, as she wholeheartedly embraces the beauty of all relationships—whether they be between friends, business partners, or family members and more.
Daniela enjoys the opportunity to guide individuals and groups toward rediscovering the art of truly hearing each other. She believes that genuine connection is the key to harmony and that the path to it often requires vulnerability, openness, and empathy.
In her therapeutic work, Daniela exemplifies the principles of non-judgment, trauma-informed care, and client-centered counselling. She adopts a solution-based and holistic approach, embracing the interconnectedness of the body, mind, and spirit within her practice. Compassion and kindness are at the core of Daniela’s approach. She listens deeply, offers support, and creates a safe space for her clients to explore their feelings and thoughts.
Her dedication to helping people find their light is a testament to her commitment to personal growth, healing, and strengthening the bonds that make our lives meaningful. Daniela is not just a therapist; she is a beacon of hope for those on a journey to more profound, more authentic connections.
Madison Steadwell
Online Community Manager, Facilitator & Neurodivergent Community Lead
Madison Steadwell is an artist, heartful creature and grief tender who lives on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe peoples of Fort William First Nation, now known as Thunder Bay, the land she was born into. She is currently studying Social Work and Indigenous Learning at Lakehead University. She has also completed two years of study at Wisdom of the Earth Wilderness School, and reverently carries the medicine of deep nature connection and community building.
The loss of village and colonization being one of her most heartbreaking griefs, she is devoted to learning and embodying the old wisdom, stories, rituals, and traditions of her ancestors with the intention of healing. She is also a graduating student of the Dark Woods Grief Tending & Ritual Facilitation Training, and is currently in Year 2 as an apprentice and facilitator.
Madison is autistic, and is on her journey of “breaking the masks” and becoming more of who she already is, her natural self! Being extremely sensitive, she recognizes the “wound as gift” in her autism oh so very well. She is walking the path of self love, allowing herself to exist as she is, through embodiment and courage.
Amber Keith
Community Facilitator
Amber Keith is a trauma-informed, healing-centered facilitator & educator. She is also a ritualist & coach in grief, somatic, and nature connection practices as well as an herbalist and yoga teacher. She believes in the power of community, ritual, nature, and movement to support healing and the return home to who we truly are. She has spent many years working with and advocating for refugees, women’s rights, Indigenous sovereignty, and environmental justice. Amber has a BA in International Studies from Simon Fraser University, training in mental health, somatic and grief facilitation, trauma and somatic therapies, and has led transformational youth leadership programming all over the world. She is a graduating student of the 2023 Dark Woods Grief Tending & Ritual Facilitation Training.
Kylie Judge, RTC
Community Facilitator
Kylie is passionate about living with the awareness of the inevitability of death, and she believes that when we can soften into this truth, it becomes possible to orient ourselves to living our most authentic lives. She found this embodied understanding in the experience of living with chronic illness for 25 years, and a rough initiation into grief and loss in 2016. She is passionate about creating supportive, nourishing spaces where we can come together and honour our experiences – our grief and ultimately our love. She is committed to deep listening, compassion and remembering our ancient roots together.
Kylie has a background in Education and spent the past 2.5 years working with Hospice offering grief counselling, creating programming and providing advanced care planning for clients and families. In 2023, she graduated from a three-year diploma program in Transpersonal Psychology and Counselling and is a Registered Therapeutic Counsellor with The Association of Cooperative Therapists of Canada. She is a graduate of the Dark Woods Grief Tending & Ritual Facilitation Program and is a Certified Bereavement Care Provider with the MISS Foundation for traumatic grief and bereavement. She is currently working in private practice, offering somatic relational support in-person and virtually, with a focus on grief and conscious breathwork.
What will you gain?
Personal grief and healing skills
Learn how to enter and tend to grief in a deep, meaningful and transformative way, while also improving the ability to live with the emotional ups and downs of our day to day lives.
An Approach of Balance and Self-regulation
To approach grief skillfully allows us to avoid the extremes of either suppressing our grief or being consumed by it. You’ll learn to walk the middle path - to build your capacity to be present with your grief while staying tethered to the joys available in everyday life.
Layers of Holding
Learn how to hold space for the deepest depths of emotion - your own and that of others - while also experiencing the holding of community, nature and the ancestors.
Gently Building Capacity
Your capacity to hold yourself in these tender and vulnerable places will expand, so that then even when you are alone and grief arises, you will have more ability to stay with it. This will also increase your capacity for growth, greater self expression, leadership, and the holding of the grief of others.
Trust in Yourself Thought Commitment
It is not that this process will be easy, in fact it will be difficult and there may likely be setbacks along the way, and yet progress simply for the sake of progress was never the point. Commitment to meeting yourself and showing up for these parts is where the healing happens.
Real Life Skills
You will gain the skills to move in any direction with a profound sense of choice & resilience.
Reciprocity
You will learn to ask for help directly from each other, Nature and the Ancestors, and to offer thanks in return. Because we all need help along the way, and reciprocity is key.
“To speak of sorrow works upon it, moves it from its crouched place barring the way to and from the soul’s hall.”
—Denise Levertov
What will be let go of?
You may (gently) release along the way:
- Coping mechanisms & survival strategies that are no longer serving you
- The belief that your grief or trauma as being worse than or not as significant as anyone else’s
- Feeling lost, or that you have no choice, or places where you identify, unnecessarily as a victim
Membership Details
Through the Dark Woods is a one of a kind monthly membership group. You will be walking alongside others committed to learn the skills to consciously tend to and integrate grief and trauma and to develop the capacity to honour our individual and shared pain while holding the fullness of life.
Grief tending is a long and winding road. For many, there is no start or end date and the need for community is constant. This is why I have put together an ongoing membership program.
What is included in your monthly membership of $125:
Live Group Grief Tending (Grief & Praise) Sessions via Zoom: These sessions are primarily process-based – including writing practices, somatic/embodied practices, and group as well as partner/trio work. If you miss a live session, they will be recorded so you can listen and do the practices on your own or with a friend.
Vibrant Online Community Forum: Our online community forum is open 24/7, where you can connect, ask for support and receive compassionate witnessing as you practice the skills you’ll be learning alongside a group of other folks deeply committed to this work. Other perks include playlists for the journey, weekly gratitude practices, writing prompts and reflections, and poetry.
Monthly Live Meditation for Emotional Healing Sessions with Elizabeth via Zoom: Elizabeth is Josea’s long-time mentor & dear friend and holds a very powerful heart-centred space for transformation & awakening into our true nature which is LOVE. We are blessed to have the opportunity to sit with her in this group!
registration Closes February 7th 2025
Spring/Summer 2023 Dates:
March 6th & 20th
April 3rd & 17th
May 8th & 22nd
June 5th & 19th
July 3rd & 17th
August 14th & 28th
September 11th & 25th
October 9 & 23rd
November 6th & 20th
December 4th & 18th
Spring/Summer 2023 Dates:
March 22nd
April 5th & 19th
May 10th & 24th
June 7th & 21st
July 5th & 19th
August 16th & 30th
September 13th & 27th
October 11th & 25th
November 8th & 22nd
December 6th & 20th
"I highly recommend this group if you are crawling around the edges or smack in the middle of the grief stew! It's deepening a process that was already years long and well facilitated, Yet it all feels brand new And safe."
~jane, through the dark woods group participant
"I'm learning so very much in my work with this group. This week I allowed myself to really feel and process some of the anger I've never felt comfortable with in regards to the deaths of my brother (30yrs) and mother (3years). I haven't cried so much or so often over their deaths as I have this past month. that's a lot of years of emotional repression. i can't explain how wonderful it feels to be witnessed in this process and held in a safe container no matter what comes to the surface. Thank you for this work. It is changing my life."
~ash, through the dark woods group participant
IMPORTANT:
No Way But Through: 4 Real Life Skills for Navigating Grief & Trauma is a Prerequisite to join Through the Dark Woods
You're not alone anymore.
partial scholarship spots available. priority will be given to single mamas, BIPOC, LGTBQ2S and other marginalized folks.
FAQ:
No. We open our group quarterly for registration. Currently our doors are open but will be closing on February 7th, 2025. After then, our doors will re-open in late spring of 2025.
As soon as you sign up you will receive a link to our online community forum where you will be able to dive in immediately to a supportive group setting.
Dates of Autumn/Winter “Grief & Praise” Sessions:
Monday evening sessions are 2 hours @ 5-7pm PST
September 9th
October 7th & 21st
November 4th
December 2nd & 16th (Winter Solstice Releasing Ritual)
January 6th
Wednesday morning sessions are 1.5 hours @ 9:30-11am PST
September 25th
October 16th
November 13th & 27th
December 11th
January 15th
Dates of Autumn/Winter Meditation for Emotional Healing Sessions with Elizabeth:
Monday Evenings @ 5:30-6:45pm PST
September 16th
October 14th
November 18th
December 9th
January 20th
Yes, each session is recorded. If you miss a session, you can go back and listen to it later and do the practices on your own.
This is an ongoing membership group that you subscribe to monthly, with a minimum of 3 months commitment. After 3 months you can cancel and opt-out anytime simply by sending us an email a minimum of 7 days before your next payment. It does take time to really land in the work together and start to feel the ripple effect this will have in your life. This work is not a “quick fix.” In fact this isn’t a ‘fix’ thing at all – it’s a reconditioning of our societal training to try to ‘fix’ ourselves and each other, and instead to recognize that the real healing happens when we stop trying to fix things and allow our souls to simply rest together, witnessing each other and simply being in attuned and compassionate presence together.
If you miss a live session, they will be recorded so you can listen and do the practices on your own or with a friend if you choose too, or just do the pre-recorded practices and join the next live session, no problem. There is no expectation that you attend all the sessions. Most people choose to come to 2-3 sessions per month.
You can attend as many sessions or as few as you want each month.
NO REFUNDS – MINIMUM 3 MONTH COMMITMENT – HERE’S WHY:
Through the Dark Woods is an ongoing membership group with an initial 3 month minimum commitment. After that you can cancel and opt-out anytime simply by sending us an email a minimum of 7 days before your next payment.
It’s important to us to create a safe, supportive container for this deep work. To help create that, when the core group welcomes someone new in, we want to know you are committed to at least journey a few months with us. We also want you to make that kind of commitment to your own healing. Be willing to give it a fair go – this kind of deep work doesn’t transform us overnight – it is a long slow process, and it should be that way. Sometimes when we’re in the depths of despair it can feel like we will never have a different experience. You will, but it won’t happen overnight. You need to give it time and commitment, just like anything we want in life.
Another reason we don’t offer refunds is because we offer a wonderful way for you to experience TTDW prior to joining via a prerequisite intro session, No Way But Through. If you have not yet attended one of these, please sign up HERE: https://darkwoodsofgrief.com/nwbt
Questions? Email info @ darkwoodsofgrief.com
The dark woods of grief can be frightening...
…to you if you haven’t had someone to lead you through and show you the lay of the land.
We can get stuck in the darkness of our grief, eyes-closed, terrified to open them because we don’t know what could be lurking in the shadows. And yet what is there doesn’t change, eyes open or closed.
But how do we gather the strength to open our eyes and face where we are? It helps enormously to know that we are not alone, and that we have some guidance from one who has traversed these woods before.
That’s what this group is offering. A hand to hold. Someone to lead you through the dark woods. A community to walk with you, so that you know you aren’t alone.
I have over 20 years of study and experience in working with trauma and grief and have been facilitating Grief Ritual and process work for the past four years. My work is grounded in training in Somatic Therapy, Attachment Theory, Healing Sexual Trauma, Deep Nature Connection, Craniosacral therapy, Somato Emotional Release, Shamanic Study, Tibetan Buddhism and Yoga.
I have trained with expert grief facilitators Francis Weller (author, Wild Edge of Sorrow) and Randy Jones (author, Medicine Without an Expiry Date), as well as key Somatic & Relational Therapy teachers Mariah Moser (Relational Somatic Psychotherapy), Peter Levine (SE), Diane Poole Heller (DARe), Irene Lyon (SmartBodySmartMind), Elizabeth Claire Burr (CST, SER & Vijnana Yoga) & 8 Shields Institute.
I am a Registered Therapeutic Counsellor through the Association of Cooperative Counselling Therapists of Canada and am generally covered by Pacific Blue Cross, Sun Life, Manulife, Claimsecure, Equitable Life of Canada, Alberta Blue Cross & Green Shield and can provide receipts for both 1:1 counselling and group work.
