Grief.On.Purpose

Grief.On.Purpose Changing the conversation around death and grief.

Trauma isn’t always the crash, the diagnosis, the last breath. It’s what lingers inside of you afterward - how your mind...
10/03/2025

Trauma isn’t always the crash, the diagnosis, the last breath. It’s what lingers inside of you afterward - how your mind and body rewrite the story of who you are and whether the world is safe anymore. It’s not about what happened, it’s about the moments after. 

That’s why two people can live through similar deaths, and only one ends up with trauma.

When grief and trauma overlap, the pain isn’t just about missing the person you love. It’s about re-learning how to breathe in a world that feels unfamiliar. Processing them together isn’t fast or linear. It’s slow, raw work of reminding yourself: I am still here. I am still alive.

You are not behind. You’re just carrying your own shape of grief.

👉 Have you noticed how trauma has shaped your experience of grief, or do they feel separate for you?

If you have a question for home, DM us 🖤

Grief doesn’t move in straight lines, it doesn’t follow neat stages or a tidy grief timeline. Some days you’ll feel like...
09/26/2025

Grief doesn’t move in straight lines, it doesn’t follow neat stages or a tidy grief timeline.

Some days you’ll feel like you can breathe again. Other days, the weight will knock you flat, as if their death just happened. Both are normal.

Just because your person died, doesn’t mean your relationship with them is over.

Have a question for Hope? DM us 🖤

👉🏻 what part of your grief journey has surprised you the most?

👉🏻 what part of your grief journey has surprised you the most?
09/26/2025

👉🏻 what part of your grief journey has surprised you the most?

The heaviness of grief can feel like it’s too much to carry. Let’s carry it together this Su***de Prevention Awareness M...
09/21/2025

The heaviness of grief can feel like it’s too much to carry. Let’s carry it together this Su***de Prevention Awareness Month.  

If you have had someone die to su***de, you aren’t alone. 

If you or someone you know is struggling, call 988 or go to 988lifeline.com for resources. 

***dePrevention ***dePreventionAwarenessMonth ***deSurvivor

Grief is heavy, messy, and really lonely. If you’re wondering how to help a grieving friend, start by not trying to fix ...
09/19/2025

Grief is heavy, messy, and really lonely. If you’re wondering how to help a grieving friend, start by not trying to fix the loss. By just refusing to let them carry it alone. Show up, keep showing up, and speak their loved one’s name when the world goes silent.

Grief isn’t tidy. It’s messy, absurd, funny, brutal, and sometimes gothic (if you want it to be). Talking with Fred Armi...
09/18/2025

Grief isn’t tidy. It’s messy, absurd, funny, brutal, and sometimes gothic (if you want it to be).

Talking with Fred Armisen () reminded me that death reshapes us. Sometimes it’s loud thunder and Dracula funerals, sometimes it’s the weight of carrying a friend’s grief without even realizing it. Either way, it leaves a before and an after.

Learn all about my experience with Fred on my Substack or listen to the latest episode of Grief on Purpose the Podcast. 🔗 in bio

The death of a best friend shatters you in ways no one warns you about.
You lose your witness, your anchor, your safe pl...
09/12/2025

The death of a best friend shatters you in ways no one warns you about.

You lose your witness, your anchor, your safe place. The person who you actively chose to be a part of your life is dead. And the silence they leave behind feels unbearable, and yet, you’re asked to keep living inside it.

If you’re here, hurting, know that survival doesn’t mean forgetting. It means carrying their love, their energy, and their light forward. What advice would you give this griever? Comment below⬇️

Have a question for Hope? DM us 🖤 or read more about this topic at griefonpurpose.com

Grief doesn’t have to be silent. In this episode, Fred shares how laughter helps him honor memory, transform loss, and k...
09/11/2025

Grief doesn’t have to be silent. In this episode, Fred shares how laughter helps him honor memory, transform loss, and keep his friend’s spirit alive.

🎧 Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon, and www.griefonpurpose.com

“Where are the men and boys, and what are they doing with all their grief?” asked this in our conversation, after notici...
08/28/2025

“Where are the men and boys, and what are they doing with all their grief?”

asked this in our conversation, after noticing how few people assigned male at birth show up to bereavement groups.

The truth is…men grieve too. They hurt. They ache. But many were taught to carry it in silence, to swallow their pain until it calcifies.

Psychologists call this gender grief socialization. Men are often conditioned to equate vulnerability with weakness, so their sorrow gets hidden under work, anger, or withdrawal. It’s not that the grief isn’t there, it’s that they’ve been told there’s no safe place for it.

If you’re a man in mourning, your absence in those rooms doesn’t mean you don’t care. It means our culture failed to give you permission. But your grief deserves space, too.

Listen to my conversation with Jacob wherever you get your podcasts.

08/26/2025

When we talk about attachment and grief, we’re talking about how our caregivers showed up for us or didn’t.

If your needs weren’t met as a child...
If love came with fear, silence, or inconsistency…
Your brain found ways to survive.

Dissociation isn’t weakness, it’s protection. Especially in homes where feeling safe wasn’t an option.

You don’t know what’s wrong (not yet, anyways). So you become detached or numb.

And when grief hits later in life, that same old survival system kicks in.
Shutting down or pretending you're fine (when you really aren’t).

In this episode of Grief on Purpose, Beth Freese (Evolve Therapy) talks about how our attachment wounds shape the way we grieve, how understanding that can change everything, and how her own grief after losing her friend to su***de changed the way she saw the world.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

08/21/2025

What is grief, really? Is it the moment they die? Is it the ache in your chest weeks later? Is it waking up and remembering (again) that they’re gone?

Beth Freese (Evolve Therapy) believes grief is something deeper. It’s what happens after the dust settles.

It’s looking back and realizing what you needed… and didn’t get.
Who showed up and who didn’t.

How the world stopped making sense and then slowly started to again.
Grief doesn’t just break you, it rebuilds your understanding of everything.

Episode 11 of Grief on Purpose is out now, wherever you get your podcasts.

***deLoss

08/19/2025

You never know how the news will hit. Will you scream? Collapse? Go numb?

Beth (Evolve Therapy)was 15 when her friend, Ariel, died by su***de. One day they were making plans, the next she was on life support. And then she was gone.

The shock came first. Then the silence. Then the ache that hasn’t left.

Beth and her friends sat in the weight of it together, not knowing how to grieve, only that they were.

This one is for anyone who’s gotten the call. For anyone who’s walked into school, into work, into life forever changed.
For anyone who had to grow up too fast because someone you love died young.

Episode 11 of Grief on Purpose is out now. Wherever you listen.

***deLoss

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