C’mon in…and welcome.
A little closer…can you hear me now?
I want to talk about something that nobody wants to talk about.
GOOD GRIEF!
I know that does not sound sexy, but it is and I am here to prove it! I created Permission Granted to open up the NOT SAD and TOTALLY INSPIRED conversation that needs to be happening here on Sub stack and at your kitchen tables, board rooms and water coolers.
The reason I write this newsletter?
I want to help change the daily vernacular to include GRIEF! Small g and capitol G grief! That can be hard in a grief denying society
Think of Permission Granted as a rope. A hand up. Grab it and climb aboard. It’s windy and blustery and sunny and some days it will knock you right off course. I am here to catch you. What I know for sure? We need to see ourselves in the words and worlds of others. Finding words when it feels impossible to form them is a grief thing! Being witnessed essential. Community, a balm and lifeline. Nobody should ever grieve alone.
SO LET’S TALK ABOUT IT!
Inside you’ll get, lessons, leanings, learnings, stories and PERMISSION to show up as your 360 degree self with grief on board. For three plus, hard-earned decades as a griever myself - comes hard won wisdom. My training and life experience are now yours.
WHY SUBSCRIBE?
You’ll receive:
The most up to date grief informed tools, techniques and voices in the space.
Write to Heal workshops: science-backed & prompt led writing hours every month
Q&A: Ask me anything sessions!
Grief Support Circles & Community
WHY BE A PAID SUBSCRIBER?
Paid subscriptions fund The Memory Circle - my on line and in person grief support groups. Everyone deserves support, but not everyone can afford it. Your monthly five bucks offers at least ONE free space in every six week session. Thank you!
My hope is that a word or two, or perhaps an essay will resonate, bubble up a “me too” feeling in you, encourage you to share, or to give me a buzz to help support you in naming, taming and better understanding your grief, grieving and learning to live with loss.
I’ve been sitting alongside grievers for decades. What I hear when we get griefy?
I feel like you give me permission!
In a grief illiterate and largely death denying society - don’t we all deserve to grieve out loud!
Oh sure, I am happy to take the credit (thank you very much, and you’re welcome). But really, YOU, you can give yourself permission. To show up as all of you. The truest and most on purpose you. The one that makes you sit straight up in your seat. Perhaps I was just a believing mirror for the truth you knew and had all along, my dear. …and who doesn’t need one of those magic mirrors around at all times?
You showed up for yourself. I just gave it a name.
I am 30 ish years into grieving the loss of my mother, miscarriages, a marriage and a heap of coaching and educational trainings and life lessons behind me, that I want to share. Maybe it will ease your journey. Make the heavy lifting lighter? Help you flex your resiliency muscle. We will all experience grief and loss in our lifetime and I believe we never need to go it alone.
Death and non-death loss come our way on the daily. Because we are a grief illiterate society - we talk about it in hushed tones. Or heck, not at all. My mission is to make grief of every incarnation part of a daily vernacular. And part of yours.
Defining Grief?
To define grief in psychological terms, grief is a normal emotional response to a significant loss. What the actual fact! Normal? If I know anything to be true. The only thing normal about it, is that it happens. To us all.
WHO IS BARRI GRANT?
To know me is to know that I come by my love of bad words (and larger fascination with beautiful words) as part of my DNA. My Mom Ellen was the OG sailor mouth and the cleverest of copy writers. She was a true wordsmith with the most gorgeous vocabulary and bookshelf. She died in ‘93 of a brain aneurysm, on a day off on the beach. Here and gone without warning. After years as a reporter for The Chicago Tribune and Chicago Magazine, as a publicist and brand marketer and author x four books, I realized that sharing my earned wisdom was the work that mattered most to me. I began rounding up motherless daughters in circles and then The Memory Circle was born. I slapped on the self-proclaimed Chief Grief Officer™ title (earned it!) and opened a door where there was not one before. That and many trainings later, here we are…
Please note: This is NOT therapy. It’s right here in black and white so that you know. I can refer a fantastic grief informed therapist and I can coach you on your journey — but this, this is not a substitute for that!
So meet me here…and yourself too,
x, Barri
PS. You won’t have to worry about missing anything as a subscriber. Every new edition of the newsletter goes directly to your inbox. Read it when you have time. Tell a friend or two…too. It’s all free at the moment, but your paid subscription helps fund a spot in my grief support groups! Hope you will consider it if you have the means and my words have supported you.
join the circle
I believe every circle comes together for a reason, I am glad you found your way inside. Support groups, retreats, book lists, pods I love and a free gift await.
