I am looking for paid speaking engagements for 15 – 100 people (I can accommodate more in special circumstances) on the following topics:
Grief and ways to process the bereavement experience
The uses of creative modalities in difficult life situations
Pandemic Grief in the workplace and at home
Vicarious Trauma and Compassion Fatigue
Anxiety is my Super Power
Grief through the Creative Lens: Specific tools that can help
Becoming WHOLE again after loss
I offer dynamic, experiential talks on grief, creative process and the intersection between expression and healing. I can help medical professionals and therapists learn more about thanatology, current research models and my own ideas on working through grief using different lenses and modalities.
Agencies who are experiencing compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma and anxiety in the workplace will benefit from my program called Healing the Helpers, which has been presented at mental health agencies, to counselors and to doctors, social workers and hospitalists.
I offer keynote addresses which synthesize the theme of the conference, engaging participants in thoughtful approaches to end of life issues, death, dying and bereavement as well as utilizing creative pathways to learn to live fully again after loss.
I approach grief through the lens of creative expression, having spent my life in the performing arts. I came to the work of grief counseling after being suddenly being widowed. Losing my husband left me feeling shattered and I longed to repair myself, put my life back together and learn to become whole again. In my own deep grief, I turned to journaling, expressing through movement, music, even embroidering pictures of memories from my marriage. What I discovered is that creativity allows us to explore our emotions and thoughts in deeper ways which helps us moves us through grief. Writing, drawing, collage and other modalities become pathways back to memory, insights and paths towards how to live fully after loss.
I have studied grief and continue to learn as current research develops new techniques. The imaginal and creative activities that I use with my clients are beneficial for grief related to the death of someone close as well as non-death losses including pandemic related grief.
I bring my lifetime experience as a musician, choreographer, writer to my work. I have traveled and experienced different cultures, am deeply interested in literature, philosophy and conscious relationships. My life as a performer makes me a dynamic speaker and my experience gives me the ability to connect with an audience, engaging them in exploring their own creativity.
In this iteration of my life, I am a certified grief counselor and a fellow in thanatology with a Masters in Transpersonal Psychology with a focus on creativity. I maintain a private practice in Hudson, NY, helping bereaved clients coping with the death of someone close, or with other grief related issues such as divorce, transitional losses or illness. I present workshops and talks on the benefits of a creative approach to grief, and on compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma in the workplace. I am a consultant at Inova Hospital in Fairfax, Virginia, working with patients coping with chronic illness and lung transplants, assisting them in turning anxiety into a superpower and promoting self-care for wellness.
My workshops on Becoming Whole again, The Shell of Memory and Healing the Helpers have been presented at the ReImagine Virtual Festival during COVID, at the Open Center in New York City and at conferences around the US. I have been a guest faculty presenter at Ramapo College in New Jersey and am on the faculty of the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition.
I am the author of The Karuna Cards, a deck of creative ideas for grief and difficult life transitions, which is a deck of 52 cards with prompts for journaling, creative expression and being in nature to process grief. My book, Shattered by Grief: Picking up the Pieces to become WHOLE again contains some personal memoir along with stories from clients. It also presents a view of grief through the word WHOLE along with suggestions for expressing one’s grief experience to honor the past, feel the emotions and explore the possible future.
Many medical and therapy training programs do not contain classes on bereavement yet all of us will encounter grieving people during the course of our lives, both personally and professionally. The Creative Toolkit for Working with Grief and Bereavement: A Practitioners Guide was written to address the deficit in the training of practitioners and presents an overview of grief theory including current research models. I also offer a view of grief through different lenses and present 30 flexible activity sheets that can be copied and used by practitioners with their clients.