This is the place for you.
About Good Grief Network
Good Grief Network is a nonprofit organization that brings people together to metabolize collective grief, eco-anxiety, and other heavy emotions that arise in response to daunting planetary crises.
Using a 10-Step approach inspired by the Alcoholics Anonymous model, we run peer-to-peer support groups that help folks recognize, feel, and process their heavy emotions, so that these feelings may be transformed into meaningful action.
Our Mission
Good Grief Network creates spaces to gather in community, process the painful feelings and realities of our time, and commit to meaningful action.
ROOT
We help individuals be with and care for themselves and others as tumult grows.
RISE
We invest in relational actions, to help folks build strong and emergent communities of mutual care.
PRUNE
We work to dissect and deconstruct cultural messages so that we can see reality as it really is.
BLOOM
We practice opening to ideas and trying on perspectives we haven’t considered before.
Our Impact
50+
Programs
facilitated
⎯⎯
GGN has run over 50 official and affiliate
10-Step programs worldwide
1,000+
people reached
⎯⎯
In fewer than 4 years, our 10-Step Program has reached over 1,000 people on five continents
200+
FACILITATION
PACKAGES
⎯⎯
We’ve sold over 200 Facilitation Packages to people in 15 countries who are interested in running the 10-Steps in their own communities
94% Of program participants
⎯⎯
Say that our 10-Step Program helped them feel feel empowered to take action in their lives
96% Of program participants
⎯⎯
Say that our 10-Step Program helped them feel less alone and more connected to other people
95% Of program participants
⎯⎯
Say that our 10-Step Program helped them think in new and nuanced ways about our systemic problems
Organizational Values
At Good Grief Network, we strive to carry out our work in line with specific values that we believe are essential to the heart-centered revolution.
Interdependence
Our work is rooted in the understanding that humans depend on each other and our natural world for inspiration, support, and survival. By gathering individuals and collectively building cohesive, decentralized, and innovative communities, we become more resilient and more connected with the more-than-human world around us.
Accessibility
We offer low-cost peer-to-peer support groups because we believe that all persons have a right to affordable and inclusive emotional support services.
Compassion
Understanding that everyone reaches this work from a different place, we welcome ourselves and others to show up authentically wherever it is that we are on our journey, with whatever we perceive as our imperfections. When necessary, we call in mindful conversations and practice active listening and forgiveness.
Courage
It can feel scary to begin processing the traumas of our time and to step into our true selves. Through radical honesty and deep vulnerability, we show up and lean into difficult conversations, trusting that our community is strong enough to continually co-create brave and empowering spaces.
Intersectionality
Grief and despair live at each intersection of the planetary crises and systemic injustices being perpetuated by the dominant culture. We begin dismantling these destructive and oppressive systems by examining our privilege and decolonizing our hearts, minds, and habits.
Adaptability
We recognize that during this dynamic and unpredictable time on Earth, there is no one “right” way to face the challenges ahead. We practice flexibility and creativity that emphasizes nuanced and open-ended approaches to frameworks of change.
Discernment
Whether we are making organizational decisions, engaged in conversation, or absorbing news about the state of our world, we practice open-mindedness, curiosity, and critical thinking in order to sharpen our perceptions and make appropriate judgments.
Emergence
We believe that nuanced solutions become available when the individuals within our community interact as a wider whole. We gather people together in large and small groups because we trust in the alchemy of our shared conversations to bring about the liberated world of our dreams.
Meet the Team
LaUra Schmidt
Founding Director
LaUra (she/her) is a truth-seeker, community-builder, cultural critic, and grief worker. She is also the granddaughter of a holocaust survivor. Inspiration finds her in natural landscapes and honest, open-hearted dialogue.
Aimee Lewis Reau
Cofounder
Aimee (she/her) is a FLOW Facilitator (Fierce Lover Of Words/Wisdom/Why). She is an edgy & reverent contemplative, healer and yoga/intuitive movement instructor. To keep her sanity, Aimee dances because as Alice Walker said: “Hard times require furious dancing.” She also DJs under the name eXis10shAL.
Sarah JS
Executive Director
Sarah JS (she/her) is a sister, writer, lawyer, curious thinker, and deep feeler.
Since childhood, Sarah has observed the grace and suffering in the world and wondered, what is mine to do? She has spent a lifetime trying to answer that question by focusing her attention on international human rights law, climate justice activism, therapeutic introspection, and community resilience-building.
Dean LaCoe
Director of Outreach
Despite age, experience and an ivy league education, Dean (he/him) is often slow to catch on. He read about and saw signs of climate destruction over the decades. Only when 5,000 nearby homes in Sonoma County, CA suddenly turned to ash and smoke, did he have an awakening.
LaUra Schmidt
Founding Director
LaUra (she/her) is a truth-seeker, community-builder, cultural critic, and grief worker. She is also the granddaughter of a holocaust survivor. Inspiration finds her in natural landscapes and honest, open-hearted dialogue.
While a bit of a nomad, she hails from Michigan, and graduated with a BS in Environmental Studies, Biology, and Religious Studies. Her MS is in Environmental Humanities.
LaUra has been studying and cultivating personal and collective resilience strategies for nearly a decade. She is trained in nonviolent civil disobedience, and is a Climate Reality Leadership Corps member & mentor. LaUra & Aimee have written a book on their unique 10-Step program they run through Good Grief Network, which is expected out Spring 2023, through Shambhala Publications.
Aimee Lewis Reau
Cofounder
Aimee (she/her) is a FLOW Facilitator (Fierce Lover Of Words/Wisdom/Why). She is an edgy & reverent contemplative, healer and yoga/intuitive movement instructor. To keep her sanity, Aimee dances because as Alice Walker said: “Hard times require furious dancing.” She also DJs under the name eXis10shAL.
Aimee received her Bachelor’s degree in English, Poetry, and Religion from Central Michigan University before obtaining her MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Georgia College & State University.
Sarah
Jornsay-Silverberg
Executive Director
Sarah (she/her) is a writer, lawyer, deep thinker, and big feeler.
Since childhood, Sarah has observed the grace and suffering in the world and wondered, what is mine to do? She has spent a lifetime trying to answer that question by focusing her attention on international environmental and human rights law, climate justice activism, early childhood development, therapeutic introspection, and now, community resilience-building.
Sarah found Good Grief Network as a 10-Step participant, while searching for ways to navigate the confusing emotions she feels while trying to live in joy and service during uncertain times.
She currently spends her days balancing work, rest, and play, and exploring books and conversations that help her understand her place in the web of things. She lives as a white settler on the unceded ancestral lands of the Ramaytush Ohlone peoples.
Dean LaCoe
Director of Outreach
Despite age, experience and an ivy league education, Dean (he/him) is often slow to catch on. He read about and saw signs of climate destruction over the decades. Only when 5,000 nearby homes in Sonoma County, CA suddenly turned to ash and smoke, did he have an awakening.
Actually, first he had a panic attack.
So, he contacted the Good Grief Network looking for some “stress relief tips and tricks.” Instead, in the 10 steps, he found a supportive network of friends from around the world, a transformative vision, and an enjoyable new role helping others.
I’ve come to see that any solutions to the myriad of problems facing us, if they are to be meaningful, will come from those of us who have been brave enough to take the time and energy to feel these scary and disorienting feelings.
– LaUra Schmidt, Good Grief Network, Founding Director
Meet Our Facilitators
All Good Grief Network facilitation positions are filled by people who have participated in GGN’s Facilitation Training Program, a 30-hour, live online training with GGN’s cofounders, which trains facilitators in holding space, cultivating emotional intelligence and body awareness, supporting emergent processes, and managing group tensions. Each facilitator has participated in at least one 10-Step Program and an in-depth study of the 10-Steps.
Kasia Stepien
(Canada)
Kasia (she/her) is a mental health counsellor and former scientist living on the west coast of Canada. She first came to GGN looking for a community that shared her grief for our changing world, and is honoured to help others find that now as a GGN facilitator.
Marta Neto
(Ireland)
Marta (she/her) is a wholehearted human with a deep sense of wonder towards the planet and all life on it. Her wish to understand the microbial world has led her to move from Portugal to the UK and then to Ireland to do research in systems biology at UCC.
Tiffany Felch
(United States)
Tiffany (she/they) calls the Pacific Northwest home. She holds degrees from The Evergreen State College and Bastyr University and earns an income as a Registered Dietitian. What really lights her up, however, is learning and practicing new ways of being on this planet.
Sarah Birch
(South Africa)
Sarah (she/her) is a mother of two young girls, a family girl, and long-time climate change professional, turned Resilience Health Coach (coaching eco-conscious individuals to better health and wellness in stressful times).
Kristan Klingelhofer
(United States)
Kristan (she/her) is a mother, a writer, and a teacher. She currently teaches connection-based parenting classes and facilitates for Good Grief.
Bradley Pitts
(United States)
Bradley (he/him) is a father, husband, and artist whose work centers on grief and ambiguous loss. Born and raised in New York City he had the privilege of spending the summers of his teenage years camping and whitewater canoeing in the mountains of North Carolina.
Sarah Stoeckl
(United States)
Sarah (she/her) works in sustainability in higher education, trying to make her corner of the world more sustainable and educating the next generation for environmental action and social change.
Karen Hansen
(United States)
I (she/her) am a mother of 2 wonderful grown-up daughters and about to be a grandmother for the first time. I am an educator at heart and soul- working as a teacher or a school counselor.
Teddy Kellam
(Canada)
Teddy (she/her) is a mother of three hilarious teenagers, as well as a writer, demographic analyst, therapist-in-training and caregiver for her mother.
Lou Leet
(United States)
After earning her degree in Earth & Environmental Sciences from Wilkes University in Pennsylvania, Lou (she/her) loaded up her dog, cat and three boxes in a Toyota pickup truck and moved to Northern California.
LuAnn Collins
(United States)
After a 35+ years in education, LuAnn (she/her) now splits her time between being an indie author educator activist and homesteading.
Rosie Walford
(New Zealand)
Rosie (she/her) is a coach and facilitator who has woven ecopsychology – the way we humans relate to the living world – through her work for twenty years.
Andrew Harrell
(United States)
Andrew (he/him) lives in North Carolina, where he works for a campaign to end child hunger and spends his free time making films and drawing. He enjoys meeting new people and encountering new perspectives that challenge his own through the Good Grief Network.
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Kasia Stepien
Kasia (she/her) is a mental health counsellor and former scientist living on the west coast of Canada. She first came to GGN looking for a community that shared her grief for our changing world, and is honoured to help others find that now as a GGN facilitator.
Kasia is a long-time advocate of hospice and bereavement care, and knows it is crucial to have spaces where the complexities of grief can be voiced, validated, and supported. She believes GGN creates such a space for the grief experiences around ecological change, species loss, and systems collapse.
Kasia also loves to dance, hike, play, snuggle her pets and partner, and cultivate joy and gratitude wherever she can.
Marta Neto
Marta (she/her) is a wholehearted human with a deep sense of wonder towards the planet and all life on it. Her wish to understand the microbial world has led her to move from Portugal to the UK and then to Ireland to do research in systems biology at UCC.
Accepting that factual understanding of social and environmental predicaments is often not enough to drive individuals and institutions through transformative change she creates spaces that invite presence, honesty and connection to support people and systems in transition.
Through facilitating emergent processes like Empathy Cafes, Good Grief Network 10-Steps meetings, and Footpaths groups she meets her need for contribution while finding the communities committed to personal transformation as well as structural change she had dreamed of.
Tiffany Felch
Tiffany (she/they) calls the Pacific Northwest home. She holds degrees from The Evergreen State College and Bastyr University and earns an income as a Registered Dietitian.
What really lights her up, however, is learning and practicing new ways of being on this planet and she has found the Good Grief Network to be a vital antidote to the capitalism and White supremacy culture that have harmed so many of us. Working the 10-steps and cultivating a daily spiritual practice are now essential parts of her recipe for staying somewhat sane in these uncertain times of pandemic, climate chaos, racial uprisings and income inequality.
Tiffany is a mother of two kiddos, 3 adult step-children, 3 cats and 1 hamster. She and her hubby have navigated 10 years of marriage in a blended family with patience, grit, some tears and missteps along with a sense of humor and lots of love. Whenever possible, they can be seen hiking or biking the trail system around their home in Olympia, WA.
Sarah Birch
Sarah (She/Her) is a mother of two young girls, a family girl, and long-time climate change professional, turned Resilience Health Coach (coaching eco-conscious individuals to better health and wellness in stressful times). She loves being in water and the ocean, playing and learning in her emerging learner vegetable garden, dreaming up healthy recipes and having fun with her kids on many rambles in forests and mountains around Cape Town.
She has spent many years deeply worried about the future, but equally spent some time in a state of denial about the rapidity of the changes going on in the world. With two small girls to think about, emotions were all over the place and difficult to process!
The Good Grief network and the 10-Step Programme have been pivotal in her life in creating space to process, in improving her coping mechanisms, and finding community to lean on. She is thrilled to have the ability to hold space for others in similar predicaments as a facilitator for the Good Grief Network.
Kristan Klingelhofer
Kristan (she/her) is a mother, a writer, and a teacher. She currently teaches connection-based parenting classes and facilitates for Good Grief.
What she loves most is to be with her family in the natural world – whether backpacking in the High Sierras, collecting seaweed or spring nettles, or just watching the night sky. As a mother of three teenagers, she has spent many late-night hours contemplating how to parent well into the climate crisis.
She sought out Good Grief because she needed a safe and supportive place to explore her deep sadness about the earth and her anxiety about the future. Since then, she has discovered the powerful relationship between grief, gratitude, joy, and empowerment. She feels honored to be part of the Good Grief community.
Bradley Pitts
Bradley (he/him) is a father, husband, and artist whose work centers on grief and ambiguous loss. Born and raised in New York City he had the privilege of spending the summers of his teenage years camping and whitewater canoeing in the mountains of North Carolina.
Having always been interested in voids and the tension between absence and presence, he awakened to his grief and the possibilities therein when he became a father and lost his father within the same year.
Sarah Stoeckl
Sarah (she/her) works in sustainability in higher education, trying to make her corner of the world more sustainable and educating the next generation for environmental action and social change. Her focus areas in the work to mitigate our overlapping crises are attending to the emotional aspects of trauma and loss and foregrounding social justice.
She loves reading, writing, and cooking; running, hiking, and rock climbing; taking in the beautiful and inspiring, whether that be a mountain, ocean, wild flower, or painting; and hanging out with her partner and weird dog, Jubel.
Karen Hansen
I (she/her) am a mother of 2 wonderful grown-up daughters and about to be a grandmother for the first time.
I am an educator at heart and soul- working as a teacher or a school counselor. Choosing the international education route allowed me to earn a living while experiencing the world. Over the course of twenty years, my family and I were able to live or work on every habitable continent!
Climate concern turned to climate anxiety and grief and I was carrying that burden alone until I found the GGN. I am now ‘home’ again, in the States, and excited to be working to support others who are looking for community and a place to process what is upon us. Welcome!
Teddy Kellam
Teddy (she/her) is a mother of three hilarious teenagers, as well as a writer, demographic analyst, therapist-in-training and caregiver for her mother. Thanks to the Good Grief Network, she now identifies as an emotional warrior – a compassionate person determined to hold space for vulnerability and messy feelings as a path to freedom.
Teddy has an MA in Education and has trained in Medicine Wheel practices, emotionally-healthy parenting, yoga and hospice grief companioning. She loves having a husband, who makes her crack up when she’s angry, hiking on Vancouver Island with her dog, and cuddling her kids, who enthusiastically call her on her “stuff” while demanding back scratches.
Lou Leet
After earning her degree in Earth & Environmental Sciences from Wilkes University in Pennsylvania, Lou (she/her) loaded up her dog, cat and three boxes in a Toyota pickup truck and moved to Northern California. She inherited a love of the outdoors and the Earth from her Dad, and worked as a consultant to cleanup soil and groundwater from Alaska to San Diego.
Shamoo, Lou’s 20+ year old cat, lead her on her first natural death journey. Shortly after learning skills from hospice organizations, she founded BitterSweet Animal Hospice & Grief Recovery to help people when their animals were dying. It was a natural bridge to a life learning more about grief.
Lou is a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist and the Regional Coordinator for the Bay Area Grief Recovery Method® Specialists. She is also a recent climate immigrant to Washington State after living with California wildfires. She is an environmental professional in King County, Washington (US) supporting compliance and pollution prevention programs.
LuAnn Collins
After a 35+ years in education, LuAnn (she/her) now splits her time between being an indie author educator activist and homesteading. From her years of multi-tasking life, she knows anything is possible, wonder surrounds us, beauty is everywhere, and people are inherently decent. She vets all her ideas through her three dogs who are her constant companions, consistent in their opinion of her and role models for being truly happy.