Peer-Led Grief Support Circles

Support Circle Description:

This offering is meant for anyone caring for a neurodivergent child who is craving connection with others who are navigating a similar path, anyone who might feel simultaneously grateful for their journey with these kiddos and also sometimes overwhelmed by it. Our hope is to build community through shared experience and offer one another support.

Support Circle Leaders:

Michael Townley (she/her) is an early childhood educator who has experience with neurodivergence both professionally and personally, as a mom of two. She sees the need in her own parent community for conversation and connection among caregivers about shared experiences; she loves helping connect families with helpful ideas and resources.

Sarah Cowan (she/her) is a school nurse, a life coach, and mother of a neurodivergent teenager. As a life coach, she is passionate about supporting the well-being of humans who spend much of their time and energy caring for others - by helping them to reduce overwhelm, build resilience, and learn to care for themselves as compassionately as they care for others.

Support Circle Details:

4th Wednesday of the Month

4:30 PM - 6:30 PM

Oct 28, Nov 25, Dec 23, Jan 27, Feb 24, March 24, April 28

Sliding-Scale | $120-$200

Registration is for all 7

Non-refundable but you can transfer to another circle or gift to another person.

Support Circle Description:

Metro Surge exposed us to some of the most horrific actions human beings take against others. Metro Surge also showed us some of the most awe-inspiring and authentically fierce actions human beings can take with one another. In between those extremes, in the before and after, there is grief. While some of that grief has been experienced and named communally, there remain layers of deeper, lesser named, unexplored and still held, grief. Themes this circle may invite are trust, conflict within the resistance, connection and the role of Whiteness.

Support Circle Description:

A support circle for dads who did not have an active relationship with their own fathers before becoming dads themselves. Whether because of death, estrangement, divorce, absence, or choices their fathers made.

This circle offers space to explore the grief, questions, and complex emotions that can surface while parenting without a father to turn to.

Together, participants can reflect on what was missing, what they carry forward, and the kind of fathers they are choosing to become.

You do not need to have had a close or uncomplicated relationship with your father for his absence to matter. This is a space to be witnessed, connect with other dads, and bring care to the parts of fatherhood that can feel especially tender or lonely. Oh, and have fun too!

Circle Leader:

Kevin (he/him) identifies as a multi-racial, dad to two children, ages seven and two. He brings personal experience to this circle as a father who grew up without his own father’s physical or emotional presence. His father was absent from his life by the time Kevin was five years old. In 2009 is father died and he found himself planning a funeral for a parent he never got to know.

Kevin understands the complicated grief of losing an absent parent and becoming a father without having been fathered in the ways he needed. He offers this space as a place for other dads to speak honestly about absence, loss, anger, longing, identity, and the fathers they are choosing to become.

Support Circle Details:

4th Wednesday of the Month

7:00 PM - 9:00 PM

Oct 28, Nov 25, Dec 23, Jan 27, Feb 24, March 24, April 28

Sliding-Scale | $120-$200

Registration is for all 7

Registration is non-refundable but you can transfer your spot to another support circle or gift it.

Support Circle Description:

As we grow, expand, and become who we truly are, we experience loss: people, places, identities, roles, beliefs and worldviews, and so much more. This group is for LGBTQ+ folks who are currently living into the “both/and” of the brilliance and joy that accompanies authentic living - and - the losses that can often go unacknowledged as we come home to ourselves, and refuse to self-abandon in the name of connection.

This group will center creative self-expression in ways that resonate with the participants: song, movement, poetry, and visual process art and collage. No art or music experience necessary. Come just as you are!

“We shake with joy, we shake with grief

What a time they have, these two

Housed as they are in the same body.”

Evidence by Mary Oliver

Support Circle Leaders:

Krista Costin (she/they) is a fierce advocate for healing and lover of life. The COVID-19 pandemic was the start of a homecoming for claiming her true sexuality, exploring gender, grieving the loss of a long held career, and going back to school for a new one in her mid-30's. It's never too late to become more YOU.

Mo (she/they) was raised in a small, homeschooled, Christian-Nationalist environment. As they questioned their way out, they unburied themselves. Even with how joyous and liberating the journey has been, it has meant grieving all that comes from leaving a world behind. It has meant grieving what happened just as much as what didn't happen. Mo is drawn to holding this circle, because shey knows the importance of not feeling alone and magnifying one another's light.

Support Circle Details:

3rd Thursday of the Month

7 PM - 9 PM

Oct 15, Nov 19, Dec 17, Jan 21, Feb 18, March 18, April 15

Sliding-Scale | $120-$200

Registration is for all 7

Registration is non-refundable but you can transfer your spot to another support circle or gift it.

Support Circle Description:

Holding space for the losses we can name, the ones we can’t, and the experience of living between what was, what is, and what comes next.

A World, Felt is a circle for the grief of living between what was and what comes next. Sometimes something we relied on, imagined, belonged to, or expected no longer feels intact, while whatever comes next remains uncertain. These losses may involve our bodies, relationships, communities, identities, sense of belonging, imagined futures, or the larger world around us.

Together, we’ll explore these in-between places through deep listening, conversation, sensory and contemplative practices, and creative exploration. We’ll make room for grief as both deeply personal and shaped by the worlds we live in, staying curious about what hurts, what matters, what might be changed, and what may need to be witnessed and accompanied.

Support Circle Leader:

Amelia is a mother and former public health educator whose life, in recent years, has centered increasingly around caregiving, mutual aid, and community. She has long been curious about how our personal experiences are shaped by the larger worlds we inhabit, and how we find our way through change, loss, and uncertainty. She is drawn to spaces where people can listen deeply, stay curious, and be together with questions that don’t have easy answers.

Support Circle Details:

3rd Saturday of the Month

1:00 PM - 3:00 PM

Oct 17, Nov 21, Dec 19, Jan 16, Feb 20, March 20, April 17

Sliding-Scale | $120-$200

Registration is for all 7 circles.

Registration is non-refundable but you can transfer your spot to another support circle or gift it.

Support Circle Description:

This is a circle for Asian Americans seeking an affinity space to share, witness, and hold whatever grief or loss we are carrying. Topics may include but are not limited to cultural loss and intergenerational trauma.

Support Circle Leader:

As a child of Korean immigrants, Felise Park (she/her) knows something of the grief that can live quietly between generations. She is passionate about creating affinity spaces for Asian Americans and BIPOC folks to name, share, and hold what we carry, individually and collectively. Felise says, “I am here because I believe in the power of storytelling, witnessing, and being witnessed in community.”

Support Circle Details:

3rd Saturday of the Month

7:00 PM - 9:00 PM

Oct 17, Nov 21, Dec 19, Jan 16, Feb 20, March 20, April 17

Sliding-Scale | $120-$200

Registration is for all 7 circles.

Registration is non-refundable but you can transfer your spot to another support circle or gift it.

Support Circle Description:

Navigating the loss of a partner or spouse at a young age (~45 or under; no hard limits on age) and at any point in your loss journey.

Support Circle Leader:

Karen lost their partner of 7 years to brain cancer in July of 2025. Since then, some of the most meaningful grief support they continue to seek out are grief groups where they get to connect with peers. They hope to bring community to others who are at any point in their journey of partner/spouse loss through this circle.

They bring their grief alongside them to work in the realm of Higher Education and walk this life path with their best lil guy, Kirby, a rambunctious and cuddly 2 and a half year old American Staffordshire Terrier/Pittie Mix.

Support Circle Details:

3rd Friday of the Month

6:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Oct 16, Nov 20, Dec 18, Jan 15, Feb 19, March 19, April 16

Sliding-Scale | $120-$200

Registration covers all 7 circles.

Registration is non-refundable but you can transfer your spot to another support circle or gift it.

Support Circle Description:

The Too Much Club is for people who have been told, directly or indirectly, that they are “too much”—too sensitive, too emotional, too intense, too complicated, too difficult, or simply too much. This circle will gather around the grief that can come from being misunderstood, dismissed, rejected, or made to feel that something fundamental about who we are is a problem.

Together, we’ll explore the particular grief of being sensitive in a world that doesn’t always know what to do with sensitivity: the grief of shrinking ourselves to belong, hiding parts of who we are, apologizing for our needs, and learning to question our own experiences. We’ll also make room for the beauty, depth, connection, creativity, and empathy that sensitivity can bring—without pretending that being sensitive is always easy or that every aspect of it needs to be reframed as a gift.

Support Circle Leader:

Malinda (she/her) is a therapist, lifelong learner, and deeply sensitive human who has spent much of her life learning how to navigate a world that can sometimes make sensitivity feel like a flaw. Both personally and professionally, she has witnessed the grief that can come from feeling misunderstood, rejected, invalidated, or like we need to shrink ourselves to belong.

Malinda is drawn to creating spaces where people can bring their whole selves—including the tender, complicated, intense, and “too much” parts—and experience the relief of being genuinely seen and understood.

Support Circle Details:

1st Wednesday of the Month

7:00 PM - 9:00 PM

Oct 7, Nov 4, Dec 2, Jan 6, Feb 3, March 3, April 7

Sliding-Scale | $120-$200

Registration covers all 7 circles.

Registration is non-refundable but you can transfer your spot to another support circle or gift it.

Support Circle Description:

Over seven months, the creative practices will follow a gentle arc: remembering our mothers, exploring our continuing bonds, reflecting on what they gave us, making space for what is missing, navigating motherhood without them, expressing what remains unsaid, and considering what we carry forward.

Simple, tactile practices using fiber, collage, photographs, words, and found materials will offer another way to explore what can be difficult to put into words. The focus is on reflection and expression rather than the finished product, leaving space for each participant to find her own meaning.

The Full Arc

October: Pieces of Her - Who was she?

Create a collage from photographs, handwriting, recipes, words, colors, fabric, and other fragments that evoke who she was.

November: Her Hands - What do I remember?

Trace a hand and fill it with fabric, fibers, images, and words representing what her hands made, held, taught, or cared for.

December: The Invisible Thread - Where is our connection now?

Choose yarn, ribbon, and fibers representing aspects of your bond and knot, braid, wrap, or weave them into a small fiber piece.

January: What I Inherited - What of her lives in me?

Layer words, images, paper, fabric, and thread to explore the qualities, traditions, quirks, values, and pieces of her you carry.

February: Mothering Without My Mother - Where do I feel her absence as a mother?

Create a layered collage using torn paper and fabric, allowing gaps and unfinished spaces to represent both absence and presence in your own motherhood.

March: What I Wish I Could Tell Her - What remains in our conversation?

Write words, stories, questions, or everyday things you wish you could tell her onto fabric strips and weave them together—keeping them visible or hidden.

April: What I Carry Forward - What do I carry with me?

Use fibers and collage materials from the previous months to create a small keepsake representing whatever you choose to carry with you beyond the circle.

The art itself gradually becomes a metaphor for grief: fragments, layers, holes, knots, threads, unfinished edges, things inherited, things connected, things carried. There's no expectation that participants produce beautiful artwork- or that their grief becomes tidy by April.

Support Circle Leader:

Deborah Getsug (she/her) is a St. Paul native, mother, artist, educator, and community builder who lost her beloved mother to cancer in 2025. Her experience of mothering without her own mother draws her to create space for others who understand this particular kind of loss. With a background in visual arts, education, and creating meaningful experiences for children and adults, Deborah believes making with our hands can give shape to what is sometimes hardest to put into words.

Support Circle Details:

3rd Thursday of the Month

4 PM - 6 PM

Oct 15, Nov 19, Dec 17, Jan 21, Feb 18, March 18, April 15

Sliding-Scale | $120-$200

Registration covers all 7 circles.

Registration is non-refundable but you can transfer your spot to another support circle or gift it.

Support Circle Description:

This circle is for people navigating the experience of running their own businesses, whether their venture is well into the ideation stage, up and running, or shut down. We will gather around the grief, uncertainty, isolation, and shifting sense of identity that can arise through the experience of entrepreneurship.

Together, we will explore, outside of the performative demands of Instagram, TikTok or LinkedIn, the real adversities that come with being self-employed: mental health, financial pressure, responsibility to dependents, self-esteem, uncertain pipelines, the absence of a blueprint, and the question of when to keep going, change course, or let go. We will also examine the stories we inherit about entrepreneurship, and consider how we might define success and failure for ourselves.

This group will be peer-informed and responsive to the people who gather. In the first month, the plan is to bring attention to the internal signals we may have learned to override in order to take risks and keep our businesses moving forward. From there, the peer leader will develop new subjects and practices each month, guided by the desires and needs of circle members.

Support Circle Leader:

Molly Clark (she/her) co-founded a food business 11 years ago and is now navigating the experience of stepping away from it.

Through conversations with other founders and entrepreneurs, she has noticed how often endings are met with silence—whether from embarrassment, exhaustion, or uncertainty about what comes next. She has also witnessed how many entrepreneurs who appear to be thriving may privately be struggling.

Molly is drawn to stewarding conversations that offer dignity and space to those who have ended a business, while creating a needed outlet for those who are choosing to keep going.

Support Circle Details:

4th Sunday of the Month

9:30 AM - 11:30 AM

Oct 25, Nov 22, Dec 27, Jan 24, Feb 28, March 28, April 25

Sliding-Scale | $120-$200

Registration covers all 7 circles.

Registration is non-refundable but you can transfer your spot to another support circle or gift it.

Support Circle Description:

For those grieving the death of a parent, whether the loss is recent or many years ago. Losing a parent can shift our sense of family, identity, belonging, and where we locate ourselves in the world.

Together, we’ll make room for the many layers of parent loss, the relationship that was, the relationship we wished for, what was left unfinished, the ways grief changes over time, and what it means to continue living while carrying someone who is no longer physically here.

Through shared reflection, simple grief practices, creativity, conversation, and witnessing, this circle offers a place to bring your grief as it is without needing to explain it, fix it, or move on from it.

Support Circle Leader:

Losing her father in 2017 was life changing. Mary is a compassionate social worker and would be honored to walk beside you as you navigate losing a parent.

Support Circle Details:

2nd Sunday of the Month

9:30 AM - 11:30 AM

Oct 11, Nov 8, Dec 13, Jan 10, Feb 14, March 14, April 11

Sliding-Scale | $120-$200

Registration covers all 7 circles.

Registration is non-refundable but you can transfer your spot to another support circle or gift it.

Support Circle Description:

Anticipating a loss of any person or part of our lives can come simultaneously and in many forms. Maybe we have a loved one who is ill or aging. Maybe an adult child is leaving home or we know deep inside that it's time to end a relationship or a marriage. All of these pending changes bring sorrow on a timeline that we cannot always predict. Let's gather to support each other on the way.

Support Circle Leader:

Marian has a background in higher education and pastoral ministry. She knows the power of small groups coming together to share their experiences. She is currently mourning the aging of my parents and the illness of a dear friend. She also had a sister and family move far away.

Support Circle Details:

3rd Wednesday of the Month

4:30 PM - 6:30 PM

Oct 21, Nov 18, Dec 16, Jan 20, Feb 17, March 17, April 21

Sliding-Scale | $120-$200

Registration covers all 7 circles.

Registration is non-refundable but you can transfer your spot to another support circle or gift it.

Support Circle Description:

This peer-led support circle is for those who have lived outside the confines of traditional society.

We'll cover losing loved ones, grief of lost opportunities, unlived milestones, past lives and the cost of non-conformity. I'd like to incorporate journaling practices along with movement/ somatic grounding/breathing/ the healing water, and the objects representing how your grief feels. Depending on the groups feelings, Kaily would like to bring in exercises such as; Writing letters to our lost loved ones expressing things that were left unsaid, Story circles, Silent practice of painting grief, writing "unlived eulogies" letters not to a loved one but to a lost opportunity or experience based on refusal to conform, Building altars of release, I would also like to ask for involvement from the group, open up the circle to different practices that others are currently using if any.

Support Circle Leader:

Kaily is an end-of-life doula providing non-medical, compassionate care for people navigating life transitions. Their practice centers on serving distinct subcultures and DIY communities.

Outside of their work, they are deeply rooted in local art and music communities and are passionate about creating more open, honest conversations around grief, death, and end-of-life experiences.

Support Circle Details:

2nd Friday of the Month

6:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Oct 9, Nov 13, Dec 11, Jan 8, Feb 12, March 12, April 9

Sliding-Scale | $120-$200

Registration covers all 7 circles.

Registration is non-refundable but you can transfer your spot to another support circle or gift it.

Circle Description:

Making Room for Grief is a space for people grieving a life, identity, relationship, milestone, or future they once imagined for themselves.

This might include grief connected to major life transitions, changes in health or ability, relationships ending or changing, family or career paths unfolding differently than expected, or simply finding yourself somewhere you never imagined you would be.

We are interested in making room for these less-visible forms of grief, including losses that may not always be recognized or understood as grief by the people around us. Together, we might explore themes of identity, expectation, change, belonging, letting go, and what it means to hold grief for what might have been while remaining curious about what may still be emerging.

We envision the circle as conversational and participant-led, with the experiences and needs of the people who gather helping to shape where we go together. We’d like to incorporate gentle opportunities for reflection, such as journaling or shared prompts, while leaving plenty of room for conversation, connection, silence, and simply being witnessed. We hope is to create a space where there is no expectation to find a silver lining or arrive at a particular place, but where we can make room and navigate the vast terrain of our grief and loss.

Support Circle Leaders:

Jade (she/they) is a board-certified coach, facilitator, and psychology student who cares deeply about creating spaces where people can show up as they are and feel genuinely heard. Their own life has taken plenty of unexpected turns, giving them a personal understanding of the grief that can come with letting go of the life, relationships, identities, or future we once imagined for ourselves. They’re drawn to honest conversation, genuine curiosity, and the kind of connection that reminds us we don’t have to carry the complicated parts of being human by ourselves.

Gwen Avant is an abstract painter and sculptor whose work has long been shaped by themes of grief and loss. Her own path of navigating grief, chronic pain and illness has led her to seek and create spaces where grief is held and honored. Through art-making and through sharing circles, Gwen has experienced the transmutation of grief, sorrow, fear, and rage into medicine and beauty.

Support Circle Details:

3rd Saturday of the Month

4:00 PM - 6:00 PM

Oct 17, Nov 21, Dec 19, Jan 16, Feb 20, March 20, April 17

Sliding-Scale | $120-$200

Registration is for all 7

Registration is non-refundable but you can transfer your spot to another support circle or gift it.

Support Circle Description:

What do we do with the anger we carry and the grief beneath it?

This circle offers a supported, creative space to explore rage and grief connected to misogyny, racism, gender-based oppression, and the everyday experience of being silenced, dismissed, or expected to hold too much.

We welcome all who identify as women and nonbinary people who feel connected to these experiences. Belonging here is grounded in identity and lived experience, not anatomy.

Circle Leader:

Dana is a midlife, empty-nested mama, educator, community activist, student of life, and writer with an insatiable curiosity. She values honest connection and difficult conversations that make room for truth, understanding, reflection, and growth.

As a white woman, Dana is committed to the ongoing and sometimes uncomfortable work of recognizing white privilege, unlearning colonial beliefs and patterns, and taking responsibility for how she moves through the world. She approaches this work imperfectly, with humility and a willingness to listen and learn.

Dana believes we all deserve to see and be seen, to hear and be heard, and to find connection where we can bring our whole selves. She strives to help create spaces where these possibilities can take root.

Support Circle Details:

2nd Saturday of the Month

4:00 PM - 6:00 PM

Oct 10, Nov 14, Dec 12, Jan 9, Feb 13, March 13, April 10

Sliding-Scale | $120-$200

Registration is for all 7

Registration is non-refundable but you can transfer your spot to another support circle or gift it.