Integrative Grief Guide Jasmin Jenkins on Navigating Grief
TELL US a little bit about you and your role.
My name is Jasmin Jenkins, I live in Los Angeles, California with my sweet pup, Birdie Joy. I’m an Integrative Grief Guide and Founder of Fall Up, a community that supports people in navigating the spectrum of grief.
Why ‘integrative’?
Grief is a part of the whole, and in order to heal through our grief, we must find creative ways to integrate its wisdom into our lives.
What are you here to do?
I am here to support others in their grief healing journeys, both one on one and through my Fall Up community.
What do you wish people knew about grief?
Your grief is as unique as your fingerprint, which is to say that your healing journey will be uniquely your own. You may be in a family system wherein you’re all grieving the same person, but you must know that you will all process in different ways.
In the same way that comparison is the thief of joy, comparing our grief is the thief of presence with healing our grief.
Grief is not a thing to be rushed. Be patient. Grief is here to teach us about presence with impermanence.
All grief is an invitation to transformation, and it begins by asking your grief what it has to teach you.
What's one simple practice to help someone suffering from grief?
Instead of perpetuating suffering by resisting the pain often associated with the complex emotional experience of grief, next time you are feeling particularly overwhelmed with your grief, place your hand on your heart and try the calming affirmation, "I welcome the medicine that this feeling has for me” or “I welcome what this feeling has to teach me."
Welcoming the feelings is the beginning of healing.
Sunday, August 30th is National Grief Awareness Day. How will you be honoring this day?
Thank you for the question. Together with Healer Collective and artist, Ali Nelson, we have created a ‘Grief is Universal’ campaign. Our intention with this messaging is to remind everyone that while we may feel alone in our grief, grief is universal, and -- so, too, is love. And we heal our grief through both sharing our stories and listening to others in theirs, too. Our hope is that people will not just share the images on social, but that they will also practice courage, and share some of their grief, too. This has been such an intense year for all of us in different ways, and ‘Grief is Universal’ is an opportunity to remind the collective that shared grief is, in fact, shared courage.
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Jasmin Jenkins is an Integrative Grief Guide and the founder of Fall Up, a community created to support people navigating the spectrum of grief. In her guidance work, she brings her clients into the invitations within their grief journey. Jasmin believes that healing is a co-creative process, and it is her deepest joy to support each person she works with in welcoming grief as a profound invitation to transformation.