Navigating Grief and Difficult Feelings: Some Offerings
By Lauren Liu 劉寶恩, LCSW
Lauren is the special projects coordinator at CPA. As a mental health practitioner and healer, Lauren has brought these skills to hold space for youth, young adults, and other community members and organizers.
As our communities continue to grieve, mourn, and heal, we wanted to make this offering to our community members. We hope these frameworks, reminders, and practices can give you tools to process grief in these hard times.
If you also hold space for others, we want to share this piece “Tips and Reminders when holding space to support others” that we developed in March 2021 to support CPA staff who were supporting our Chinese immigrant and youth grassroots members.
Title: “Tips and Reminders when Holding Space to Support Others”
Text on the side: Originally written to support CPA staff in supporting grassroots members currently struggling with the current moment in light of COVID-19 and the impacts it has brought in their daily lives from survival needs to racial aggression. However, these tips and reminders can be utilized by and for all people in need of support and a listening ear.
The text below the drawing: By Lauren N. Liu 劉 寶 恩 , ASW. Life can be really challenging and overwhelming right now due to the culmination of collective trauma, anticipatory and actual grief, violence, employment insecurity, decrease in income, health challenges, uncertainty, loss, aloneness, and fear. Having our own feelings while holding space for others enduring their own feelings can be a lot. Here are some tips, reminders, and things to reflect on when holding the container for people.
Quote: “Two thoughts on stillness: 1. Stillness is terrifying because it reveals to us what we’ve been too afraid to look at. 2. Stillness is beautiful because it reveals to us what we’ve been too afraid to look at.” — Lisa Olivera
The text at the bottom: Lauren N Liu 劉 寶 恩, ASW is the Special Projects Coordinator and has been connected to CPA since 2014. Outside of her work at CPA, Lauren works as a therapist/healer supporting high-school aged young people on color in Richmond to know they are enough, to access more joy, realize the power in their voices, find liberation from trauma, and become agents of change in their communities. She received her B.A. in Ethnic Studies and Asian American Studies and her master’s in Social Work with a concentration in Community Mental Health from UC Berkeley.
About Chinese Progressive Association: Chinese Progressive Association (CPA) is a nonprofit that educates, organizes and empowers the low-income and working class immigrant Chinese community in San Francisco to demand better living and working conditions and justice for all people. CPA has been organizing with workers in San Francisco’s Chinese immigrant community since the 1970s.
