Why knowing more about grief can make it suck less | Lisa Keefauver | TEDxUTAustin

100% of us experience grief, multiple times in our lives, yet individually and collectively, we remain grief-illiterate. While there’s no getting around the fact that grief is hard, we suffer unnecessarily because of the limited and misguided stories we tell ourselves and each other in the wake of loss. Grief activist Lisa Keefauver expands our narratives of grief by examining its most important components – the who, what, where, when, and why – so that we can reimagine grief with self-compassion and collective care.

Lisa Keefauver is a grief activist and the founder of Reimagining Grief. Lisa has more than two decades of professional experience with grief and loss - as a social worker, narrative therapist, and educator within multiple settings, including foster care/adoption, family services, crisis intervention, public housing, and cancer care. Lisa's wisdom and understanding of grief are also embodied by her personal losses, including the death of her husband. Lisa uses her knowledge and lived experiences when cultivating grief-smart cultures with individuals and organizations. She has developed grief-literate practices that reduce unnecessary suffering while increasing people's sense of belonging. Lisa's grief advocacy has inspired her to create and host the top-rated podcast, Grief is a Sneaky Bitch; serve as an adjunct professor of Loss and Grief at the University of Texas at Austin; act as an organizational consultant to facilitate grief-smart organizations; write/appear as a thought leader across media platforms and on multiple stages; and write her heavily anticipated book, Grief Is A Sneaky Bitch. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx