LGBTQIA+ Grief Circle: Losing Friendships and More
Please join this LGBTQIA+ gathering to witness, support and honor one another in sharing our individual and collective experiences of loss and abandonment. The program is co-facilitated by Tony Pham (Butterfly) and Boshko Boskovic. This is a dedicated container by and for self-identified LGBTQIA+ people.
On the journey towards self-acceptance, we may lose friendships and other relationships when we give ourselves permission to love and be loved. It is healthy to mourn those losses as part of tending to abandonment wounds.
The facilitators will offer mindfulness and energetic practices for grounding while inviting all participants to see and be seen. This 90-minute program will open with agreements, followed by meditation and sound healing as a foundation for peer-to-peer sharing in a safer space.
The vibrational energy of sound can facilitate the unblocking of emotional pathways, allowing participants to process and move through their grief. By calming the nervous system, sound healing allows participants to relax and become more open to introspection and personal growth.
By exploring our identities and experiences of loss together in a supportive atmosphere, we can gain insights that contribute to greater self-acceptance.
While having cameras on is encouraged for cultivating a stronger sense of community, it is OK for videos to be turned off as we want to respect each individual's personal process.
Tony Pham (Butterfly) (he/they) is a heritage Buddhist, facilitator, and healer that occupies the intersection of queer and BIPOC identities. He also identifies as a 2nd generation Vietnamese American whose parents immigrated to the United States as refugees from war. Tony goes by Butterfly in spiritual spaces where they steward practices rooted in compassion, indigeneity, and sacred lineages. They are a student of Lama Rod Owens (Vajrayana/Tibetan Buddhism). They are also an alumnus of the East Bay Meditation Center’s year-long PiTA8 trauma informed mindfulness program for social justice work.
Butterfly offered a dharma talk and guided meditation about compassion during The Dalai Lama Global Vision Summit 2023. Butterfly has completed death doula training and facilitates various grief circles with Reimagine. Tony's death work was highlighted and referenced in the 2023 book, "So Sorry for Your Loss," by Dina Gachman. He is certified in Compassion Cultivation Training ©, teaching compassion and meditation at Tibet House US. Tony is honored to serve on the national board of directors of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). He now resides in Brooklyn (occupied Canarsie/Munsee Lenape land).
Boshko Boskovic (he/him) is a Reiki Master and sound healing practitioner trained and certified in the Usui Shiki Ryoho Reiki lineage and in sound healing from the Sound Healing Center in Sausalito, California. He is the founder of Let’s Heal NYC, a private practice specializing in Reiki & Sound Healing treatments. Boshko is the Community Reiki Manager at Minka Brooklyn and holds regular wellness group sessions at Grand Street Healing Project & various Senior Centers in New York City. He has worked at Reiki Clinics at the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan and Maha Rose Brooklyn. He has given in person and virtual Reiki sessions at institutions such as Weinberg Center for Balanced Living, Soho Works, Play On Shakespeare, New Art Dealers Association of America as well as Brooklyn and Coler Hospital. Boshko is part of a sound healing collective Reiki Infused Sound Experiences - their album Waves of Possibility is available on Spotify. Since 2023 he has been the sound healing artist in residence at Mothership NYC in Brooklyn. Boshko lives in Brooklyn (occupied Canarsie/Munsee Lenape land).
Community Touchstones
Confidentiality
What’s said here stays here, what’s learned here leaves here.
Everything invitational
See these questions (and this whole experience) as an invitation, not a demand. If you are moved to answer a different question than one we have listed, go for it. If you’re moved to sit and listen, that’s ok too - just being here is participating.
Speak from the heart
We’re used to speaking what we think we should, what we think others want to hear, or from ideas or stories we’ve told ourselves over and over. See if you can take risks to root into what is true and to share from that vulnerable place.
Listen from the heart
See if you can be fully present to what’s here, listening with compassion to whoever is speaking. Try on turning any judgement that arises (including judgment of yourself!) into wonder. “I wonder what brought her to this belief?” “I wonder what I don’t get?” “I wonder what my reaction teaches me about myself?” See if it’s possible to set aside judgment to listen to others—and to yourself—more deeply.
No one right way
There’s no one right way to grieve, to do this retreat, or to express yourself (for example: totally ok to cry, and totally ok not to cry). Try to reserve judgment, of others and of yourself.
Trust the silence
Take a few breaths before even thinking of responding or offering your own words. Learn to trust the silence, and to notice what arises in it. Take your time.
Cool is the enemy
Try on the idea that you (and everyone else here) totally belong. Let’s try to be an easy crowd for each other. That means presuming welcome, and extending welcome. What if we all let go of “cool”? Cool is the enemy. ;)
Share air time
Take space & make space. Groups work best when everyone has their eye on this.
Self-focus
Speak your truth in ways that respect other people’s truths. Consider using “I” statements so that you can speak from your center, instead of generalizing or making assumptions about everyone else.
No fixing, saving, advising, correcting
No need to jump in to fix anything, save anyone, or offer unsolicited advice. Trust folks’ own processes.
Focus on stories about loved ones
This is a space in which we center stories and support. If you are here to challenge or argue the safety practices of others (e.g., masking in public, vaccinations), this is not a space for you.
