LGBTQIA+ Pride Circle: Grieving the Loss of Father Figures

Please join this Reimagine and Tibet House US LGBTQIA+ gathering to witness, support, and honor one another in our grief. The program will open with agreements, followed by some education, meditation, and breathwork as a foundation for peer-to-peer sharing in a safer space. This is a dedicated container by and for self-identified LGBTQIA+ people.

Pride is about showing up authentically, which can shift from one moment to the next – from celebration to grief, from connectedness to loneliness.

Facilitators will offer mindfulness and breathing practices for grounding prior to opening up space to invite in the individual and collective experiences of LGBTQIA+ community members. Our facilitators will draw from practices such as Buddhism while also weaving in queer liberation and grief work. The 60-minute container is intended as a safer space to mourn the losses of father figures on our individual and collective journey toward authentic pride.

While having cameras on is welcome 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 & BIPOC identities. Tony is certified in Compassion Cultivation Training © (co-created by Thupten Jinpa at Stanford), teaching compassion and meditation at Tibet House US. He is a 2nd generation Vietnamese American whose parents arrived in 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. He is an advanced student of Lama Rod Owens (Vajrayana/Tibetan Buddhism). They are also an alumnus of the East Bay Meditation Center’s trauma informed mindfulness program & INELDA's death doula training.

Butterfly offered a Dharma talk and guided meditation about compassion at the The Dalai Lama Global Vision Summit 2023. Tony's death work was highlighted and referenced in the book, "So Sorry for Your Loss," by Dina Gachman. He now resides in Brooklyn (occupied Canarsie/Munsee Lenape land). For more information, please visit tonyopham.com.

Tiff Pham Tiff Pham (she/they) is a second-generation Vietnamese-American, queer, empath residing on unceded Ohlone land. She is a conscious relationship coach, mediator, and energy medicine practitioner at Path and Present. Tiff enjoys working with tenderhearted humans, people-pleasers, and fellow QTBIPOC folks to set boundaries, build confidence, and communicate with clarity. She is a certified coach (CPCC, ACC) and holds her Master Certification in Intuition Medicine®. In her free time, she enjoys live music, meditation, traveling, and hiking with her partner Laura, and their staffy/lab, Luna. To learn more information, please visit pathxpresent.com.

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.