• Skip to main content
  • Skip to site footer
Wendt Center for Loss & Healing - Washington DC

Wendt Center for Loss & Healing

Rekindling hope. Rebuilding lives.

DONATE
Client Payments
  • About Us
    • ABOUT THE WENDT CENTER

      • About Us
      • Our History
      • Board of Directors
      • Staff
      • 990’s
      • Hands holding message of Hope
      • We help children, youth and adults rebuilt their emotional lives after loss, illness, violence and trauma.
  • How We Help
    • How We Help

      • Adult Services
      • Child & Teen Services
      • Crisis Response
      • Training Institute
      • Group Therapy
      • Camp Forget-Me-Not / Camp Erin DC
      • Grieving Families Healing Together
      • The Wendt Center Training Institue is a groundbreaking achievement in trauma - informed, community focused mental heathcare.
  • Get Involved
    • Get Involved

      • Donate Today
      • Ways to Give
      • Corporate Giving
      • Major Funders
      • In-Kind Donors
      • Volunteer
      • Employment & Internships
      • This important work would not be possible without the genersity and dedication of our donor and volunteers
  • Understanding Grief & Trauma
    • Understanding Grief and Trauma

      • About Grief
      • About Trauma
      • Grief & Trauma Blog
      • Grief & Trauma Resources
      • Online Resources
      • Grieving is not a sign of weakness or failure.  It is not something to ignore or get over.
  • News & Events
    • News and Events

      • Newsroom
      • Subscribe to our Newsletter
      • Minute Monologues
      • Calendar
      • New Therapy Group: Navigating Loss and Uncertainty
      • New Therapy Group: Navigating Uncertainty
      • Building a more compassionate and skillful response to grief and trauma.
  • Donate Today
  • Client Payments

Living with Layers of Loss

2020 and 2021 saw events that we have planned for, hoped for, and even longed for occur far outside our expectations or disappear completely. Watching your child graduate from high school or college, walking your child into their first day of kindergarten, grandparents holding their first grandchild hours after birth, weddings and honeymoons, significant birthdays, and religious/cultural milestones were all irrevocably altered. This is grief. Anytime there is a change with a loss there is grief.

Change + Loss = Grief
yellow heart
Download PDF

The magnitude of human life lost to COVID and other causes over this past year can make these missed/lost events seem somehow insignificant or not worthy of our grief. These significant events are not often named or recognized by ourselves or society as grief events. So we sit with these feelings of sadness, anger, longing, or anxiety in isolation, perhaps concerned about how society will perceive us if we share the depth of our response. How do we hold space for all that we lost this year?

Name these losses and their significance. Not all losses are death related and yet their significance is often underestimated.

Give yourself permission to feel the range of emotions related to these losses: sad, angry, hurt, lonely…

Express how your grief looks or feels through creating. Write about it. Draw what your grief looks like.
Create not to make beautiful art but to move the emotion that is inside, outside.

Creating space for what we have witnessed

Over the past year we have witnessed difficult things. The constant barrage of the news cycle, violence in communities, a rising infection rate and death toll from COVID, and the continued impact of racism and oppression on communities of color. The importance and significance of these events necessitates our engagement and attention. And yet, there is a cumulative toll. A heaviness. A tiredness. How do we create space for what we have witnessed and experienced?

Movement

Our bodies hold onto the emotions of our experiences. Movement can help shift the energy within our bodies. A walk, jumping jacks, dance or just shaking it out can help shift the energy and move the experience through our bodies.

Mindful Moments

Pause. The pace of this past year has simultaneously felt fast and slow. This can confuse our bodies and minds. Pause for one minute and just be present in this moment. Notice your body on the chair or couch, notice your feet on the floor, notice your breath as you inhale and the sensation as you slowly exhale. Set a timer and allow yourself to be present within this space. This can be a helpful practice when the pace outside of yourself starts to feel overwhelming.

Connection

As we reflect on all that we have witnessed and experienced over the past year we need validation and compassion. Who in our lives can we connect with, who will be able to sit with us in this heaviness or pain? We don’t need someone to solve this problem, there is no solution; we need connection and compassion. Connecting could be with a friend, a family member or even a pet. 

As we consider what’s next, pause and reflect. What from this year do we hold and take with us, what do we release? How do we move into whatever is next with connection and compassion for ourselves and others? In all that you do be gentle, with yourself and others.

Wendt Center for Loss and Healing is the Greater Washington region’s premier resource for restoring hope and healthy functioning to adults, teens, and children who are coping with grief, loss, and trauma. Wendt Center Training Institute offers customized, trauma-informed workshops and certifications that equip mental health and allied professionals with skills to address grief, loss, and trauma in the communities in which they work and live.

Potomac river background

Wendt Center

4201 Connecticut Avenue NW
Suite 300
Washington, DC 20008
Tel: (202) 624-0010
Fax: (202) 624-0062

Client Payments »
25 Years - Wendt Center for Loss and Healing Grief Camp
Platinum Transparency 2024
Spur Local Critical Nonprofit seal
Make a Donation Today
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
Wendt Center for Loss & Healing - Washington DC

© 2025 · Wendt Center for Loss and Healing · Washington DC · All Rights Reserved · Website Policies · HIPAA Privacy Practice
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.