Lisa is a podcast host and author of Grief is a Sneaky Bitch. Visit www.lisakeefauver.com to learn more.
She is a social worker, widow, and grief activist on a mission to chamge the narratives of grief one conversation at a time.
02/16/2026
đź’–Grief Check-In exampleđź’–
I know it can be hard to know what to say. And when that happens, we either defaulted to saying nothing at all, which is really harmful, or showing up trying to fix the griever’s pain, when really what they need is for you to see and honor their grief, exactly as it is in that moment.
I’m offering up this example of a way to check in with a griever in your life. You don’t have to use this exact script, but some key elements to remember:
đź’– show them you want to know even the aspects other people are too scared to hear.
💖 name your intentions aren’t to fix or correct.
💖 acknowledge by using words like “today” or “for now” that you know their grief changes hour to hour and day to day.
💖 invite them to rank grief’s weight or give a number on a scale of 1-10 to alleviate the pressure for them to find words it might feel impossible to access.
💖 most of all, make eye contact, stay attuned, assure them they don’t owe you an answer or a happy conclusion, and that you will keep checking in.
I see you, I hear you, and I’m holding you in my heart.
❤️Lisa
02/14/2026
Valentine’s Day thoughts as a widow.
Early on in my widowhood I found myself in tears laying on my back in Shavasana, in a yoga class I loved - Motown Yoga at
I was also silently crying, tears dripping onto my mat, because in that moment I felt so far away from the experience of love. I felt as if my chance at love had died along with my husband Eric. In that moment, this mantra came to me.
May I see love❤️. May I feel love❤️. May I radiate love❤️. May I receive love❤️.
There isn’t a day that’s gone by in more than 10 years now that I haven’t said those words out loud. Usually first thing in the morning when my feet hit the floor and while holding my hand on my heart.
The difference in my life was immediate. It has nothing to do with romantic love. To this day I am happily single. This mantra is an invitation to notice what I’m paying attention to and what I’m putting out in the world. I began seeing the love between others and how that warmed my heart. I felt more keenly the love in my friendships, with my family. I became more intentional about how I showed up in the world, working to radiate love in little and big ways. And perhaps the most challenging, I shifted what I allowed myself to register and receive as love in the actions and words of those around me.
So whether you are in a romantic relationship or not, please remember that you are loved and you love, and that means you too get to celebrate this Valentine’s Day.
👇🏼 Drop a ❤️ if you needed this reminder today.
👉🏼 Tag someone you love to invite them to join you in centering love in their lives too.
đź’–About Međź’–
I’m a narrative-therapy trained social worker, keynote speaker, author, podcast host on a mission to reimagine grief so that we can center aliveness in a world full of loss.
I’m known for my sustained meditation on holding space and bearing witness. My care for the power of words to make worlds. My curiosity and deep compassion along with my commitment to amplifying stories of grief, loss, and resilience. Along the way I do this with a cheeky sense of humor and of course a judicious use of cussing.
02/13/2026
✨New Poem✨
We watch them suffer
with no capacity to ease their pain,
and all we offer is an absurd
invitation for them to bite down on the bullet,
the same object that caused the wound
in the first place,
as a way to lessen the pain of the intervention,
is the story we tell ourselves anyway,
or is it really to lessen the pain we feel
from witnessing,
through their anguished screams,
the harm we’re collectively inflicting on them.
On us.
Scream.
Scream loud.
Scream louder.
We’re screaming with you.
A poem by Lisa Keefauver about the absurdity of witnessing all this harm and violence and instead of intervening, we tell victims to bear the weight and stay silent. The title comes from the origin of “biting the bullet,” a phrase used to describe pain management during wartime amputations before anesthesia was invented.
02/07/2026
When a word is not enough…
“The word grief is
too narrow to hold me
and too w i d e to
know me.”
-stanza from poem, Dimensions of Grief, by Lisa Keefauver.
💖Does this resonate? Share your thoughts in the comments below 👇🏼
🖼️ Designed by Lisa Keefauver and part of the forthcoming Care and Swear Collection.
02/06/2026
đź’–We just want to be witnessedđź’–
It’s tempting to feel overwhelmed when someone we love is grieving and in pain. We want to “fix it”, but knowing we can’t, we often say nothing at all. But silence speaks volumes. It says, “Your pain is too much for me. I can’t relate to you. Your pain scares me.”
So I offer you this phrase so you can show up. It’s a response I’ve used for more than a decade—the one I use to sign off on every episode of my podcast, and at the end of my book too.
I see you, I hear you, I’m holding you in my heart.
đź’–
Lisa
đź’–TAG a friend who needs this reminder.
đź’–REPOST to share with your community.
đź’–COMMENT below to share something about your grief.
✨New design for my forthcoming Care and Swear Collection.
02/03/2026
❣️You are welcome here❣️
A loving reminder from me to you
that your grief is welcome here ❤️
Your grief is evidence of your humanity.
đź’–TAG a friend who needs this reminder.
đź’–REPOST to share with your community.
đź’–COMMENT below to share something about your grief.
I see you, I hear you, I’m holding you in my heart.
❤️
Lisa
✨New design for my forthcoming Care and Swear Collection.
02/02/2026
Your grief is evidence of your humanity.
Your rage is grief.
Your fear is grief.
Your sorrow is grief.
Your wounded heart is grief.
Don’t discount it or ignore it.
To stay in this, to advocate for the life, and country we deserve, we have to allow ourselves to be moved by our grief, sometimes shaken to our core by it, so that we can metabolize it into what we’re called to do next to make our country a safe and welcoming place for everyone.
✨Read the rest of my NEW Essay at AFGO with Lisa Keefauver on Substack. Please subscribe and follow there.✨
01/30/2026
5 Powerful Conversations So Far
Wow my friends. Season 7 of podcast is off to an incredible start with guests bringing their wisdom, vulnerability, creativity, and hearts to explore what it means to survive and even thrive in the wake of the tragic deaths of the ones they love most.
I’m so grateful and have learned so much from
of
trommer
and of
🎧Listen Now on Apple Podcast or find 🔗 in bio.
đź‘€ Watch on YouTube at Lisakeefauvermsw
Remember, as your host, I’m here for all of your grief. I see you, I hear you, I’m holding you in my heart.
❤️
Lisa
***de
01/28/2026
In this clip from my beautiful in-person conversation with the wise and warm on podcast, he explores the lessons he’s learning, practicing, and teaching about what it means when we can drop the story that’s getting in our way of being with our emotions.
“What the Buddhist path has taught me about, you know, dropping the stores and being with the feelings is quite simple. It’s a non-dual, non-conceptual, pre-verbal capacity to be with something that’s tense, just tension in the body for what it is. Not good or bad, not this or that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And just being with it and the brattiness and the silliness and the strange part of being with the feeling is that they pass, they change, they move, you know? And what happens after I went on to ride the subway and then go teach the class was the most miraculous thing. You know, I think I’m cute, but that was a whole nother level of cute. I got on the subway and it was like so strange. It was so strange. It was almost like I had a spotlight on me. I became hypermagnetic. I became so radiant, it so strange. It felt like I lost like 20 pounds with one experience of processing emotional baggage. So the invitation is to start slow, right? Titrate yourself into being with your feelings. Like set up a little timer, you know? And the barometer is this, if your emotional response does not match the context of your life, right? And it could be all the way around too, like someone dies and you feel nothing. Which is often what happens too. Yeah. So you’re either overreacting or not reacting at all. If that’s the barometer, then it points to something historical, the sort of hysterical, and I put it in air quotes because that word carries such... But if it’s hysterical, it’s historical, that sort of AA mantra holds such profundity. That’s why I still use it.” - Sah D’Simone.
🎧Listen to our FULL EPISODE, Dancing with Grief, now on Apple Podcast
đź‘€Full episode on YouTube at lisakeefauvermsw coming soon. Subscribe to be notified when it drops.
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Are you wondering why I am so passionate about talking about grief, loss, and illness? Yeah, you’re not alone. I’ll admit, it makes a lot of people uncomfortable and many don’t stick around to chat….oh wait, you’re still here?
Ok, well since you’re curious, I could tell you it is because early in my life I experienced some pretty awful traumatic painful events, full of violence and grief and loss, and that would be true. I can also explain how that led me to become a clinical social worker and narrative therapist where I had the privilege to bear witness to others’ experiences of pain, chronic and terminal illness, trauma, and grief - and that would be accurate too. I can, and I will, share how excruciating it was to have my husband die in my arms, leaving me a widow at age 40 and a single parent to our 7-year-old child. You might also want to know that a few years after that, I held my friends’ hand while he passed away from a long-endured terminal illness. Perhaps the fact that I co-founded a nonprofit program to support cancer patients and their families is relevant, or that I have countless family and friends who have or are currently enduring loss, chronic and terminal illnesses too.
But that doesn’t explain WHY I’m here talking about the very things most people run away from. I’m here because everyone I know and everyone you know has a 100% chance of experiencing these things. I’m here because I believe that language and vulnerable conversations with one another is what allows us to make meaning of our life experiences and grow from them. I’m here because I’m tired of living in a world where we are completely illiterate when it comes to the topics of grief, loss, and illness. I’m here because our inability to do so keeps us isolated, disconnected, and robbed from the experience of true belonging.
So, let’s get curious, vulnerable, tearful, angry, and joyful with one another. Let’s talk freely (and use a lot of swear words) with one another. Let’s fumble our way through. Hold some vulnerable, authentic, sometimes awkward as hell conversations. Let’s make up some new words or redefine some old ones. Let’s reauthor our stories of grief, loss, and illness. Let’s question the systems that keep us focused on cure versus caring for our well-being, or from taking all the time we need to process our grief (aka the rest of our lives). Let’s not wait until we have the right words, or know what to say, or worry that we will say the wrong thing. Chances are we will, but we’re never going to learn by staying silent. So, let’s show up. Let’s bear witness. Let’s listen. Let’s reimagine grief - together!
