Young Grief and Life Hangout 🤍

Let's talk life with grief. In English, in-person, in a coffee place around Vienna. Since there wasn't any English-speaking social event for young grievers around, we created one. Without a set agenda, with the gentle facilitation of a young trauma-informed coach. Welcome in!

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[ **New meetup dates are announced regularly** (we're still figuring out a frequency that works, for everyone involved)**

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📑 While you're waiting for the next event, find a new resource guide on grief created by the meetup host here: https://bit.ly/resourcesforgrievers And if you're looking for definitions of grief and grieving, the 'little glossary' has you covered. Also, if you want to support our work, find a donation link down below ↴ ]

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Are you aged between 18 and 39? Have you lost one or more dear human(s) of your life? This is your place to be (literally to "be" . . . yourself). The Young Grief & Life Hangout will be taking place regularly, as an afterwork or after-one-more-day-survived. Light, safe, and much more than sad.

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But, why meet? Cause no-one should have to go through loss and grief alone. We all deserve to be around people who understand — who listen, who pay attention, and nod their heads when we talk about the never-again-normal surreality of life. Or about the friends we've lost touch with & the strangers who've helped, the memories the workplace, the self-care, the feelings, the changes we didn't expect, the new versions of ourselves, the new paths through life. Anything really.

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There's people out there who will celebrate our little, determined steps.
There's hope and deep-felt connection when we come together . . . And talk about life, with grief. We know: being human means feeling many emotions, at the same time. We can feel despairing and joyful, we can laugh and cry, we can live and grieve. This meetup's candid conversations will hold everything that may come up. In between venting, exchanging coping strategies, telling our stories, finding new friends.

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Join us for safe conversations.
And meaningful connections.
Cause home isn't a place, it's the people.

Spread the word :)

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“Through the grief and the love we can hold our heads high—even in tears, even shattered. What’s ours is ours—and rightfully." (Joanne Cacciatore, in her book Love, Loss, and the Heartbreaking Path of Grief)

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✅ Ready to connect? Do check if this applies to you before signing up: You are 18+ years of age, have a connection with grief (exclusively through death, while "grief" is now — rightly so — used in many other contexts of loss!), are a self-reflected individual, bring willingness to contribute to the conversation through own experiences / stories / observations and are comfortable with English. This is an international group and all events will be held in English regardless of the people present (pro tip: if all attendees understand German & you find yourself struggling to convey a complex topic in English, you can use German for that contribution).

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📙 Key definition: What do we mean by "grief"? The purpose of this group is to bring together people affected by bereavement, before or after losing someone dear to us; garnished with the losses of memory, livelihood, language, identity, connection, home, safety, future, a witness to our lives or so much more. However, your loss doesn't have to be recent. Also, if you're currently navigating the lands of anticipatory grief, you're very welcome! You deserve to be seen. Grief can show up in many more situations that we can't all cover here to retain focus. However, if you’ve not met bereavement yet while you’ve seen a different grief up close (relational, ancestral, societal, professional etc), feel invited to reach out via message. Find my contact below.

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🦸🏻‍♂️ About the organiser: Hi again! I'm Adriana, a certified trauma-informed coach, communications professional, writer, griever and meetup host. I also have extensive experience in moderation, leadership and space-holding with groups. The loss of my mum catapulted me into the depths of grief (first: its anticipatory version) — which then fueled grief research, bold writing and big life change through the pain. I hope to meet you soon. If you want to reach out and prefer mail, you can send your thoughts over via hello@adrianabascone.com.

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💸 Donations: If you want to support the event, its resources or any further work on grief, donate and get a big thank you (add 'grief meetup' or similar as a subject line): paypal.me/adrianabascone OR revolut.me/adrianabascone

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📝 Further notes:

• The "Young Grief & Life Hangout" is a social event, not the marriage of a therapy couch and a vulnerability party. This means we'll be giving everyone a chance to speak and we'll move with the flow of conversation. You share what you want with the group, and nothing more. If you realize that the event is opening up deeper things requiring the attention of a trained professional, please talk with a support person or alternatively the meetup facilitator (as a first stepping stone).

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• Should you be skeptical about discussing grief in a group, then here's some inspiration: First, do what feels right for you (this may not be for everyone). Second, learn about our key answer to the question: Isn’t grief to be relegated to the private? Well . . . "In a death- and grief-avoidant culture, a grieving person becomes the other to whom social structures cannot, and will not, relate—and that avoidance is truly tragic", in Bearing the Unbeareable, by bereaved mom, expert in traumatic grief, counsellor, founder & professor Joanne Cacciatore 📖. The meetup is out there to change that.

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• Do totally bring yourself. Whether it's your savage stories from a grief-phobic world, your (dark) sense of humour, your piercing pain or your creative ideas. We mean it.

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• If you have any concerns before joining us, require accommodations or if coming to the meet-up feels like work to you, then please approach the facilitator 🙂 In speaking or writing. We want this to be a place in which we can connect, unmask (our grief) and rest.

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• This is a non-religious, science-based, independent group welcoming all. Read on in the event description for what we mean by that.

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• We're open to inputs on formats & location (exclusively outside of the time dedicated to the meetups), as long as we keep the conversation meaningful and stay independent from institutional structures. It’s important to us to mix grief and life; hence, we usually meet in coffee places :)