So much of what women contend with during divorce is really intense grief. Sometimes they don’t name it that or even realize that’s what’s happening, but that is what’s happening. Barri Leiner Grant, founder and Chief Grief Officer™ of The Memory Circle, is back with me to keep the conversation going about grieving before, during, and after divorce.

For those new to Barri, her community and creative space is created for those learning to live with loss. She’s a highly respected grief specialist, writer, coach, and educator, and she leads transformative gatherings, retreats, and workshops that explore grief tending tools, rituals, and practices that foster connection, healing, and hope.

In this conversation, Barri and I get into why we’re still such a grief-denying society when it comes to non-death loss, and we spend a good chunk of time on rituals. Because here’s the thing: there is no funeral for a divorce. No burial, nothing formal. So we talk about how women can make their own. Like burying a copy of your decree (just not the only one, you’ll need it). Lighting a candle on the anniversary. Writing yourself a letter. Painting the inside of your front door hot pink. Getting the tattoo. Whatever helps you name the loss, move the energy, and reclaim the space.

What you’ll hear about in this episode:

• Why women become their own judge and jury about naming non-death loss (1:54)
• Why grieving a divorce feels confusing even if you’re the one who asked for it, and why the future you imagined is still a real loss (3:26)
• What Barri’s own divorce (layered on top of losing her mom) taught her about asking for support (5:06)
• Why writing is one of the most accessible grief tending tools (20:02)
• Grief tending, self-compassion, and why it’s not a just bath with salts (26:26)
• Why making your own ritual matters when the culture doesn’t give you one (33:20)
  

✨ If you’d like to watch the video version of this episode, you can find it here.

Learn more about Barri Leiner Grant:

Barri Leiner Grant is a highly respected grief specialist, author and founder of The Memory Circle, a creative and healing space for remembrance and ritual. Barri brings a distinct aesthetic sensibility to the field of grief work—bridging beauty and healing in ways that feel modern, personal, and deeply human.

She is the creator of Permission Granted, a widely read Substack newsletter that invites readers to navigate loss with honesty, tenderness, and earned wisdom. Barri is recognized for her unique approach to grief support, which combines writing storytelling, ritual and community to help people mark loss with intention and carry memories forward with care.

Sought after as a speaker, collaborator, and guide, Barri is redefining how we talk about grief.

Her work has been featured in The Washington Post, Psychology Today, Maria Shriver’s Sunday paper and award winning podcasts.

Resources & Links:

Focused Strategy Sessions with Kate
The Divorce Survival Guide Resource Bundle
Phoenix Rising: A Divorce Empowerment Collective
Kate on Instagram
Kate on Facebook
Kate’s Substack Newsletter: Divorce Coaching Dispatch
The Divorce Survival Guide Podcast Episodes are also available YouTube!
Seven Step Mindset Reset for Divorce 

Connect with Barri Leiner-Grant
The Memory Circle
Barri on Instagram

Show Transcript:

Kate Anthony: [00:00:00] Hey everyone. Welcome back. I am so happy to have with me today. Barri Leiner Grant. She is the founder and. Chief Grief officer of the Memory circle, a community and creative space for those learning to live with loss. She is a highly respected grief specialist, writer, coach, and educator, and she leads transformative gatherings, retreats, and workshops that explore grief, tending tools, rituals, and practices that foster connection, healing, and hope.

Barri, I’m so happy to have you here again, back on the podcast because I think so much of what women who are going through divorce contend with is really intense grief. Sometimes they don’t name it that or they don’t realize that’s what’s happening, but holy [00:01:00] cow. Is that what’s happening? 

Barri Leiner Grant: Yeah, I think we are.

Fairly grief denying society in general, and 

you 

Kate Anthony: don’t say 

Barri Leiner Grant: when it comes to even death loss, but when it comes to non death loss, I think we often. Become our own judge and jury, if you will, about being able to name a non death loss and opportunity for grief and processing. Really learning how to live with a loss that is still very much alive in your life.

Mm-hmm. And all of the changes that come with it and the future that you imagined. I think there’s more to grieve than we realize. 

Kate Anthony: Yes. And I like that you identify as it it as a non death loss. Right. Because it is. Such an enormous loss, and yet it feels like the person died. It feels like the marriage died.

It feels like all but then, but then you have this voice in your head always that’s like, well, they didn’t though. 

Barri Leiner Grant: Mm-hmm. 

Kate Anthony: Right. So is there, [00:02:00] do you find that there’s like this push and pull with accepting that? Like, oh, no, no, no. This is like a very serious loss. 

Barri Leiner Grant: I have been able to. Better name through my substack, through writing through my community that these non-death losses need to be addressed.

And there are several. Sometimes it’s moving, sometimes it’s changing house, sometimes it is losing a friendship. And there are so many, and I think. Naming it in my own divorce after having already lost my mom. Made people feel like they could too. You know when I said, but it is. You need to grieve. You are grieving an entire future you imagined.

Wrote, it’s like closing a chapter that you have already written out. Whatever your forever looked like for you, [00:03:00] sometimes for your kids, for your extended family, all the ways in which you work, maybe your sense of safety in the world, your financial safety. There is so much that we lose in divorce. Again, because there isn’t necessarily a ritual or a funeral.

Mm-hmm. Or, you know, many today have have made some, I know you’ve told me about some fantastic rituals that people can participate in because there isn’t something like a funeral. Mm-hmm. Um, like a celebration of life. We don’t name it. And so sometimes we can be even showing up at work every day and nobody knows.

Or we can be. I remember the days where I like couldn’t show up at pickup, uh, at school and had to have somebody pick my kids up. It was very, 

Kate Anthony: oh yeah. 

Barri Leiner Grant: Quiet what I was going through, but not, but not on my insides. 

Kate Anthony: Right, right, exactly. Well, let’s, that’s a great segue into like your story. [00:04:00] And I know this started probably for you, like we were just talking before we hit record, like way back, right?

Like the beginning of the story is like our own parents divorce and like what we went through with that. So. And I know that you went through multiple forms of grief and loss at the same time with the death of your mother and your divorce. So just will you sort of introduce your story to everyone? 

Barri Leiner Grant: I would love to thank you.

In fourth grade, my parents, you know, sat us down. I can remember it was a Thursday night because the spelling words were due on Friday and I was sitting on the porch studying. I’m still pissed that nobody wrote me a note that I didn’t have to take the test the next day. 

Kate Anthony: Not fair. Not fair. 

Barri Leiner Grant: Yeah. But I remember they said, you know, dad’s gonna move to the city closer to where he goes to work.

It wasn’t a time in. The world of divorce where there really was an arrangement that feels [00:05:00] a little more modern. So we visited him sparingly. He was living in Manhattan. We had some great um, Manhattan weekends, but getting to the city midweek when we were in school, which felt like. Keeping us in our school and mom’s house felt like the right thing for both of our parents.

Kate Anthony: And where were you? Where where? 

Barri Leiner Grant: Middletown, New Jersey. 

Kate Anthony: Okay. Uhhuh. 

Barri Leiner Grant: My mom was a realtor at the time, and she and her girlfriend decided that they would invent job share. So that one watched us while the other worked and vice versa. They shared floor time and space. They were sort of like. Modern, thoroughly modern millis of their time.

Really? Wow. I didn’t know anyone else who had parents that were divorced. It felt other and unique. There was no club for us, you know, like there is today to meet for lunch and have a buddy and you know, there was none of that. And mm-hmm. And like I said, [00:06:00] I wasn’t even, it wasn’t even shared with my teachers what was going on at home.

It was very matter of fact, and unlike my parents, because they were, you know, very open, still very much loved each other, they had like an incredible relationship throughout their divorce. So I think they knew that, but they knew more than us kids and, and they really did model a. Beautiful way of consciously uncoupling, if you will.

I just remember thinking that the lesson there was show up and get a hundred, like I showed up and just got a hundred on my tests. Be good, be independent, keep at it, you know, keep showing up strong and I think that stayed with me for a very long time. Even some through of the death loss. I learned because that fortitude and strength and resiliency was so celebrated that it became sort of part of me 

Kate Anthony: uhhuh [00:07:00] 

Barri Leiner Grant: when I wish someone would’ve said, would you like to talk to someone? That it was a rupture and a grief, and it really was bigger than the parents in the room were.

Imagining Imagin, how it felt to a kid. I had my sister by my side and a great travel buddy, and we would go into Manhattan to visit dad. And like I said, we were like a big old gang at any event that we had school events and they didn’t speak poorly of one another. And I, I’ve really fond memories of the way that they got along.

Amazing. So again, it was always sort of what I held up as. The way to do it. Although when I got married I was like, I’m never getting a divorce. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah. I mean, don’t we all, I mean, isn’t that, uh, nobody gets married thinking they will. 

Barri Leiner Grant: No. 

Kate Anthony: So, famous, 

Barri Leiner Grant: famous, famous last word. Famous 

Kate Anthony: last word, right, exactly. Uhhuh.

So 

Barri Leiner Grant: yeah. Yeah. Fast forward, I married [00:08:00] my college love and the father of my two girls, and. Very shortly after I lost my mom. It wasn’t until I started to really do this work that I realized that part of why our marriage became untenable mostly for him was because I suddenly needed support in a way that I had not needed it in the past.

Kate Anthony: Sure. 

Barri Leiner Grant: So poor guy, he got a little bit more of a less independent me and a more broken me and it was too hard for him to hold and I don’t think he could share those words. I think he just felt unhappy and came home one day and said those exact words to me. I’m not happy. We’ve known each other since what I say.

We were kids and of course I wanted him to be [00:09:00] happy. I could probably write him a thank you note on my finest newly monogrammed stationary. Replete was my new last name because what you don’t know then you just think is the norm. Until I was in a relationship that felt like it better supported 360 degree me.

Kate Anthony: That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. I mean, it’s sort of like, yeah, he didn’t bank on this or he didn’t. Right. And also he did take a vow for better or worse. 

Barri Leiner Grant: Yeah. 

Kate Anthony: And this was clearly worse. I imagine you didn’t say this, but I’m imagining that, you know, what tends to happen is that in a relationship in which, in, in patriarchy in which, you know, you were probably the.

Supportive of the two, right? Mm-hmm. That you didn’t [00:10:00] now have the energy to cont to keep pouring into him. And he didn’t return, he didn’t sort of turn the. 

Barri Leiner Grant: It was my 

Kate Anthony: turn. It was your turn. I’m trying to be, so do you know how diplomatic I’m trying to be about this guy? I, 

Barri Leiner Grant: yes, I hear you. I hear you. 

Kate Anthony: Because you’re being very diplomatic, so I’m gonna, you know, mirror that, but, but yeah.

Right. Some, that’s how it worked. 

Barri Leiner Grant: The worst part, I think. And it didn’t help to support. My grief or my divorce was that I was also living very far from New York and New Jersey where my family was. I had moved to Chicago 

Kate Anthony: Oh, 

Barri Leiner Grant: for, for his work. I found wonderful work. I was a reporter at the Chicago Tribune back when and worked for W gtb and I loved what I did and I had lots of good friends and my kids had great school friends, and their dad traveled for work at least like three nights a week.

His, his work and why [00:11:00] we tr why we moved there. I wanted to go home and it seemed inevitable. You know, I wanted to be with people who could support not just my divorce, but could also support the loss of my mom, the one that would be supporting me in helping to. Grandmother, the girls and mother me in a way that I needed at that time.

And in Chicago, and I’m sure in many other cities, when you try to leave the state, it’s called removal, which really sounded as if my, I was taking off my kids’ arm or something. 

Kate Anthony: Right. 

Barri Leiner Grant: But I wanted to be somewhere where I could be supported in my work, which. Was now not only part-time, but was gonna go to full-time to support me and the girls.

It just was, it just seemed totally unfair that, that no one was even taking that into consideration. They were like, well shy of him not [00:12:00] helping financially and or being abusive, and no one took my being alone. A place where I didn’t have any family to help me care for the girls and no, you know, new financial position.

It just seemed unfair. And so I used to say I was a, I was a prisoner of the state of Illinois. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah, right. I mean, really. Right. I mean, that happens to so many people I know and so many women, right? It’s like I moved here for him. We’re not, we’re not gonna be together. So why can’t I move back Now? There’s also the, I don’t wanna take my kids away from their dad.

They’re right, because there’s a different we we’re doing, which I didn’t, doing it differently didn’t, and of course you didn’t. You just wanted support. Yeah. That’s really hard. That’s really hard. Was 

Barri Leiner Grant: it was, but I, I’m grateful in, in retrospect, my friend Nate calls it the Grace Kelly. [00:14:00] He called me the Grace Kelly of divorces where I really made it.

Conscious effort in what I had learned from my parents to not speak poorly of their dad to, yeah. I put some measures in place where I had felt unsupported as a kid. I went to school, I told them what was going on. I said, we’re not gonna say divorce, we’re not gonna say broken home. We’re just gonna say that girls have two houses.

They have a loving house with their dad and one with me. And we used to say, when my kids would meet someone else, they would say, do you have two houses? I have two houses. And then one had a second house in Aspen. And I was like, no, no, no, 

Kate Anthony: that’s. 

Barri Leiner Grant: Uh, 

Kate Anthony: yeah, right, exactly. Um, a little bit different then you had to face Right, the grief.

Barri Leiner Grant: Right. 

Kate Anthony: Um, that nobody was talking about or holding. And it was just like, oh, okay. Let’s move, let’s move on. Right? Yeah. Everything’s fine. 

Barri Leiner Grant: The one, the one person that I would’ve called [00:14:00] who understood what was going on with my mother, a hundred percent, she had been through it. She, I saw her.

Survive and thrive. I talked to her example, you know, in my heart and back pocket. Like I knew if, if Ellen could do it, so could I, but it was, it was tough. It was really tough and I had a. Uh, my little one was 18 months, which is very, very young. Yeah. And for lots of infertility issues in between. And so it felt like, oh, she just came into the world and now, and now this, which was really hard, but something that my mom also shared with my sister and I kept coming to the forefront that, um, she said, I, I feared for who you girls would become.

If you saw the example of my staying rather than my leaving. 

Kate Anthony: Uh, absolutely. 

Barri Leiner Grant: And I think that’s what sort of gave me [00:16:00] that initial knowing that if he wasn’t happy and I wanted him to be happy, that we would figure it out. I saw my mom and dad both go on to have relationships. That were loving and one with each other, and that, that was my hope.

We didn’t part exactly like my parents did. We weren’t quite as, as as elegant, but I think. My girls would say we, we did a pretty, a pretty good job. 

Kate Anthony: And you know, Barri, your parents probably had their very inelegant moments as well that I’m sure that they kept from you. Right. I’m 

Barri Leiner Grant: sure. Like 

Kate Anthony: the idea that they did it perfectly, right?

It’s like, 

Barri Leiner Grant: no, no, 

Kate Anthony: I a myth. 

Barri Leiner Grant: I still, you know, I talk, I talk to the girls, um, about financial independence and a lot of things I, you know, learned going through the divorce process. Lots of [00:17:00] girlfriends. I would, I was walking around saying, do you know how much your mortgage is? Do you know where all the bank accounts are?

Do you, you know, I was trying to really educate that women’s financial independence. I remember my mom telling my sister and I both, we should have our own bank account, so teasingly, she said, so that nobody asks you if you need another. Pair of shoes. Shoes. But, but in all, in all seriousness, she wanted us to have our own financial independence.

Kate Anthony: Yes. 

Barri Leiner Grant: And knowledge. I felt like that was so urgently important. And I have flashbacks of walking the check that my dad would give my mom each week for groceries and really thinking long and hard about, you know, I’m, I’m aging, I’m 60, so this.

I remember walking that check-in and being like. $110, how are we gonna survive on $110? And what I didn’t know is like, my dad was [00:17:00] responsible for college through this wonderful, you know, college fund that they had at his work and, you know, all the things that Uhhuh, as you said, all the things that a kid doesn’t know about.

Right. 

Kate Anthony: Right. 

Barri Leiner Grant: What it looks like on the outside, but like, definitely PTSD seeing the number on the, on the check. And so there was just lots that. I learned, like I didn’t want them to be worried about the finances. We didn’t. Yeah, we didn’t, you know, I, I was very careful about mm-hmm. The way I talked to them and what they were included in and what they knew.

But much like my mom, I was really grateful that later in my relationship with my husband, we’ve just been remarried 16 years, that they see a relationship that I’m really proud of.

Kate Anthony: Let’s talk more about your grief work. How do you help women process grief? I know that writing is a huge piece of [00:19:00] this. 

Barri Leiner Grant: It is. 

Kate Anthony: Um, so will you talk about what it’s like, what you, what you do, how you help them, and like what does it do for them? 

Barri Leiner Grant: Yeah. I think what we don’t realize is that it is a practice.

We show up for what I call a grief tending practice. Mm. That we have to, even if you have to pencil it in, um, that we make time and space on our calendar to be with our grief. And I find especially with non-death losses, that writing can really be a beautiful place to become your own story witness. Sometimes you are, have a lot of big feelings and there isn’t anywhere for them to go.

Yeah, you’re angry, you’re, you feel a lot of shame. You are afraid, and, and those are big. Those are big feelings. So if you are not somewhere where you can find the support of [00:19:00] others, I think writing becomes such a beautiful way to process. We’re always looking for movement. So whether that is moving can be talk therapy, moving can be phy, the physicality of, you know, moving the emotions through your body.

Sometimes we need to lift heavy things, and I always say and break shit that makes us feel like we can process some of that safely so we can process some of those big emotions. But. In my groups, especially in the writing groups, people feel comfortable showing up for a, writing a, a prompt and process group because they don’t feel uncomfortable that they don’t have a death loss there.

There’s no, I always say there’s no grief Olympics, but in that, but in that. Kind of a group, that mixed loss group. I think that it’s helpful to have actionable and [00:21:00] accessible tools. So writing seems to be one across the board that feels like it’s safe, that when you put something in a notebook, it’s private and we feel really unraveled and undo.

All of our financials, feeling public and our, you know, maybe we have kids in school and we’re suddenly single and showing up at things alone. And you know, I think there’s some safety that we can find in using the writing process. Sometimes it’s like coaching forward, you know, what are some ways that you can see yourself in community?

What can you sign up for that feels like you could go and meet new people? Who could you reach out to? Almost like, like networking. Who could you reach out to in your past that you may know that would feel like comfort and connection? So we lean on all kinds of tools, but a lot of what we. [00:22:00] What we do in our circles is accept that we do learn to live with this loss.

Kate Anthony: Mm-hmm. 

Barri Leiner Grant: And that it can sidle right up alongside our joy. That both things can be true at the same time as, as is true with so much that we process in the divorce on behalf of our family, on behalf of the dreams that feel quashed and you know so much. And I Sure. I think, um. Yeah, there are. Sometimes it’s making a playlist that’s like full of ragy music or sad mu cry, a crying playlist.

I always say like, 

Kate Anthony: yes, 

Barri Leiner Grant: the A side and the B side of however you’re feeling and giving yourself permission, even if it’s for a few minutes a day, to just be with it and name. The sadness, the anger, the the grief capital G grief. A lot of people say to me, well, you know, they try to minimize it because it’s not a death [00:23:00] loss.

And I wholly disagree. And because I’ve been on both sides, if you will, I, I just think find your people. Like you don’t wanna join a group where there is only death loss. So make sure that you’re looking for, you know, a group where you, you can show up as your. And all of your grief and that it’s appropriate.

So I like a non-deaf loss group or a group where other people. Also going through the process. I know that was what was so helpful to me back when was a, a group called Divorce University, and it was just somewhere where I knew I could, I could show up and learn, learn from others who had been through the process before me, but we have to name it to tame it.

That’s what I say, so. Mm-hmm. Being okay with saying, I am grieving and finding some tools and resources that feel like you can find movement that’s [00:25:00] appropriate for you, whether it’s a talk group, a writing group, a physically moving, you know, movement group. We’re always looking for movement. So sitting stagnant and not telling anybody and being with those feelings can really create a lot of dis-ease in the body.

And. It can be really soul crushing. I also think we need to be seen, heard, and witnessed even in something that may make us feel, you know, there I had so many feelings of, of failure and, and shame, and yet at the same time I had, I felt empowered and wanted to figure out how I could learn to be with this loss and.

Not just survive it, as I said, but, but thrive. And I watched a mom do it and I, I sort of thought I can too, but not, not in like, the way that we are, like holding a big dumbbell over our head and [00:26:00] being that kind of strong every single day. We, we need days where we can put it down. 

Kate Anthony: Fall apart and Exactly right.

Cry on the floor and whatever else needs to happen. Exactly. 

Barri Leiner Grant: Exactly. 

Kate Anthony: Exactly, 

Barri Leiner Grant: exactly. 

Kate Anthony: I love that you talk about it as tending that it’s grief tending. Can you say more about how you came up with that as a way of talking about it? 

Barri Leiner Grant: The biggest and hardest part of, of grieving is finding self-compassion.

Mm-hmm. I think we’re. This voice that shows up in all of us that is really, um, tough. We’re really tough on ourself. So tending 

Kate Anthony: what whatcha talking about Barri. 

Barri Leiner Grant: So tending to me always felt like a very soft, nurturing, honest way of saying, I am gonna show up for me. And I [00:27:00] am gonna tend to this grief as I would any other part of me that is hurt, broken, not feeling well, that we, we really do.

We need it, we deserve it. And we have to look at it like a self-compassion practice, like self care and not like a, a bullshit bath with salts, although that can feel really great, but really to show up for the big stuff. For the big 

Kate Anthony: feelings. 

Barri Leiner Grant: Yeah. 

Kate Anthony: The quote self, you know, it, it’s really is like, what is self care.

Right. Right. And this, and it is such an ongoing, uh, I have a chapter about it in my book too. Yeah, right. It’s like, you know, we can take all the bubble baths that we need, but also if we don’t like address the systemic issues 

Barri Leiner Grant: exactly 

Kate Anthony: that. And that could be internally systemic, but also culturally systemic.

Sure. 

Barri Leiner Grant: And how about the stress of the paperwork? The, you [00:28:00] know, the, all of a sudden overnight you’re like an accountant and a banker and a, and dealing with a lawyer and, you know, that’s lawyers and bankers and bears. I mean, it’s really something on the nervous system, and so we don’t even realize that. 

Kate Anthony: Yep.

Barri Leiner Grant: You know, we have a completely dysregulated nervous system no matter how much we’re trying to keep it together. And it’s, it’s hard and it is. Like I said, it is a, it is a practice like anything else and we need to show up for it. 

Kate Anthony: And, you know, one of the sort of self-care tools that I advocate for and, and have my clients do is put it all in a box and put the fuck away.

Barri Leiner Grant: Yeah. 

Kate Anthony: Put it the fuck away. And then when you’re ready to take it out and you know you need to work on it, you know, have a separate email account. I 

Barri Leiner Grant: love that. I say 

Kate Anthony: that too. All of your divorce shit so that you can go, okay, now I’m ready and I’m gonna light my candle. I’m gonna, you know, have [00:29:00] my favorite chocolate.

If you drink, maybe you have a glass of wine, but something that that sort of 

Barri Leiner Grant: compartmentalizes. 

Kate Anthony: Yes, there is like a, there is a, uh, a ritual around doing it, and then there’s a ritual around putting it away. 

Barri Leiner Grant: Agreed. 

Kate Anthony: So that, it’s totally agree. It’s just not a constant 

Barri Leiner Grant: barrage. We can’t Right. I mean, just the, just the ping of seeing it come into your phone when you’re at least expecting it, it gives you back a sense of control.

You know, for many of us in death loss and non death loss, we don’t invite. Loss. We don’t invite, often invite the grief, but how we meet it, we can have control over it. And so I think that’s, you know, um, my, my colleague and mentor, Claire Bidwell Smith calls it conscious grieving. Mm-hmm. And I think of that, you know, same as, same as all the ways that we show up with that, with a, a, a [00:30:00] mindfulness.

But, you know, like you said, there’s, there’s. It’s become so much, so many mixed messages around self-care and consciousness. Oh, yes. You know that sometimes th those words just make us cringe. In my definition. I’m with you. I think it is just like I said about the notebook. We could take it out. We can be with it.

We could set a timer, but you can put it away. That’s right. You, I looked. On behalf of clients that think if they begin to cry and make space for tears, that they will never stop. And I say, I looked in the Guinness Book of World Records and there is no such thing. So, um, let her rip. Bye. My, um, 

Kate Anthony: yes. 

Barri Leiner Grant: Uh, friend and colleague was saying she’s a functional medicine doc.

Her name is Ellen Vora, and she’s like, tears need better pr. Like they tears are moving too. That’s right. We apologize in the first second that somebody sees us well up. Ellen is [00:31:00] like. Take those tears to an 11. Like if you really ride out just like every emotion. Oh yeah. A beginning, a middle, and an end.

Yeah. A really good cry. Lets your whole system, all systems on board know, like we have moved through something big. 

Kate Anthony: Mm-hmm. 

Barri Leiner Grant: And you can really good after. 

Kate Anthony: And I, you know, I get it. That feeling of like, if I start, I will literally never stop. And I know that we don’t, we don’t, we know that that’s not true, but it’s the, I will be, be swallowed by it and I don’t wanna feel this shit.

Barri Leiner Grant: No. Who does? 

Kate Anthony: And if I’m gonna right. But, oh my God, every single one of us knows what it feels like on the other side of a really good cry and it doesn’t feel Yeah. Good necessarily, but it certainly, you know, this is catharsis. 

Barri Leiner Grant: It’s, 

Kate Anthony: you are now changed. Mm. You are not the same person that was holding back the tears.

Right. 

Barri Leiner Grant: That’s, that’s creepy too, that sense, that loss of identity. Who am I if I am [00:32:00] not married? Who am I? If I am single? Yeah. Who am I? You know, like all of that. That is what we reckon with in death loss and non death loss, and so, mm-hmm. I think that that too, finding this new sense of self and all of that, I think is so much harder than we give ourselves credit for in the process.

Kate Anthony: It is, especially when you are trying to parent your kids through their loss and their grief when you are trying to hold down a job, when you’re trying to work more so that you can afford. To take care of said children. Right? Like, it’s not like life stops, right? It’s, we don’t get like the red tent version of this No.

Where it’s like, oh, you have your period. Go in this tent and go and like, you know, just go do that. 

Barri Leiner Grant: Yeah. 

Kate Anthony: Right. Oh, you’re grieving. Go in this place and just go do that. Right? Yeah. It’s like, no, no, no. Do [00:33:00] that. While you’re continuing to do fucking everything. All 

Barri Leiner Grant: the other, all the other jobs. And, and that is true of, of death loss and non-deaf loss.

Kate Anthony: Yes, 

Barri Leiner Grant: same. It’s the same. So I think it’s really hard. ’cause I also sit with widows and I will say it, it’s, it’s different. There are different losses. I would never, I always say compare and despair. Yeah. There is, there is no comparison. It really, it really. There really isn’t, but it is hard when that person is also over and over again.

You have to continue to be in contact with them so you’re not ending something. Like I said, that ritual is not there. There is no burial. There is no. Nothing formal, so I, I often say make, make them yourself. I think it’s really 

Kate Anthony: important. That’s what I was, I was about to ask you like, what can people do?

Right. Tell [00:34:00] me about some of the rituals for, for this kind of d you know Yeah. For divorce in particular, right? 

Barri Leiner Grant: Yeah. 

Kate Anthony: What are some of the rituals that, that you, that you recommend? I 

Barri Leiner Grant: have told, I have told people to bury a copy of their decree. That it can feel really great. I mean, have one on on hand.

’cause I remember how many times I had to refer to mine to figure out like, which dates. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah. Don’t, don’t bury the only copy 

Barri Leiner Grant: kids went where. But it can, but it can feel cathartic. Sometimes it can feel rich like ritual to go get something. Maybe you have a new name and you can go, um, get something in your new name.

Sometimes it’s a license. Sometimes it’s just picking up a prescription and telling them, and it’s. I order a coffee, uh, all of these things, like sometimes just hearing it back at you can feel kind of cool. 

Kate Anthony: Mm. 

Barri Leiner Grant: I had never, they asked me if I, um, wanted to change my name back. I was like, I, I, I never took that one.[00:35:00] 

I didn’t have to change, I didn’t have to change my name. But I also think sometimes it can be lighting a candle on a day that feels like, even if it’s like the anniversary of. The day that you got divorced, that you can, I often say there’s, there are candles that are called yard site candles that are for the anniversary of a loss in the Jewish faith.

And I have many clients who you can get them at the grocery. They burn for 24 hours and sometimes we just need to see it go. The light. The light shine goes through 

Kate Anthony: the cycle. 

Barri Leiner Grant: Go through the cycle, the light shine, and the light go out. You can write yourself a letter. I think it’s beautiful. I love the idea of doing it through the process.

Uhhuh, writing yourself a letter about what has gone well or writing to your kids about your hopes and dreams for them. Mm-hmm. And your feelings through the divorce. And like you said, putting them in a box. You don’t have to pull them out right now, but sometimes even dating your page in your [00:36:00] journal is ritual.

Where you can go back and say, oh, last year in January, I really look like I was falling apart when I went back and peaked and look at how far I’ve come. Mm-hmm. I think that’s a really beautiful thing. So I always say Date the page. Date the page. Date the page. I 

Kate Anthony: love that. Yes. Yes. 

Barri Leiner Grant: And I know you, you’ve shared about people having get togethers and.

I’ve invited, I invited a friend with me on the, on the day that I asked him to meet me outside, and we went for a really special lunch after. And made it more of a celebration than me walking out by myself. And I think that too, you know, can create a, a beautiful event. Kind of the I’m gonna be okay.

Kate Anthony: Absolutely, yes. One of the things that I recommend, a couple things is to have, like, especially if you’re keeping the home. And you like, if you’re staying in the home, you wanna [00:37:00] have a, have a party when you feel or, or if you’re still in the grief. Right? Have a gathering something small, right? Have something that feels appropriate to where you’re at if you’re not in a celebratory.

Phase. 

Barri Leiner Grant: Yeah. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah. Then do not have a big party, but have people over and like, and have the intention of the day be really specific and really clear that like we are here to move this energy. 

Barri Leiner Grant: Yes. 

Kate Anthony: Right. That we are here to, we’re gonna burn some sage. We’re gonna, you know, burn all the bedding. 

Barri Leiner Grant: I was just gonna say, we’ve had to make the bed party where we 

Kate Anthony: yes 

Barri Leiner Grant: everybody to chip in for betting.

And make, make the bed. 

Kate Anthony: Get new bedding. If you can afford a new mattress, get a new mattress. If you can’t, it’s fine. Just, just like strip it, sage it, get all new bedding. If you can’t afford it, ask for it. Right? Do a divorce registry. 

Barri Leiner Grant: Yeah. 

Kate Anthony: Have but have your friends come [00:38:00] over and reclaim the space.

Rearrange the furniture. Right. Or even if you like where the furniture is, move it all out. Dust, sage, vacuum, like just those stuck places of energy. It’s about clearing the energy open all the windows, whatever you need to do to move the energy and reclaim 

Barri Leiner Grant: Yeah, 

Kate Anthony: the space

Barri Leiner Grant: I, I painted the inside of the front door.

Of the rental space that I moved from when we sold, we actually sold our place and my girls and I moved just around the corner, but I painted the inside of the door. This like shiny hot pink. 

Kate Anthony: Yes. 

Barri Leiner Grant: And it just felt so good. 

Kate Anthony: Yes, 

Barri Leiner Grant: so good. 

Kate Anthony: I, when I got divorced, you know, my bedroom, I made it as girly and frilly as I wanted.

It was like all white and like just frilly. And I, I, I loved it for a time. Yeah, absolutely. Like reclaim. What is it [00:39:00] that you, what pictures were you not allowed to hang? What, you know, I was over at my ex’s house a few months ago and we were going through like stuff on his walls and I’m like, this is not you.

Like this is your ex-wife, his second ex-wife. I’m like, this is her, this is not, I was like, these colors aren’t like, there’s nothing about that. He was like. I’ve always hated that. And then similarly, she always hated certain things that we brought upstairs and put up prominently. Right. 

Barri Leiner Grant: I like the idea also of going to print some photos.

We have so many on our phone and it’s really a nice thing to like print photos. Have a, even have somebody come over and take some of of you that are new, maybe even from that said gathering. Yes. But putting those in frames around so you’re reminded that, oh, look at that one. That that’s, that’s the kids.

And I, I also, when I stopped wearing my wedding ring, I bought [00:40:00] this like little. Rolling ring. That was like three little interlocking rings. I bought it for myself on eBay. It was like the famous Cartier rolling ring and I got, I got it for a song and 

Kate Anthony: Nice. 

Barri Leiner Grant: It represented the three of us, which I thought was so beautiful.

Yeah, and it felt like my very own. A ring that I bought myself that I could wear that represented the three of us. I got an anchor tattoo. I think getting a tattoo can be like a really cool thing to do. 

Kate Anthony: You know, I got this tattoo for those of you who are not, uh, watching, I have a tattoo on my ring finger.

’cause I was like, I’m waiting for a man to adorn this finger. And like I decided that nobody was ever gonna adorn it. So I was like, ah. I can just wait for a man to do it. You must, must do it myself. And then, you know, cut to a year later or less. I think I met my fiance, but it looks really good with the ring.

Barri Leiner Grant: It does, it does. 

Kate Anthony: I’m double adorned, 

Barri Leiner Grant: but that could feel pretty badass to go and, and and, oh yeah. Put something. Yeah. [00:42:00] I, it was my first one and I got an anchor. And again, it felt like the, the points of the anchor felt like. Myself at the top and the girls on the side. And yeah. It felt, yeah, strong. And it’s a word that has, it’s, it’s part of, um, one of the, one of the ways that we, an acronym that I use in my grief support circles.

I just think that whatever feels like it will bring meaning and like you said, a reframing or a reclaim Yes. Is really, you know, the story I’m telling, usually it’s like. The story I’m telling myself is this, the story that is true is this. And sometimes the story we’re telling ourself needs a giant reframe.

Kate Anthony: Right. Exactly. That’s right. And like, it may not, and it also may not feel true in this moment, but like what, what is actually the more empowering version of this story? Like, does the story you’re telling yourself actually help you serve? [00:43:00] Yeah. Does it serve you? 

Barri Leiner Grant: Right, right, 

Kate Anthony: right. And like what would. What would serve you?

Barri Leiner Grant: I also tell people sometimes the ritual is getting up every day and taking a shower and blow drying your hair and putting on great lipstick or you know, mascara or whatever that is. But I remember every day I made a deal with myself that I was gonna get up, take a shower, dry my hair, make the bed, and put on some badass red lipstick.

Kate Anthony: There you go. And you’re still doing it to this day? I’m 

Barri Leiner Grant: still, I’m 

Kate Anthony: still doing it. I love it. It’s inate. I love it. It’s Barri, tell us quickly about your grief circles and where people can find you if they wanna join your grief circles. 

Barri Leiner Grant: So, uh, the one that’s online that is, uh, appropriate for all is Uhhuh, um, on Tuesday nights from seven to eight Eastern, and we meet in six week sessions.

So you can catch, can catch a session at the end of March, but there’s always another six, six week [00:44:00] session coming along. And then in October I’ll be at Omega and that is a creative retreat. Uh, I go with movement specialist Kelsey Morrow and the two of us really tap into creativity and movement. It’s really great.

There. It’s a, it’s a place where you can really go on beautiful walks, meditation, all your food is made for you. And I think we can really, like you said, the world doesn’t stop, but you can stop your world for just like three days and drop in to show up for yourself in, in your grief and, and your creativity.

And I think it’s really an empowering. Of days and, and it wonderful. It allows you to make that kind of space. 

Kate Anthony: Great. So all of this is on your website? Yeah. It’s memory 

Barri Leiner Grant: circle com. 

Kate Anthony: The memory circle. What, tell what’s the, what’s the, [00:45:00] um, meaning of the memory circle. 

Barri Leiner Grant: I felt that when I lost my mom, that I became the keeper of the memories.

Kate Anthony: Mm. 

Barri Leiner Grant: That keeping her memory alive, keeping rituals alive, wearing some of her things, it just felt right to me. Yeah. It was interesting because beautiful, I. It was like an intake query on the bottom of a podcasts interview, and I hadn’t searched it. I hadn’t done anything, and I don’t know if you believe in Divine intervention, but Outta The Keys came the name.

So it wasn’t really something that I intended to mean anything much except that I had been hosting circles as a peer. Just, it just, it just felt right. I love it. I had done marketing and PR for many years and written many headlines in my journalist journalist days, and it was much less studied than that.

And [00:46:00] later it came to serve well because my dad was living with memory loss, and I started to support caretakers as well that were living alongside folks who would experience an illness like Alzheimer’s. So I think it just keeps, it keeps serving. 

Kate Anthony: I love it. I love it. I’ve always been curious about that.

So, alright, Barri, thank you so much for being here. I am, you know, uh, I love your work and your wisdom for all of my people, so I’m just thrilled to have another conversation with you. 

Barri Leiner Grant: I love your people. 

Kate Anthony: They love you.

Barri Leiner Grant: Thank you again

Kate Anthony: Thanks Berri

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