“Grief needs a better place to live in modern day society and it is my personal mission to bring it out of the shadows and into the daily vernacular so we can become a grief informed and grief fluent world.”

Barri began her formal relationship with grief in 1993, when her mother Ellen died suddenly and without warning. There was little to no grief support back then, and it proved to be a very lonely and isolated feeling to be without her in the world. She would eke her name into conversations and then worry that she may be making everyone in the room sad. In talking about her, Barri connected with others who braved their stories of loss.

Initially, Barri began hosting gatherings for motherless daughters after she received her yoga and meditation training and certification. She began to understand how being seen, heard, and witnessed in grief was essential to healing. Barri decided to leave her full-time career as a publicist and founded The Memory Circle where she is the the Chief Grief Officer™. Grant is now an innovator and educator in the field of grief coaching and has studied with the leading names in the grief space, including grief certification and education with Claire Bidwell Smith, David Kessler and Hope Edelman. She combines her writing background and yoga/meditation training to craft a one-of-a-kind way forward. She believes with her grief-tending techniques, we can honor and learn to live with loss.