Community Dinners Embrace Grief
TheDinnerParty.org is gathering people to talk candidly about loss and heartache
Nobody escapes loss or death. And so this group of 20- 30-somethings is facilitating conversations where people can connect through loss and grieving. TheDinnerParty.org’s mission?
To transform life after loss from an isolating experience into one marked by community support, candid conversation, and forward movement.
These dinner gatherings have grown in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington DC, New York City, and now all over the country. The attendees use these casual gatherings as a place to process and move beyond the grief to become more open-hearted, committed, and aware humans.
The Neuroscience of Grief
Our culture tells us that sadness is weakness and in order to really get to the bottom of our emotional experience, we should spend time alone with ourselves––enter Western scene of cowboy riding alone off into the sunset to face his demons.
However, the science shows that “it’s loneliness, more than any other factor, that causes stress. It’s a burden on both mind and body. It results in restlessness, confusion in thought and feeling (caused by stress hormones), and a weakening of the immune system. In isolation, people become sad and sick.”
A study conducted at Washington University shows that “grief is our innate adjustment process to loss and, when ignored or downplayed, can result in complications such as depression and other co-morbidities.”
Go out to dinner, and talk about it
When we experience deep loss, it can feel isolating, and it’s difficult to reach out––especially when you feel you should have got over it long ago. TheDinnerParty.org is providing healing and progressive connection. Talk about your grief over a meal with people who are ready to be vulnerable and embrace their grief as a strength.
A note from TheDinnerParty.org:
The end goal? We foresee a day in which Dinner Parties are as pervasive as AA meetings, and as culturally acceptable and readily accessible as yoga and meditation classes: a day in which young people who have experienced loss are recognized not as objects of pity, but as better listeners and better leaders, characterized by profound empathy, resilience, and agency.