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Charlene Lam | Grief Coach, Speaker & Author, Curating Grief

@curating_grief

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I help grievers feel lighter.
💖 Grief Coach, Author, TEDx speaker
🖼 The Grief Gallery l Sorting Stuff course
👇 Free Grief Gathering

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You’re invited to The Grief Gallery’s free monthly grief gathering 💖 Next gathering: Wed Oct 28th at 2pm ET (NYC) ***6pm UK this month because of Daylight Savings!

We meet the last Wednesday of every month. I’m celebrating almost 4 years of these monthly gatherings! 🎉

👉 Register at charlenelam.com/gathering or via link in bio

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We meet on Zoom the last Wednesday of the month at 2pm ET (NYC).

This is an opportunity to remember our loved ones, share stories, be in community and get a taste of my Curating Grief approach to grief support.
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Feel free to bring an object to share in our imaginary gallery space: An item or the story of an item you’ve kept after a loved one died.
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Alternatively, there’s no pressure to turn on your camera or to speak if you do not wish to –– all curious and kind grievers are welcome!

Part of the @letsreimagine End of Life Event Calendar
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Register at curatinggrief.com/gathering or via link in bio

#grief #griefsupport #lifeafterloss #thegriefgallery #curatinggrief #griefcoach #griefcoaching #griefjourney #griefawareness #motherlessdaughter by @curating_grief

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a year ago

In 2015, I curated my first grief-related exhibition featuring my mother’s belongings. The seed for The Grief Gallery and my Curating Grief work today!

Looking back, it was the memorial I really wanted to give her. 💖 I called the exhibition Proof of Life because after dealing with her estate for years (the Proof of Death phase, as I call it), I was ready to focus on how she Lived, not how she died.

Fond memories of that exhibition, the conversations, that space in Clerkenwell, London @craftcentraluk (RIP, that space is now gone too)

Brilliant illustrations by Mercedes Leon @merchesico commissioned for this show.

#grief #thegriefgallery #griefsupport #lifeafterloss #curatinggrief by @curating_grief

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4 years ago

Hi! I’m Charlene. I help grieving people to navigate the practical and emotional aftermath of loss.

WHAT FEELS HEAVY TO YOU?

😭 Are you weighed down by piles of grief?

📦 Drowning in piles of physical stuff after the death of a loved one? Wondering how to decide what to keep and what to do with the belongings after a death?

😖 Feeling burdened by responsibilities, regrets or resentment?

I can help.

💖 Certified Grief Coach
🎤 Speaker
📔 Author of “Curating Grief”
🖼️ Curator of The Grief Gallery

My unique, creative approach is called Curating Grief™

Let’s make space for what’s important.

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💔 MY GRIEF WORK STARTED when my amazing mom Marilyn died suddenly in 2013. I was drowning in grief … and her stuff!

🖼️ I USE THE LENS OF CURATING across my grief work.

And YES, you can curate!
- Whether you’re creative or not
- Whether you have physical stuff or not
- Whether your loss was recent or long ago

Curating = Choosing with Intention 💖

I OFFER:
▫️Individual Grief Coaching
▫️Talks and Workshops
▫️Private Retreats*
▫️Sorting the Stuff interactive course
▫️Free Monthly Grief Gathering
▫️The Grief Gallery Exhibitions

* Come visit: I’m based in Lisbon, Portugal. 🇵🇹
I work with clients worldwide.

WHY WORK WITH ME?
▫️Make space for your grief
▫️Get private, personalized support
▫️Feel lighter and more ready to move forward with
your own fullest life 💖

WANT TO GET STARTED?
🌐 Visit CharleneLam.com
☎️ Book a Free Consultation
👋 Attend a Free Grief Gathering
See the links in my bio for resources and ways to work with me.

THANKS FOR BEING HERE 💖
Grief can be lonely.
You are not alone.
You don’t have to do this alone.

#grief #griefsupport #griefcoach #lifeafterloss #curatinggrief #creativegrief #creativegriefpractitioners #motherlessdaughter #motherlessdaughters #imissmymom #lifeafterlosscanstillbebeautiful #letstalkaboutgrief #asianamericancoach #parentalloss #griefjourney by @curating_grief

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a year ago

Lighter Together
SCAD Photography and Charlene Lam, founder of The Grief Gallery® and Curating Grief®, in partnership with SCAD Office of Mental Health, invite you to a series of conversations, photographs and gatherings exploring how creativity and connection help us hold loss more lightly, together.
In Conversation with Charlene Lam
Sat, Oct. 24 · 2–3:30 p.m.
River event space, 17th floor, 640 Indian St.
Open to SCAD community.
Dear Objects: Exhibition Opening
Sat, Oct. 24 · 3:30–5:30 p.m. · Graham Scott Gallery, 641 Indian St.
Open to the public.
Portrait of a Dear Object: Pop-Up Photo Studio
Bring a meaningful object to be photographed by SCAD Photography students and added to the exhibition.
Sat, Oct. 24 · 3:30–5:30 p.m. · Graham Scott Gallery, at the opening
Wed, Oct. 28 · 5–7:30 p.m. · Graham Scott Gallery
Supported by the Feinglos Fund and PAUSE.
Image: Sydney Apple, After April
#SCADPhotography #CharleneLam #scadmoa by @curating_grief

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a day ago

Join us for the Curating Grief pop-up in Savannah, GA! I’m excited to be back for almost 3 weeks of creative grief programming including:

🖼️ Dear Objects exhibition in collaboration with @scad_photo - join us for the opening view next Saturday Oct 24th at 3:30pm. Open to the public with RSVP.

📸 Pop-up photo studio for meaningful objects with SCAD Photo students

💖 Resource fair in partnership with SCAD Office of Mental Health

Plus more events with @scadmoa @savphoto_org @savannahphotoclub!

👉 VISIT CURATINGGRIEF.COM/SAVANNAH for schedule and to RSVP

Thank you to the Feinglos Fund @rfeinglos and my nonprofit partner @timetopauseorg for making this all possible! Let’s create beautiful space for grief in Savannah 💖

#curatinggrief taken in Savannah, Georgia by @curating_grief

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2 days ago

One of my favorite things about the work I do is the wonderful people it’s brought into my life. ❤️

Charlene Lam (@curating_grief) and I first connected years ago through our shared work in the grief space (thanks @alica.forneret for the intro!), but somehow we’d never actually met in person. That finally changed this week when I joined her in NYC to record an episode of her Curating Grief podcast!

We talked about Speaking Grief (@wpsugrief), how my work in this space has evolved over the years, and what I’m doing now with the Grief-Sensitive Healthcare Project (@yalegshp) at Yale Child Study Center. We also got personal, talking about my mom’s death and some of the weird, unexpected, and not-always-rational thoughts that can pop into our heads when we’re grieving. (Grief is strange, y’all.)

It was such a joy to finally spend time together in person, and I’m so grateful for the chance to share a little of my own story alongside the work that’s become such a meaningful part of my life.

Thank you, Charlene, for the wonderful conversation and for being one of the lovely people this work has brought into my orbit. Can’t wait to share the episode!

#CuratingGrief #Podcast #Grief taken in Manhattan, New York by @curating_grief

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7 days ago

When we experience a major loss, we are often imagining in a way that’s not necessarily helpful for us.

“What could I have done differently?”
“Could I have saved her?”
“Maybe I did that wrong.”
“What if I regret letting go of this item?”

I’m inviting us to use our imaginations for us, to say:

“How might I imagine a life that can still be beautiful, even though I miss them so much?”

“How might I imagine a home that still feels like home, even without my precious pet here?”

“How might I imagine a world that is worth fighting for, that I want to stay for, that I want to build and create?”

“How might I imagine an ongoing relationship with the person that I’ve lost, even though I so desperately want them back?”

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This was my Curator’s Note during July’s free online gathering of The Grief Gallery. Join us: We meet the last Wednesday of every month on Zoom at 2pm ET, imagining we are in a shared gallery space. Link in bio or at curatinggrief.com/gathering

#curatinggrief #griefcoach #griefsupport by @curating_grief

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16 days ago

The European Grief Conference in Porto was amazing. The weather, the sites, the people, the grief research! And it all started 11 years ago …

Oct 2015, London: I curated my first grief exhibition featuring my mom’s belongings. The start of The Grief Gallery and my Curating Grief practice.

Oct 2024, Lisbon: The Grief Gallery’s first exhibition in Portugal, at the country’s biggest public hospital, Hospital de Santa Maria @ulssantamaria_epe in partnership with the palliative care team, with major help from nurse @paliativospt 🏥

Now, in Sept 2026 I’m presenting in Porto at the European Grief Conference! Sharing The Grief Gallery with delegates from almost 40 countries. 🎉I’m so proud and I know my mom would be so proud. 🥰

It was amazing connecting with grief scholars, artists, guides and leaders, and seeing mentors and teachers like @doctormfoconnor, Dr. Lucy Selman from @goodgrieffestival @griefcentrebris, Bob Neimayer and Carolyn Ng from the Portland Institute of Loss and Transition @_meaningbridge_ ❤️

Thank you to the organizers, Bereavement Network Europe, the Danish National Center for Grief @detnationalesorgcenter and steering committee members. Thank you to everyone who made this possible, including the Feinglos Fund @rfeinglos PAUSE @timetopauseorg and of course, Mom.

Excited to bring The Grief Gallery to Germany, Ireland, Denmark, and more places in Portugal and beyond! 🌎🌍🌏

#curatinggrief #europeangriefconference #griefspeaker by @curating_grief

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a month ago

Celebrating the 1 year anniversary of my @tedxlisboa talk “What Grief and Soy Sauce Taught Me About Life After Loss.” 🎉Released as a TEDx Editor’s Pick @tedx_official last year, just in time for Grief Awareness Day (Aug 30), it now has over 22,000 views!

Watch on YouTube at curatinggrief.com/tedxtalk

Can you think of someone who might benefit from it? Please do share it with them! 💖

#griefawarenessday #griefawareness #tedxspeaker by @curating_grief

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2 months ago

Sometimes the right book finds you even when you think you already know that territory. ❤️ 10 years into my own journey with grief, Curating Grief gave me a completely new way to understand something I had instinctively done myself.

Charlene Lam‘s beautiful, compassionate book asks us to reconsider what we do with all the “stuff” our people leave behind – not simply as things to keep or throw away, but as objects we can collect, curate, and create with as we continue our relationships with the people we’ve lost. Continuing bonds, she calls them, and they are very real.

Somewhere along the way, I realized my own book, In the Garden Behind the Moon, is a Grief Gallery™️. I just never knew to call it that. And I think that says something important about what Lam has articulated here: a process, ritual, and reframing that grieving people may instinctively need, even before anyone gives them language for it.

I especially loved how she grounds the psychology of grief in stories of her own mother-in-law, making it warm, immediate, and deeply personal — alongside charming, watercolor illustrations of the ordinary objects people leave behind: purse, contents, pens, unfinished craft projects. And, reader, it all begins with an ordinary soy sauce bottle. On a white museum plinth. 🖤

If you’re grieving, or facing the belongings, someone you love left behind, I hope you’ll discover Curating Grief. It’s practical, wise, deeply validating, and extra extraordinarily kind. Visit Charlene’s page, too, for wonderful grief content.

Grief needs a witness, as they say, and this book knows how to be one.

@curating_grief #CuratingGrief #GriefGallery #GriefBooks #GriefSupport #ContinuingBonds by @curating_grief

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2 months ago

Grieving is a process of Recontextualizing.
- What is this object without its owner?
- Is it still my mom’s house if she’s dead?
- Who am I without this person?

Again and again, we recontextualize the belongings, the places, the person, and ourselves.

I love what @doctormfoconnor author of The Grieving Brain says about grieving being a learning process. My own brain is still buzzing after our conversation for the Curating Grief Show! 🤓 In the episode, we talk about transitional objects (and allude to what are often called linking objects) and the different roles these items can play for us as grieving people.

My current theory: I believe recontextualizing is part of our learning process as grieving people — and the physical objects can play a helpful role as external items that help us to recontextualize, reconstruct and reorganize internally.

🎥 Watch the episode with Dr. O’Connor on YouTube at curatinggrief.com/show-brain

🎧 Find the Curating Grief Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and more.

#curatinggrief #thegrievingbrain #griefsupport by @curating_grief

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2 months ago

In this week’s episode I’m joined by grief coach, speaker and author Charlene Lam @curating_grief for a thoughtful conversation about grief, sentimental clutter and the emotional weight of letting go. We talk about why sorting through a loved one’s belongings can feel so overwhelming, how grief shows up in our homes and our hearts and why there is no right timeline for moving through loss.

If you’ve ever struggled with what to keep, what to release or how to navigate loss with more gentleness, this conversation offers both comfort and practical perspective.

#liveonpurpose #griefjourney #griefawareness #intentionallife by @curating_grief

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2 months ago