Join us for this FREE two-day online workshop, which will take place inside a private Facebook group September 17th and 18th, 2026.
Grief is part of life in this “Valley of Tears,” but we know that, because of Jesus’ resurrection, death does not have the final say.
St. Paul encourages us not to grieve like those who have no hope. However, grief can cause us so much pain that it can be challenging to hold on to the hope that is offered by our faith.
Join three Catholic grief workers who have all experienced the loss of close loved ones – parents, spouse, and children – as they share practical tools for holding on to hope in the midst of grief and pain.
Here’s what you’ll find inside this two-day Workshop:
Day One – Thursday, September 17th
Creative Resilience: Visualizing Your Journey
Sometimes words aren’t enough. Through a guided creative prayer experience and gentle reflection, you’ll use simple drawing prompts to explore your grief journey in a new way. As you create, you’ll be invited to recognize moments of grace, resilience, and God’s faithful presence that may have been hidden along the path. No artistic experience is necessary. All you’ll need is paper and something to write and draw with. I suggest a pencil or pen along with colored pencils or crayons.
Navigating Difficult Family Relationships
Grief can change family relationships in ways you never expected. Different ways of grieving, hurt feelings, unmet expectations, and painful conversations can leave you feeling even more alone. In this talk, you’ll learn practical ways to communicate your needs, set healthy boundaries, and navigate difficult family situations while staying grounded in your faith and your grief.
Managing the Thoughts That Come With Grief
Grief comes with many challenging thoughts. It can affect the way we think about God, about ourselves, and about others. Sometimes these thoughts can add to our suffering and leave us feeling trapped inside our minds.
We’ll learn a practical tool that we can use again and again to help us stop the spinning thoughts, hold them up to the light of truth, and create more peace in our minds and hearts. You’ll want to have a pen or a pencil and a piece of paper.
Day Two – Friday, September 18th
Creative Surrender: The Cross We Carry
Grief was never meant to be carried alone. Through a guided collage activity and prayerful reflection, you’ll create a meaningful cross that symbolizes the burdens you’ve been carrying and your invitation to place them into the hands of Christ. Inspired by the Japanese art of kintsugi, you’ll trace each piece with gold as a reminder that God does not waste our suffering. Through His grace, even our deepest wounds can become places where His light shines through. No artistic experience is necessary. All you’ll need is cardstock or watercolor paper, patterned or colored paper, scissors, glue, a pen, and a gold marker.
Grief Triggers: What to do When Grief Hits You Out of Nowhere
A song, a smell, a holiday, a familiar place, or a date on the calendar can suddenly bring your grief rushing back. In this practical talk, you’ll learn why grief triggers happen, how to recognize your own triggers, and what you can actually do when they hit. You’ll leave with simple tools for preparing for difficult days, handling unexpected waves of grief, and making a plan for anniversaries and other significant dates.
Following the Example of Our Lady of Sorrows
Our Lady is such a beautiful example to us of suffering with hope. In this lesson, we’ll unpack her Seven Sorrows and relate them to our own experiences of loss to find in her someone who desires to connect with us through the shared experience of suffering. Then we’ll look at the way she shows us how to hold on to faith, hope, and love in the face of the intense pain of grief.
Our Lady knows that no one gets to heaven without suffering, but she is also desirous to give us the graces we need to suffer well. Let’s follow her example together.
Meet Your Presenters
Jenny Burba
Jenny is a Catholic speaker, author, and the founder of Creative Resilience After Loss, a ministry dedicated to helping people discover hope and purpose through Christ in the midst of suffering. She is also the host of The Catholic Grief Podcast, where she offers compassionate, faith-filled encouragement to those navigating grief of all kinds.
Jenny’s ministry is rooted in personal experience. After the heartbreaking loss of her son during pregnancy and the death of her first husband in 2021, she has walked the long road of grief while raising a large family and learning to trust God through life’s deepest sorrows. Her journey has taught her that while grief changes us forever, Christ never abandons us in our suffering.
Through speaking, writing, workshops, and her Creative Resilience framework, Jenny encourages others to bring their grief to the foot of the Cross, where hope, healing, and purpose can begin to grow. Her heart is to help others discover that suffering is never wasted when it is united with Christ.
Jenny lives in North Carolina with her second husband, Jason, and together they enjoy creating meaningful products through their family business, Burba Designs. She is the proud mother of thirteen children and grandmother to three beautiful granddaughters.
Nichole Haugen
Nichole is a Catholic wife of 16 years to Will and mother to six amazing, beautiful girls. She believes that everyone has grief, just in various stages. She is passionate about talking about our struggles and finding healing in offering this pain and suffering to Jesus.
Nichole spent over ten years as a hospice nurse, helping families through hard times. She knows a lot about grief, both from her job and in her own life. In 2019, her dad passed away after a long fight with cancer, and just four months later, her mom died suddenly in a winter storm. On top of that, she discovered her husband had been hiding financial problems for over 10 years.
Through all of this, Nichole found a path to healing, forgiveness, and learning to live with grief. Now, as a grief coach, she supports others on their grief journeys, helping them feel understood and reminding them they don’t have to face it alone.
Nichole’s superpower is facing hard things and not losing faith. She believes that most of us confuse offering it up with sucking it up. Her mission is to have a place where Catholic women who are struggling and facing hardships become more united with Jesus.
Eileen Tully
Eileen is a Catholic speaker, writer, and coach. She is the creator and editor of Those Who Mourn Magazine and the founder of Sursum Corda, a Catholic grief support ministry.
Eileen struggled with her faith after the loss of four of her children to miscarriage, stillbirth, and infant loss. She searched for resources to help her as she wrestled with the many ways grief had impacted her life and found very little. After piecing together the resources that helped her – including a devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows – and recognizing the hope offered by her Catholic faith, Eileen felt called to create tools to help others navigating the grief experience.
As a certified Catholic coach, Eileen offers practical ways to help others lean into their faith and navigate the changed relationships – with God, ourselves, and others – that frequently accompany the grieving experience.
Eileen and her husband, Patrick, have been married for 20 years and live in rural New Hampshire with their six living children.
Enter your email below to register for this FREE workshop and gain access to the private Facebook group where this event will be hosted.
Thank you registering!
You can also purchase a VIP ticket to the event for even MORE resources!
Here’s what you’ll get as a VIP:
- Unlimited access to all the videos in the Workshop to watch at your own pace. These videos will not be stored on Facebook, so if you don’t have a Facebook account, you will be able to access to them.
- A live Q&A with the presenters on Saturday, September 19th at noon Eastern.
- Access to “Who You Are is How You Grieve: How Your Unique Temperament Affects Your Grieving” – a video workshop to help you better understand your unique grief experience in light of your God-given temperament from Eileen Tully at Sursum Corda
- Three FREE months inside the online Those Who Mourn Community, with discussion and prayer, monthly workshops, a Spotify playlist of holy music, monthly group coaching, book clubs, and more!
- A library of grief resources from Nichole Haugen at Catholic Grief Coach, including:
- Difficult Family Conversation Guide
- Family Boundaries “Cheat Sheet”
- Grief Trigger Anniversary Planner
- My A/B/C Plan for Difficult Grief Days
- Jenny Burba’s Creative Resilience Workbook, plus a free one-on-one consultation with Jenny.