Learning to Live With Grief: Meet AmarAtma

Grief touches every life, yet few of us are taught how to live with it. AmarAtma, a grief coach, author, and founder of the Institute for Compassionate Grieving, has spent more than fifteen years exploring what it means to meet loss with greater understanding and compassion. Here, he shares the experiences that shaped his work—and a different way of thinking about grief.

My name is AmarAtma, and grief has been one of my greatest teachers.

It entered my life at a young age, long before I had the words or support to understand what I was experiencing. Like so many people, I learned the unspoken rules of grief: Stay busy. Be strong. Don’t burden others. Eventually, move on.

I became very good at surviving while quietly carrying what had never been acknowledged.

Years later, I came to realize that much of what I thought I had “moved past” was still living within me. Grief hadn’t disappeared—it had accumulated. When I buried it, I unknowingly buried it alive. It began shaping my body, my relationships, and the stories I told myself.

That realization changed the course of my life.

For more than fifteen years, I’ve dedicated myself to understanding grief, not only through my own experience but alongside thousands of individuals and families navigating loss. My journey has taken me through the study of Traditional Chinese Medicine and acupuncture, years of hospital chaplaincy, graduate study at Harvard Divinity School, and the founding of the Institute for Compassionate Grieving.

Each step has deepened one conviction: Grieving is a life skill we’ve rarely been taught.

Working with people from every walk of life, I began noticing something remarkable. Although every grief story is unique, many of us become stuck in similar ways—not because there’s something wrong with our grief, but because we’ve never been given a compassionate framework for understanding it.

That realization led me to develop the Compassionate Grieving Model, an integrative approach that brings together grief literacy, contemplative practice, somatic awareness, nervous system regulation, ritual, and compassionate community. Rather than asking people to overcome grief, this work invites us to understand it, honor it, and discover how love continues to shape our lives.

As I began sharing these ideas more publicly, I discovered how many people had been quietly carrying the same questions. What started as conversations grew into courses, retreats, a global online community, and my first book, The Tender Art of Grieving.

Today, I have the privilege of sharing this work at Kripalu and other institutions around the country, while continuing to support individuals, healthcare professionals, educators, and communities navigating grief.

If our paths cross at Kripalu, I hope you’ll know this: There is nothing you need to prove before you arrive. You don’t need to have your grief figured out.

My hope is simply to create a space where you feel seen, supported, and gently reminded that there is nothing wrong with your grief.

It would be an honor to share this journey with you.