Willow Anne Meili

Welcome. I am so honored that you are here. The following is a bit about me in the context of the work I do out in the world and why.

I was born into grief. I am the daughter of a motherless mother, who was actively grieving the loss of her mother at age 7 throughout all of my childhood. In a culture that does not really acknowledge loss as a life-changing event, or grief as an active experience that may change over time but never goes away, I witnessed what it is to be in deep grief and completely lost within it. That experience of being alone on a life raft in the middle of an ocean was my mother, and that experience for many manifests into all kinds of other experiences that impact daily life, relationships, choices, mental health and so on. The truth is that most of us don’t know how to grieve. We know grief, but we have no guidance or understanding about how to approach it, let alone live our lives in relationship with it.

After experiencing an extremely intensified birth of my daughter, blindsided by the unsupported crossing of the threshold into motherhood, and a continued health crisis immediately following, I was thrown into the stormy seas of my own untouched grief. Even though I had been through the deaths of loved ones, it was the birth of my daughter that opened the floodgates of grief and woke me up to the necessary shift and exploration of being in an active relationship with my grief. Like so many of us, I discovered that I was carrying a lifetime of unprocessed grief due not only to death losses but non-death losses as well.

Being the scholarly human that I am, I embarked on a deep dive of study which lead to practice and exploration of all things grief. I studied Mindful Grieving Yoga Therapy, which combines the skills of meditation, therapeutic yoga asana, and integration. I became a certified End of Life Doula, a support role for those who are dying and their loved ones. I have studied with some of the most incredible folks in the world of grief, conscious dying and support, and I continue to do so.

With a compassionate heart and a deep sense of empathy, I continue to sincerely show up to the human experience. I believe it is my offering in this world to co-create/companion spaces where humans can show up as they are, to remember what it means to be human. Death, dying and loss are not unique experiences only for certain folk, these are human experiences that we will ALL face on our journey through life.  I am not here to offer any magic formula, step-by-step process or unattainable teaching, there is NO SOLUTION to grief. There is only the remembering that in a grief-illiterate culture, grief is a learned skill and it needs practice, expression, and witnessing. We already have what it takes inside of us, we just, at times, need support in accessing those parts of ourselves. I am here to hold a soft and gentle space and offer the inherent(to us all) remembering that to be witnessed, and to be a witness for others is a crucial part of community making, building and connection. We need each other, and being together through the deep sorrows of loss in this life is at the heart of the communities I am inspired to co-create with, all who wish to discover the preciousness of this being human, together. 

My lived experience

  I have experience in supporting and participating in many modalities within the healing arts, including as a certified yoga teacher, workshop leader, women’s circle facilitator, private one one-on-one support, grief circle facilitator and grief literacy activism.  These experiences along with countless other support roles are a deep honor for me in this life.  There is a short list of educational experiences below. The space that I learn the most from is my facilitation of community grief circles. It is in these spaces that I sit alongside grievers who so bravely share their stories and hearts. I am honored to be a facilitator and witness, it is in this witnessing that I am reminded what it is to be human and just how connected we all are. Our losses may be different, and our experiences with grief are vast and individual, but we are all held together by the TRUTH that we will all experience loss in this being human.

My Current work includes the role of the co-founder of The Grief Well, a compassionate community initiative that hosts organised grief gatherings, learning/ training opportunities for grief companionship, and hosts a community art program that encourages creation as a response to grief and loss. I am also emerging as an end-of-life doula with a focus on post-death support. I am a Hospice Volunteer on the unit and in bereavement services with Victoria Hospice on Vancouver Island.

It is with awareness and deep gratitude that I live and work as an uninvited guest on the ancestral lands of the Coast Salish Lekwungen- speaking people, whose relationship with these lands continues.

Grief and Love are sisters, woven together from the beginning. Their kinship reminds us that there is no love that does not contain loss and no loss that is not a reminder of the love we carry for what we once held close.

-Francis Weller-

“How do we find the strength to not look away at all that is breaking our hearts? Hands-on the earth, we remember where the source of our authentic power comes from. We have to go deeper. What has been weathered and whittled away is as beautiful as what remains – erosion, essence. We are eroding and evolving at once.”
- Terry Tempest Williams-

To My Teachers I Bow…

I am deeply grateful to all of the teachers including my teacher’s teacher’s teachers… that I have encountered along my path.  Without their teachings, experience, guidance, and support I would not be living the inspired awakened life that I am.  I bow to all of the teachers of my past, present, and future. Below is a short list of some of the training I have completed that supports/qualifies me in what I offer. I continue to train and learn in the fields of grief support, death & dying as well as my other interests that all lend towards my ability to support others.

Victoria Hospice, Hospice Volunteer, Unit + Bereavement services

Tending the Taproot, online learning/support community, Shauna Janz

Roots to Resiliency, Shauna Janz

The Elements of Ceremony, End of Life Ritual Training, Be Ceremonial

Going with Grace, End of life Doula/End of life planning- Alula Arthur

Mindful Grieving Yoga Therapy Facilitator, The Center for Somatic Grieving, Wendy Black Stern

Way of the Happy Woman teacher training,Sara Avant Stover

Prana Yoga College, CYT, Shakti Mhi