Grief Experience Cards

How to use it

1. Look through the cards and choose any that fit a little, a lot, not now, or not at all.
2. Arrange them in any pattern, overlap them, or leave them separate.
3. Add your own word or image, or pass on explaining a choice.
4. Stop if the activity feels too much.

Reflection prompts

• Which experiences can exist together for you?
• What do you want others to understand or not assume?

Facilitator guidance

Normalize change, contradiction, numbness, relief, anger, longing, connection, and absence without suggesting universality. Do not infer a stage, timeline, diagnosis, or level of love from selected or unselected cards.

Adaptations & accessibility

• Use images without emotion words or words without images.
• Offer private sorting, AAC, gesture, or a smaller set.
• Create cards for culturally or personally meaningful experiences.

Review considerations

Enhanced licensed grief-specialist and cultural-responsiveness review required before use; ensure the set does not prescribe stages, timelines, intensity, or a correct way to grieve.