Grief isn’t just about losing someone

Based on a podcast with: Marta Bakuridze and host Philipp Kobald

There’s a strange kind of silence that follows loss. Not the poetic kind. The awkward, bureaucratic kind. The kind that expects you back at work in three days, smiling politely while your soul is still screaming. In a world obsessed with productivity, grief has become the ultimate inconvenience.

Enter Marta Bakuridze — a trauma and grief coach who doesn’t just talk about loss. She lives in its shadow, works in its trenches, and somehow still manages to speak about it with clarity, grace, and the kind of emotional intelligence that makes you want to sit down and finally feel something.

The Grief Nobody Sees

Bakuridze’s work isn’t limited to death. She deals in the subtler, quieter forms of grief — the kind that doesn’t come with casseroles or condolences. The grief of losing your identity. Your health. Your sense of safety. Your country.

“Grief isn’t just about losing someone,” she says. “It’s about losing parts of yourself — and not knowing how to get them back.”

It’s a radical reframing. One that doesn’t ask you to move on, but to move inward.

Motherhood and the Myth of Wholeness

Bakuridze works extensively with mothers. Not because they’re broken, but because they’re expected to be whole. All the time. Effortlessly. With a smile.

“I lost myself through motherhood,” she admits. “I didn’t know who I was anymore — just that I was supposed to be everything.”

It’s a familiar story, told in hushed tones between school pickups and sleepless nights. But Bakuridze doesn’t whisper. She names it. The burnout. The anxiety. The quiet rage of being expected to do it all while feeling like you’re disappearing.

And then she offers something rare: not a solution, but a space.

The War at Home

Originally from Ukraine and now based in Philadelphia, Bakuridze carries a dual reality. One foot in safety. One heart in a war zone.

“My kids are safe,” she says. “But my family is still there. My country is still there. And I’m here.”

It’s a grief that doesn’t fit into neat categories. It’s not survivor’s guilt. It’s not patriotism. It’s something deeper — a spiritual dissonance. A longing to help, to hold, to heal, from thousands of miles away.

She tried volunteering. Burned out. Tried again. Burned out again. Until she realized that the only sustainable way to help was to do what she does best: hold space for pain. One person at a time.

The Politics of Pain

Grief, in Bakuridze’s world, is political. Not in the partisan sense, but in the existential one. Who gets to grieve? For how long? And with what support?

“In Ukraine, grief is communal,” she explains. “In the West, it’s private. Sanitized. Scheduled.”

It’s a cultural chasm. One that leaves many people — especially in so-called “advanced” societies — grieving in isolation. Because there’s no ritual. No roadmap. Just a vague expectation to “move on.”

But Bakuridze isn’t interested in moving on. She’s interested in moving through.

The Spiritual Side of Suffering

This is, after all, a spiritual podcast. And Bakuridze doesn’t disappoint. Her approach to grief is deeply spiritual — but not in the incense-and-affirmations kind of way. It’s grounded. Gritty. Real.

“Healing is spiritual,” she says. “But not because it’s pretty. Because it’s honest.”

She talks about reconnecting with the presence of lost loved ones. About processing grief not as a problem to solve, but as a relationship to transform. About the quiet miracle of feeling someone’s love again — not as memory, but as presence.

It’s not magic. It’s work. But it’s the kind of work that changes you.

Ice Cream, Scarcity, and the Taste of Memory

In the middle of a conversation about war, grief, and generational trauma, something unexpected happens: they talk about ice cream.

Bakuridze recalls growing up in Ukraine, where ice cream was a rare, almost mythical treat — something that arrived in town once every few months, if you were lucky. “Ice cream never tasted that good once it became available,” she says. “That was the best ice cream ever.”

It’s a moment of levity, yes — but also a meditation on longing, memory, and the strange joy of limitation. Kobald joins in, reminiscing about the days when yogurt came in just four flavors and strawberries were a seasonal event, not a year-round commodity.

Together, they laugh. And in that laughter, something sacred happens: a pause. A reminder that even in the heaviest conversations, there’s room for sweetness. That healing isn’t just about processing pain — it’s about remembering joy.

The Lesson We Keep Ignoring

Toward the end of the conversation, host Philipp Kobald asks the question we’re all thinking: Is there a lesson in all this? Or are we just doomed to repeat the same cycles of violence, loss, and forgetting?

Bakuridze doesn’t flinch.

“I cannot change the world,” she says. “But I can change myself.”

It’s not a resignation. It’s a revolution. Because in a world that keeps outsourcing responsibility — to governments, to gods, to algorithms — choosing to change yourself is the most radical act of all.

The Quiet Revolution

Bakuridze’s work isn’t flashy. It doesn’t trend. It doesn’t scale. But it matters. Because it reminds us that healing isn’t about fixing people. It’s about witnessing them. That grief isn’t a detour from life — it’s part of the path. And that sometimes, the most spiritual thing you can do is sit with someone in their pain and say, “I see you.”

Not because it’s easy. But because it’s human.

Watch the full episode on the @HolisticCircle YouTube channel.
Not because it’ll make you feel better. But because it might make you feel seen.

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By Philipp Kobald in cooperation with AI
www.HolisticCircle.org
@2025 HolisticCircle by Philipp Kobald