Meet Heather Stang, MA, C-IAYT

Heather Stang, MA, C-IAYT, is a thanatologist, author, grief speaker, and podcast host who helps people live with loss through mindfulness, self-compassion, and practical grief support. She is the creator of the 8-Step Mindfulness and Grief System, which is featured in The Handbook of Grief Therapies, and the recipient of the 2025 Association for Death Education and Counseling Clinical Practice Award.

Heather is the author of Living with Grief, From Grief to Peace, and Navigating Loss. Through her books, speaking, training, podcasting, and client work, she helps grieving people and helping professionals move beyond myths and platitudes into more honest, compassionate, and sustainable ways of living and working with loss. She is also the host of the Mindfulness and Grief Podcast and serves on the Advisory Board for TAPS, supporting military survivor families. 

How This Work Found Me

My work did not begin only in graduate school or professional training. It began in grief.

By the time I was seven, both of my uncles had died. One, my mother’s brother, died by suicide. The other, my father’s brother, had a developmental disability and died in his early twenties, when I was about two. Before I had language for any of it, I was growing up inside an ecosystem of grief. Both of my parents had lost their only sibling. All four of my grandparents had lost a child. Grief was not abstract in my family. It was in the air.

Years later, after struggling with stress-related illness, I discovered yoga and mindfulness while leading a web development company. That experience changed the course of my life. I went on to serve as a suicide and crisis hotline call specialist in honor of my uncle, volunteered as a trainer and call specialist after Hurricane Katrina, and worked on a National Institute of Mental Health funded National Suicide Prevention Lifeline research project. Those experiences deepened my commitment to grief, trauma, and compassionate support, and eventually led me to earn a master’s degree in thanatology.

A deeper turning point came through somatic practice. In writing about Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy, I shared how a retreat experience after 9/11 brought a profound release in my body and opened a new relationship with grief, self-awareness, and healing. That experience helped me understand that grief is not only something we think about. It is something we carry in the body.

What Makes My Work Different

My approach brings together evidence-based grief theory, mindfulness, yoga therapy, self-compassion, and expressive practices. I developed the Mindfulness and Grief System to make complex grief ideas more practical and more human, both for grieving people and for the professionals who support them. On my About page, I describe the system as combining grief therapy with yoga, mindfulness, self-care, and expressive arts.

This work is grounded in thanatology, but it is also shaped by lived experience. I understand grief as something that affects the body, the mind, identity, relationships, and meaning. I also understand that grief does not only follow death. My work includes non-death and disenfranchised losses such as divorce, estrangement, betrayal, and life transitions, themes that shaped Navigating Loss and continue to inform my teaching and speaking.

What I offer is not a formula for getting over grief. It is a grounded, compassionate framework for living with loss more honestly, caring for yourself more skillfully, and finding meaning without denying the depth of what hurts.

Books, Chapters, and Teaching

My books are written to make grief support more accessible, practical, and compassionate.

Living with Grief offers mindful meditations and self-care strategies for navigating loss. From Grief to Peace is a guided journal for reflection, writing, and meaning-making. Navigating Loss expands the conversation to non-death loss and the challenges of living through invisible, ambiguous, and disenfranchised grief.

I have also contributed chapters to professional texts including The Handbook of Grief Therapies and Techniques of Grief Therapy, helping bridge the worlds of scholarship, clinical practice, and lived experience.

Speaking, Training, and Professional Work

I believe grief work should be both clinically sound and deeply human. It should honor the body, the heart, the story, and the realities people are actually living with. Whether I am writing, teaching, speaking, or sitting with someone one-to-one, my goal is the same: to help relieve suffering and make space for a more compassionate relationship with loss.

I speak and teach for bereaved audiences, healthcare professionals, mindfulness communities, and grief-adjacent fields. My presentations focus on grief literacy, self-compassion, caregiving, non-death loss, embodied grief support, and sustainable ways of caring for ourselves while caring for others.

Over the years, I have presented for organizations and events including ADEC, Omega Institute, TAPS, the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, and many others. I also provide private sessions, group support, and training through the Mindfulness and Grief Institute.

I live in Frederick, Maryland, and serve clients and audiences locally, nationally, and internationally through virtual and in-person work

Publications

Stang, H. (in 2024). Navigating loss: Wisdom and self-care for times of grief and the challenges of life. CICO Books.

Stang, H. (2024). Living with grief: Mindful meditations and self-care strategies for navigating loss. CICO Books.

Stang, H. (2024). Journaling Through Grief & Beyond. In Coenen, C. (Ed.) Life cycles of grief: Creative interventions through a seasonal lens. Jessica Kingsley.

Stang, H. (2023). Mindfulness-based grief therapy. In Steffen, E. M., Milman, E., & Neimeyer, R.A. (Eds.) The handbook of grief therapies. Sage.

Stang, H. (2021). From grief to peace: A guided journal for navigating loss with compassion and mindfulness. CICO Books.

Stang, H. (2020). Grief, loss and the superpower of mindfulness. In J.A. Harrington & R.A. Neimyer (Eds.), Superhero grief: The transformative power of loss. New York: Routledge.

Stang, H. (2020). Complementary therapies: Intimacy in hospice care. In K.J. Doka & A.S. Tucci (Eds.), Intimacy and sexuality during illness and loss (pp. 85-97). Hospice Foundation of America.

Stang, H. (2019, Winter). Seven ways to help grieving children during the holidays. TAPS Magazine, 5-6. Stang, H. (2019, Spring). Grief and sleep: Seven ways to cope with insomnia after loss. TAPS Magazine, 21-22.

Stang, H. (2014, 2018). Mindfulness and grief: with guided meditations to calm the mind and restore the spirit. CICO Books.

Stang, H. (2017, Spring). Let it R.A.I.N. TAPS Magazine, 10-11.

Stang, H. (2016, Fall). Tending the Garden of Grief With Mindfulness Meditation. TAPS Magazine, 6-7.

Stang, H. (2015). Compassion & Lovingkindness Meditation. In R. A. Neimeyer (Ed.), Techniques of grief therapy: Assessment and intervention (pp. 159-164). New York: Routledge.

Stang, H. (2015). The Relaxation Response. In R. A. Neimeyer (Ed.), Techniques of grief therapy: Assessment and intervention (pp. 133-138). New York: Routledge.

Stang, H. (2015). Yoga For Grief. In R. A. Neimeyer (Ed.), Techniques of grief therapy: Assessment and intervention (pp. 144-149). New York: Routledge.

Whittington, H. (2009). Living in the body: Using awareness of physical sensation to cope with loss. Association of Death Education & Counseling Forum, 35(4), 15.

Select Presentations

COMIC-CON INTERNATIONAL

7/2023 Superhero Grief Panel on The Transformative Power of Loss| San Diego, CA

OMEGA INSTITUTE

2021-23 Weekend Retreat: Making Peace With Loss: Honoring Grief Through Mindfulness and Sacred Ceremony | Rhinebeck, NY

ASSOCIATION OF DEATH EDUCATION AND COUNSELING

3/26 Mindfulness & Grief: Innovative Tools for Death & Non-Death Loss | Baltimore MD

7/2025 Mindfulness-Based Grief Therapy: Cultivating Resilience, Compassion, and Meaning After Loss | Webinar

4/2024 Mindfulness & Grief: Self-Care for Living With Loss | Annual Meeting, Houston TX

4/2019 The Role of Empathy & Mindfulness When Working with Trauma | Annual Meeting, Atlanta GA

4/2019 The Mindful Hospice: Caring for Our Patients, Our Families, Ourselves | Annual Meeting, Atlanta GA

4/2018 Mindfulness & Grief: Reengaging with Life After Loss | Annual Meeting, Pittsburgh, PA

4/2017 Mindfulness & Grief: Self-Compassion as Self-Care | Annual Meeting, Portland, OR

4/2016 Mindfulness & Grief: Coping Skills for Life After Loss | Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, MN

5/2015 Mindfulness & Grief: Techniques for Posttraumatic Growth | Annual Meeting, San Antonio, TX

4/2014 Mindfulness & Grief: The Transformative Power of Now | Annual Meeting, Baltimore, MD

TAPS INSTITUTE FOR HOPE & HEALING / HOSPICE FOUNDATION OF AMERICA

3/2026 When Words Don't Come Easy | Webinar

1/2021 Mindfulness As Your Superpower | Webinar 

3/2020 Meditation & Self-Care for Stressful Times | Webinar

4/2020 Meditation for Uncertain Times | Webinar

3/2020 Catching Some Zzz’s – Finding Rest When Stressed | Webinar

3/2019 Using Meditation to Help Grievers Cope with Challenging Emotions | Webinar

1/2019 Meditation for Coping with Difficult Emotions | Webinar

12/2018 Compassion Meditation for Meaning Making and Posttraumatic Growth | Webinar

11/2018 Relaxation Meditation to Ease the Anxiety, Stress and Tension of Grief | Webinar

10/2018 Handle with Care: Supporting Your Grieving Body, Mind & Spirit | Day-long Workshop, Arlington, VA

NATIONAL HOSPICE & PALLIATIVE CARE ORGANIZATION

8/2018 Mind Full or Mindful? Utilizing Mindfulness Techniques to Support Staff, Patients & Bereaved Clients | Integrative &
Rehabilitation Therapies NCHPP Webinar

4/2018 Mindfulness & Leadership Excellence| Management & Leadership Conference, Washington, DC

11/2016 Self-Compassion: Managing Personal Loss in a Professional World | Intensives, Hollywood, FL

5/2016 Mindfulness & Leadership Excellence | Management & Leadership Conference, National Harbor, MD

NATIONAL FALLEN FIREFIGHTER FOUNDATION 

5/2018 Mindfulness & Compassion as Self-Care for Grief | Blue Ash, OH

5/2016 Vision Board Workshop for Life After Loss for Young Adults | Warrenton, VA

5/2016 Vision Board Workshop for Life After Loss | Portland, OR

5/2014 Compassion & Forgiveness, Conscious Relaxation, Meditation, Journaling & Posttraumatic Growth | St. Louis, IL

5/2010 Relax and Renew Toolkit, Compassion and Mindful Grief Workshop | Chicago, IL