2.31 A Soft Place to Land: Navigating Grief & Loss During the Holidays with Stevie Luna Ibarra

On this episode of Embracing All of Me, Ross sits down with psychotherapist and death worker Stevie Luna Ibarra (they/she) to explore how grief takes shape inside queer people of color, especially during the holidays.

Together, they unpack what happens when colonization, silence, identity, and family dynamics collide at the exact moment we need grounding the most.

Stevie brings over 13 years of experience in mental health, end-of-life support, and community grief work. They break down the window of tolerance, explain what death doulas really do, and offer practical rituals for staying regulated when our families don’t have language for who we are—or for what we’ve lost.

This episode is for anyone navigating complicated family systems, ancestral grief, the heaviness of the season, or the quiet ache of becoming. It’s also a reminder that grief isn’t just sorrow; it’s love, memory, transformation, and the human capacity to come home to ourselves again and again.

If you’ve ever felt alone in your grief, this conversation is a soft landing place.

Learn more about Pause at timetopause.org