When Richard Feynman explained complex concepts, he insisted that if you didn’t truly feel that you understood something, then you hadn’t fully integrated it yet. It wasn’t just about repeating ideas, but about experiencing them. Something similar happens with grief. You can understand its stages, its processes, its implications… but there comes a point where it must be lived in relationship in order to transform.
The psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, known for her work on grief, argued that what transforms us most is not avoiding pain, but moving through it with meaningful, compassionate, and loving support. Likewise, it involves training therapists to perceive, learn, and integrate different tools and dynamics. This is the space where science provides structure, understanding, and framework… while consciousness brings Presence, humanity, and meaning.
This is precisely what took place during the in-person week of Fundación ICLOBY.
For a full year, the entire Master’s Program in Grief Support—designed for professionals, therapists, and individuals experiencing non-traumatic grief—took place through a screen. Voices recognized one another without ever having embraced in person. Stories were shared in digital spaces—intense, moving, and compassionate. Professors delivered tools, workshops, and practices, guiding deep processes from a distance, across countries, cultures, and realities.
Up to that point, grief in this context had been sustained through teachings and emotionally rich learning—but only through words.
Then, during the in-person week and the preceding retreat, something different happened: The encounter became a true explosion of shared love and compassion. We experienced an intensity difficult to describe—a wave of pure love and compassion that moved through the entire group and will endure over time as a lasting bond among alumni.
It is important to highlight that during this in-person week at Fundación ICLOBY, within its usual environment of high emotional safety, not only did compassion and connection act as true facilitators of learning, but science was also present. Among the scientists was the President of the Proyecto Luz Council, Pim van Lommel, who, through his knowledge and experience, contributed to a deeply human space of learning—filled with love and compassion.
Each moment of that week contained something difficult to measure, yet profoundly human: the confirmation that the bond created is real and enduring.
These encounters have such a deep impact because we do not think without emotion—our bodies and lived experiences are essential parts of the cognitive process. This becomes evident from the very first day. Learning shifts from an intellectual understanding of grief, shared through experience, into the emergence of a new, real, and powerful circle of life.
By the end, the shared feeling was not only one of learning, but of:
- Having integrated everything that was learned and having created a circle of life—moving from understanding grief to inhabiting it, and accompanying it both personally and professionally in a new way.
- Having confirmed that even in deeply personal processes, the presence of others does not diminish the experience—it sustains it.
- Having recognized that while science can explain grief, it is shared consciousness that transforms it.
The closing integrated two seemingly opposite yet deeply complementary dimensions: magic—as an experience of wonder and openness—and consciousness—as a space of connection and meaning. The day concluded with an emotionally rich dinner, where everything experienced during the week found a shared and meaningful place.
Xavier Melo PhD
Founding Director
Icloby Foundation