Interview: Eryn Elder
We’re talking to Eryn Elder, creator of the grief and loss coaching business Roots and Wings.
In today’s interview we’re talking to Eryn Elder, creator of the grief and loss coaching business Roots & Wings.
Eryn is a grief specialist, advocate, and author who transitioned to working in the grief space after her own deeply affecting personal child loss. She exemplifies the idea of taking grief and channeling it into something powerful, building up her knowledge and certifications in the grief space while building her coaching business that now helps others navigate grief. Eryn is also local to Colorado and has started running events with other grief practitioners in the area, including a recent rage room event.
Today she shares about creating Root & Wings as well as her own story with grief, and advice for anyone who’s early in their own grief journey.
1. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Hi, I’m Eryn Elder, a grief support specialist for adults grieving any type of loss. I’ve always been in the helping professions. In 2014, my first-born child, Evelyn, did not wake up from her nap at daycare, and she died with no known cause (SUIDS). This, understandably, shifted my path and life goals and is why I am here today.
Now, in 2025, my organization, Roots and Wings Grief and Loss Coaching, focuses on 1:1 grief support for adults grieving any type of loss; group grief support; trainings; workshops; and public speaking engagements. In April of this year, I released my book, Blooming Through Loss: Tending to Grief with the BloomPath™. Part personal narrative and best practices in grief support, the book takes the reader on a journey of understanding the BloomPath™ and its six internal and seven external Blooms that grief has a touchpoint with and within an individual. The book includes reflective exercises and a narrative, approachable voice, so that it is accessible for someone who is grieving or someone who is supporting a griever.
My passion for this work is inspired by my daughter Evelyn’s memory and with my hope that we continue to develop and share more grief education and create intentional grief-aware communities.
I love learning, skiing, spending time with friends and family, working on the NYT word puzzles, and writing.
2. What loss or losses first started your journey with grief?
When my aunt/Godmother died by suicide, I was in fourth grade. I remember looking around wanting to engage in hard conversations about death, life, truth, and the mystery of life that I now was exposed to from her loss. Since then, I have been curious about what it would take to develop a more grief aware culture. Then, in 2014, my first-born daughter, Evelyn, did not wake up from her nap at daycare and died with no-known cause.
The loss of my daughter broke me, both in challenging and beautiful ways, and it drew me back to my passion of helping others and developing frameworks that create more awareness about grief in our society and support for those who are navigating the profound experience of grief.
3. What was that time like for you?
Immediately after and the few months after the loss of Evelyn, I grappled with guilt, depression, and despair. As I was doing so, I opened myself up to new insights from spirituality, science, self-understanding, art, music, and more. I cried everyday for a year. I took a leave of absence from my job, and then I decided to move into a different career path. I struggled with isolation, and I also became more kind, compassionate, and understanding and met many amazing individuals who came into my life at various touchpoints on my grief journey.
I learned to feel the spectrum of sorrow and joy. I call this the grief paradox.
4. What first drew you into the grief community? Was there anything that stands out as a watershed moment in your grieving process?
I can trace this back to fourth grade when my aunt died. I’ve always been curious about people, the systems they are situated within, and their healing journeys. Fast forward, now, a key moment for me was connecting the dots between my career in coaching and starting to recognize how coaching can be a powerful support modality for grief support.
I was on a walk in my neighborhood, inspired by nature among trees and mountainous views, when this download came to me. At that moment, everything crystalized in terms of how I could bring my skills, passions, and strengths into a new career world of grief support.
5. You started your own endeavor, Roots and Wings Grief and Loss Coaching. Tell us a little bit about it - and what made you want to create it, and how has it changed your relationship with grief?
When Evelyn died, I had been supporting school leaders across the state of Colorado with their implementation of behavioral health supports. After about 8 months, I returned to CU Boulder where, eventually, I, along with a team, developed a coaching program. Recognizing the power of research- and evidence-based coaching approaches, I left CU and began working on my business to blend coaching with grief support for adults. Along with my coaching credentials and Master’s of Arts in Education Foundations, Policy, and Practice, I earned various grief support specializations.
Always a learner and developer of frameworks, programs, and people, I combined my passions to start my own grief support business: Roots and Wings Grief and Loss Coaching LLC.
When you feel and are supported with alignment, you can ride the waves of conflicting emotions, challenges, and various hardships with more compassion. This is what made me want to create my organization. I wanted to be sure that people have access to coaching as a modality for their grief support and to live in their own alignment while holding space for their grief and loss. I would never have understood this without the coupling of my career in coaching and my personal grief and loss experience. I investigated various grief support research, theories, modalities, etc., and I could not find something that was distinctly coaching. Having benefited from coaching myself, I wanted to find a way for people to have access to grief coaching support.
Responsive, intentional, strengths-based, and grounded in personal experience, theory, and research, I have developed a coaching approach that includes the BloomPath™, which helps people identify and navigate the support they want and need within six internal touchpoints and seven external touchpoints with grief. This helps provide scaffolding in a space where people are often feeling overwhelmed, under or over stimulated, and/or seeking support but not sure what they want and need.
Through the creation of Roots and Wings Grief and Loss Coaching, my relationship with grief has changed by both making my awareness of my own grief more present, and yet, feeling more grounded in my response to my own grief. I have found more ways to integrate my grief and live in my strengths and purpose as a direct result of my grief, which continues to show up in different ways. Regardless of how it now shows up, I am gentler and more compassionate with myself and others.
6. What’s been most surprising to you about grief in general?
How it opens us up to a new way of living and new life that can be deeply meaningful and filled with contentment amidst the sorrow. Engaging the process of grief is no easy feat. It reveals our weaknesses and strengths; our fears and doubts; our relationships and who we are and who we want to be.
This is a lot to hold in junction with the pure heartache of a loss. So, the most surprising thing to me in grief is all that it holds, and sadly, the disenfranchisement of that in society. Additionally, the paradox of the experience of it all, and, for me personally, the deep emotional pain I experienced, are what have surprised me on my own journey.
7. How do you feel you're different now from the person you were before your loss?
Prior to Evelyn’s death, I was the stereotypical overachiever: graduated Summa Cum Laude, earned multiple awards in my career, and laid out clear, goal-oriented, multi-year plans. This is what I centered my world around: my success.
Now, my world centers around my family, creativity, passions, wellness, spirituality, and truth. Grief truly has unraveled the gift of freedom to me in a way that I would never have expected. I am much more patient, compassionate, and reflective. I get to engage with curiosity, now, in a life-giving way instead of previously where I simply checked boxes for success.
8. What advice do you have for someone new to the grief world?
Everyone’s path is different, and our culture is not the most adaptable or understanding to and for grievers and their unique needs; on the other hand, there are many, many people who want to help you and you are not alone. With that, you are loved more than you can imagine; you deserve care and time for self-understanding and engaging the grief process; and you will embark on your own grief journey that will bring you into the grief paradox, holding both the sadness and the joy; the guilt and the compassion; the love and the frustration and/or your own various emotional and cognitive responses, which may be messy, confusing, and meaningful.
It is okay to engage your journey in a way that makes the most sense to you and be adaptive and responsive to the new you, your own becoming. Grief unravels us into our authenticity, so use the support resources and the scaffolding available to you; honor your truth and purpose; give yourself time and be okay with your own timeline; you can be okay and you cannot be okay, and either or anything in between is just fine; and finally, hold yourself with loving kindness and belief that you can live a good life.
Thanks so much to Eryn for participating! You can find out more about Roots and Wings Grief and Loss Coaching at her website or on social at @griefandlossguide. If you are local to Colorado, keep an eye out for her events
Interview: Bryan Jung of “This is Why”
We’re talking to Bryan Jung, creator of the grief website This is Why.
In our first ever interview, we’re talking to Bryan Jung, creator of the grief website This is Why. Bryan created the site after experiencing his own loss, wanting to create a space for people to share their feelings and experiences with grief anonymously. Today he shares about this creation as well as his own story, his journey with grief, and advice for anyone who’s early in their own grief journey.
Let’s get into it!
1. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
My name is Bryan Jung. I was born and raised in a suburb near Seattle, Washington, but currently live in Denver, Colorado. I have one older brother, who is three years older, living in Los Angeles, California. My mother is still doing great, living around the Seattle area.
Growing up, I played baseball, basketball, soccer, and golf, and I still love playing any & all sports recreationally. These days, I love to play softball, volleyball, flag football, pickleball, and tennis. Golf is still my top sport today, however. It can definitely be frustrating at times, but I love the challenge and the pursuit of getting better each round.
Whether it is playing instruments, producing and performing music, or listening to all types of genres, music is a big facet of my life. My mother was a piano teacher before I was born and still teaches to this day. There is no doubt I got the music bug from her.
2. What loss or losses first started your journey with grief?
My grief journey started in 2006 when I lost my father at ten years old. However, the origin of the journey really began on November 3rd, 2004. A day I will never forget.
In November 2004, my father, who was a lawyer at the time, was winning in a court case, and the opposing lawyer knew this. On November 3rd, when my father and the opposing lawyer were supposed to appear in court together, the opposing lawyer decided to show up to my father’s office and shoot at him three times with a silenced pistol. One bullet struck my father in the head, leaving him bed-ridden in a coma. As I visited him in the hospital at nine years old, I could not talk to him. He could not move, and the first time he opened his eyes was when he heard my brother and I’s voices. It was the toughest part of my life to see him in this state, especially at such a young age. He fought to survive for 15 hard months until his death in February 2006. It was greatly saddening, but I knew that he was free of pain and in a better place.
3. What was that time like for you?
It was an incredibly difficult time not only between November 2004 and February 2006, but also the years following. I developed a pretty significant anxiety disorder that I battled up until college. However, thankfully, time was able to heal my body & mind, and I am extremely grateful it does not impact me today.
Looking back, it all felt like a blur as I was just a nine & ten year old trying to navigate this loss, then doing my best to continue having the most normal childhood I could.
It was the strong bond within my family that kept me going each and every day. My mother was, and still is, the strongest person I know. Because of her, my older brother and I never gave up. She constantly found ways to keep our heads up and provide for us. She kept pushing us each and every day, making sure we stayed on the right paths, never veering off. Together, as a family, we were able to overcome every obstacle and get to where we are today.
Additionally, the support system from friends and neighbors was truly incredible and helped us get through an unbelievably difficult time. I am constantly grateful for what everyone did for our family and I am thankful beyond words each & every day.
4. What first drew you into the grief community? Was there anything that stands out as a watershed moment in your grieving process?
As I got older, I came into a better place both mentally & emotionally and wanted badly to help others who’ve experienced loss at an early age. After college, when I would have a bit more time, I wanted to find a tangible way to help others.
During my research, I came across the United States-based Eluna organization and their nationwide Camp Erin program. I instantly knew it was something I wanted to be involved in.
I volunteered at my first Camp Erin in 2019, and my life was changed. It was such a profound experience to see and help the kids grieve in a safe, friendly environment. It was incredibly special to show them, through words and actions, that there is always light at the end of the tunnel. Ever since, I have been wanting to find more opportunities to work with children who have undergone similar circumstances as myself.
5. You started your own endeavor, This is Why. Tell us a little bit about it - and what made you want to create it, and how has it changed your relationship with grief?
This Is Why is a creative platform for individuals who have lost a parent as a child or teenager. I want to provide a safe space for individuals of all ages, with the option of anonymity, to share emotions, thoughts, and experiences. In turn, we can build a community with others who’ve undergone similar circumstances. I want to highlight how past experiences have made us who we are today, spotlighting our resilience and perseverance for more positive and optimistic lives ahead.
As I am not a trained professional in the health space, I make an effort to provide a “layman’s” perspective on learnings that have helped me over the years in the hope that they can help just one person somewhere in the world. I do my best to provide as many resources as possible for others who are going, or have gone through, an early loss.
So far, This Is Why has helped open my eyes to how many incredibly strong, resilient people there are all over this world who have undergone a similar experience. It has been a profound venture so far, and I can’t wait to see where the community goes in the future.
6. What’s been most surprising to you about grief in general?
The most surprising element of grief I’ve found is the complexity of grief. There are so many layers and how it can directly, but also indirectly, affect everyday life. Emotions and phases of life ebb & flow, but it is about doing what you can to live the most fulfilling life possible.
With everything that has happened in my life, I’ve come to learn that every second and every moment cannot, and should not, be taken for granted. Anything can happen in a split second and life can instantly change course forever. I make an effort to not just go through, but conquer each and every day.
7. How do you feel you're different now from the person you were before your loss?
As I was just a young kid when I lost my father, I am significantly more mature and empathetic of others. I am also so grateful for everyone that has helped me get to where I am at today, and I try to show the same level of support to anyone I can, both strangers and those in my inner circle.
I do my best to leverage my internal strength to support everyone around me. I strive to be as vulnerable as possible to help others be more OK with their emotions and thoughts. I love to share my experiences with loss and my anxiety disorder with the hope that someone can gain a bit of strength & hope from my story and life so far.
8. What advice do you have for someone new to the grief world?
Take things slow, one day at a time. Some days will most definitely be harder than others, but no matter how bleak things may seem, I promise that things do get better over time.
Finding a great support system around you is so critical. Find peers, friends, and family who support you and make you feel good being around them. Love & empathy are contagious.
Take care of yourself. Mental health needs to be an increasing priority in this world, individually but also from a support aspect. Find hobbies and interests that you love that can give you a break from feelings of stress, overwhelm, hurt, or loneliness. Doing anything it takes to find happiness & fulfillment is so incredibly important.
Do what makes you happy. This life we have is fleeting, and you never know what can happen at any moment. Let’s make the most out of every second we have in this world.
Thanks so much to Bryan for participating! You can find out more about This is Why at the website, on social at @thisiswhylife and via Linktree.