Basia Mosinski

Basia Mosinski, MA, MFA is an online Grief/Hope/Wellness Specialist. Basia was a Keynote Speaker at The Compassionate Friends 2018 National Conference. In 1993, Basia’s stepson Logan died in a head-on train collision in the midwest where she and her family lived. Within two years, her marriage broke apart and more losses compounded. Logan’s death took her on a journey through pain to inner healing and growth. Along the way, she participated in The Phoenix Project a 12-week intensive process for healing grief and loss. She not only participated in the process she later became a ritual elder of The Phoenix Project, working with Dr Jack Miller. In December of 2001 Dr Miller invited her and several other practitioners to give a weekend of healing to families impacted by 9/11 in New York. Basia was so moved by that work that when she returned to Chicago, she enrolled at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she was teaching to gain a second masters’ degree in Art Therapy. When she graduated in 2005, she relocated to NY where she became the Assistant Director of Mental Health at Gay Men’s Health Crisis while maintaining a thriving private practice, sharing office space with Dr. Heidi Horsley. In 2014, Basia moved to Southern California to live close to her only child, her grown son, Richard, his wife and her granddaughter. 9 months later, Richard died suddenly from a pulmonary embolism on a flight from Chicago to Orange County. In addition to helping others on their journey of healing, Basia is helping herself through the shock of what has happened by using what she has learned along the way and through writing a book about her process and the ways that she and her family are coping with the loss of Richard through texting, photos and ‘sightings’. Basia is the Executive Director of Only-Love.org. and chapter leader of The Compassionate Friends_Newport Beach

Articles:

My Adult Son’s Death Has Changed My Life

Son’s Death Has Changed My Life When someone we love dies, we are changed. When that someone is our child, we are changed forever, deeply, no matter how old they were. Letting go is not a possibility. Everything in my being was geared to hold on, to protect and to be aware of his life. It didn’t matter that he was an adult, twice the size of me. Past, present and future collapsed into a series of nows. This event shook me to my core. I have lost parts of myself. How can this happen? Where did he go? Where […]

When Nothing Seems to Matter: Surviving the Death of Your Child

This is an excerpt from LOST to FOUND: Surviving the Death of Your Child by Basia Mosinski, which is available at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1720222657 We cried and cried and cried. We were in shock. We were fearful. We were in disbelief. We asked questions. We became angry. We didn’t sleep and we were numb. We were jolted out of our ordinary lives of ‘normal’ expectation and predictability when our nightmare happened: our child…our loved one was taken from us by illness, or accident. They are gone through their own intention, by their hand or at the hand of someone else. The day our […]

Who is the Lost Loved One? Us.

This is an excerpt of LOST to FOUND: Surviving the Death of Your Child by Basia Mosinski, available at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1720222657 Often in grief circles we hear the term ‘loss’, as if our child or loved one is somehow ‘lost’ to us. The person who is LOST is us…the parents, stepparents, grandparents, siblings, wives or husbands, after our child or loved one has died. We’re lost, yet, if we open to the mysteries of the grief journey, we can build a new self from the shards.

The Survival Instinct vs. Grief

This excerpt is from LOST to FOUND: Surviving the Death of Your Child by Basia Mosinski. It is available at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1720222657 The survival instinct is strong but not stronger than grief. Many people in grief battle every day between holding on and letting go. The world feels like a crazy place. For a while it feels as though time is moving in slow motion while our minds are racing. Synchronicity grabbed my attention because it was the one thing that helped me feel connected to the eternal part of my being. If I could connect with that part of me, I could […]

Grievers are Heroes

The following excerpt is from LOST to FOUND: Surviving the Death of Your Child, by Basia Mosinski, available at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1720222657 Grievers are “heroes” and here’s why… we eventually got out of bed. We eventually decided to live instead of praying to die. How do I know this? Because in the work that I do with grieving people, I hear grief journey stories that are proof that many people do indeed survive the death of their child or loved one. Each person who lives another day chooses to live to honor their child or children who no longer have that choice. […]

December is the Longest Month of Grief

December is the most difficult time of year for those of us who have children who are physically no longer with us. For me it begins in late September, with the anniversary of the day my son Richard died. Followed by Halloween. Richard loved Halloween…he took a lot of pleasure in introducing his youngest daughter to scary spiders and goblins in one of the most decorated communities where we live. It’s a community that used to provide such family fun and pleasure for us but which has now become a painful reminder that holidays will never be the same. After Halloween, […]

Coping With Grief: Approaching the Second Anniversary of My Son’s Death

Life is moving along well, considering the magnitude of losing of my only child almost two years ago. Since December of last year, I have started to feel like myself again. My nature, which is generally optimistic and hopeful, has returned. Recognizing that part of myself return was like meeting with an old friend. Since my son’s death, I choose not to fake what I’m feeling, to others or myself. It’s not that I dump my sadness onto others; rather, I decide what’s best for me in a given moment and assess my ability and willingness to share and be […]

Healing With Art and Humor

Drs. Gloria and Heidi Horsley host episode 25 of The Open to Hope show, which features art therapist Barbara ‘Basia’ Mosinski and comedic author Carol Scibelli. These experts offer insight into using art and humor to help with the grieving process of a death of a loved one—and both women have used these techniques themselves. Losing a spouse, parent and step-son collectively meant tapping into their expertise and training to find a method of grief management that worked for them. Scibelli is the author of Poor Widow Me, which is a tool used by many to tackle the healing process […]

R-A-W Emotions

We often hear that the death of a loved one brings people closer together. When we feel safe and can share with others, we move in and out of grief feeling supported and stable in the love that we have for the deceased. If people are fighting instead, feelings of loss may be compounded. In my own experience and through a number of stories that have been shared with me, some relationships appear to suffer permanent damage after the loss of a loved one. People who were close to the deceased don’t necessarily share the same perceptions, memories, experiences and/or […]

Tolerating the Intolerable: Beyond Numbing

When the death of a loved one happens suddenly and unexpectedly, it can crack your heart wide open. The shock and pain of the loss is numbing at first because the reality that you will never see your loved one again is intolerable and overwhelming. Numbing feelings in a sense protects you from experiencing them all at once and from the reality of what has happened. The numbing begins to wear off after the funeral, after family and friends return to their own lives…then the reality that your expectations, hopes and dreams have inextricably been changed forever begins to surface. […]

Open to Hope is an online community offering inspirational stories of loss, hope and recovery. We believe hope is the bridge between loss and recovery.