Laura Walton

What did you do before lovelew?: 

In my younger days, I worked primarily in restaurants and in retail.  When I was 24, I decided I wanted to be a fashion buyer, so I went to school for merchandise marketing and then worked for lululemon for several years.  This was in the very early days of lululemon, when there were only 2 stores in the US!  When my boyfriend died, fashion suddenly seemed pointless, and so I eventually shifted my focus to teaching yoga, because I had found yoga to be so helpful to me in my earliest days of grief.  I taught yoga full-time for a few years, and developed a few yoga programs in schools and community centers.  Being in the business of yoga eventually started to wear on me, and I felt like I was losing my own personal practice, so I decided to go to grad school to become a therapist.  After years of interning and working in community mental health, I eventually started my own private practice, and I worked clinically with a lot of grief.  Lovelew was eventually born out of the gaps I saw in the ways that we could support those faced with death and grief.

What is your role at lovelew?: 

I started the whole thing!  My current role is overseeing everything, coming up with creative ways to continually improve the ways in which we can support the broken-hearted, and making sure that my team feels loved and supported.

Do you have a grief story?:

I have a few.  When I was just 4 years old, my mom had a baby boy (my brother) who was born with his organs not completely formed, and he couldn’t survive on his own.  He died a few days after birth.  When I was 21, my dad committed suicide.  When I was 26, my then-on-again-off-again boyfriend, and my best friend in the entire world, died of a heroin overdose. These experiences shaped who I am, and ultimately are the reason that lovelew exists.

What was missing when you were moving through your grief?:

I didn’t feel like I had any support or direction. I was so young, and I felt so lost, helpless, and alone.  There aren’t a lot of people in their mid 20’s who are grieving multiple deaths, so I felt alone in my experience, and no one in my world knew how to support me. Most of the professional support that I did try to find made me feel pathologized, like there was something wrong with my grief. I didn’t have many people or places in my life that gave me permission and space to grieve, which, in hindsight, I can see is all that I needed.

What’s something you would tell your 25-year-old self?:

-You’re going to have a rough time for the next few years, but you WILL survive, and you will come out stronger.  This will shape you into who you are meant to become.

-Go to therapy

-You’re perfect just as you are

-Childhood trauma - look it up