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You don’t have to carry this alone.

support for those navigating the loss of a sibling

About

Hi, I’m Manjusri.

I work with people who have lost a sibling and are trying to find their footing again. My work is at the intersection of grief, identity, and forward movement.

Sibling loss can be uniquely disorienting. There’s sadness that can be loud or strangely quiet. There can be confusion, shifts in identity, and the loss of a future you assumed would exist. There is shared history and shorthand. The person who knew you in your formative years.

Friends and family often try to help, but can be staggering inward themselves. Therapy can be right for some people. But many people are simply looking for someone who can listen. Someone who can sit with them while they make sense of what this loss means in their life.

This is the work I feel called to. I find purpose in holding space for those who are grieving.

I came to this work through my own experiences with loss, and a long relationship with meditation and reflective practices, sitting with meaning making.

I lost my brother to cancer. He was seven years older than me. In our family, that meant he was sometimes a second father. He drove. He translated the world ahead of me. He stood slightly in front. And he was also a brother sharing a formative era, the immigrant house we grew up in, the early versions of ourselves, the private language siblings develop, our particular jokes and laughter. When he died, I wasn’t only grieving his absence.

His death taught me something I could not have understood intellectually: the love does not end. Though it does change shape.

Years earlier, we had lost our father. For the first half of his life, my father was a Buddhist monk. It is an unusual origin story. By the time I knew him, he was a professor of religion and philosophy and a father. Meditation was part of family life. Ritual was routine. Impermanence was an ongoing conversation.

When he died, I felt a different type of rupture, a sudden and quiet finality of shared time. I lost the person who had shaped how I understand my mind, life meaning, and aspects of presence itself. His death taught me how grief takes the shape of the relationship lost.

My father’s life taught me how to sit still. My brother’s life taught me how to stand beside someone.

I lost a father devoted to spiritual inquiry and a brother devoted to medicine and healing others. In different ways, both were oriented toward service. That lineage of care is something I take seriously.

I believe we grieve based on the person we lost. Who they were with us, and who we were with them. That relationship isn’t extinguished.

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Education & Training

  • Brown University, BA

  • Emory University Law, JD

  • Advanced Grief Counseling Specialist (CAGCS) Certification

  • Coaching Certification from BetterUp Coaching Development

  • Mentorship and continuing education in:

    • Relational psychology (family systems)

    • Grief and non-death loss

    • Narrative reconstruction

    • Integrative CBT

Reflections from Past Clients

  • "I can be entirely vulnerable with you, go to pieces and come back together, and walk away feeling like I can do this."

  • "... so much richness here. THANK YOU for going to another level of listening and capturing and then creating a framework. I've never had this experience of someone else making this effort to understand me in a way that makes my thoughts and images of my life better understood."

  • "I was taking my anger out on my family and thought I had good reason. What Manjusri did that actually helped was give me something small to test each week. Turns out, I was actually just terrified of failing the person I'd lost."

My Approach

I primarily work with those who have lost a sibling, though I support people navigating many forms of profound loss. I am available in person, or by video or phone call.

There is no single right way to grieve. But there are ways to feel less lost in the fog. My work tends to unfold in a few overlapping movements.

First, we steady ourselves. We slow things down.

Grief can feel like too much information at once, emotionally and physically. We steady the rocking, ease the pace, and help you orient to what’s happening. Sometimes saying something out loud, and seeing it from a slightly different angle, is enough to create a little space.

Then, we name what’s here.

We talk about the person you lost, the relationship, and the parts of the loss that don’t always get spoken about. Finding language and perspective doesn’t make the grief disappear, but it can make it more bearable.

When you are ready, we look at how to carry this forward.

This is not “moving on” or “getting over it.” Those are unreasonable claims. This loss is now part of your journey. We find how the loss, and the love, fit into your life now. That might take the form of meaning, ritual, or small daily practices that help you feel grounded again.

There’s no formula, because the map is not the terrain. This is what thoughtful companionship during a tough time looks like.

You weren’t meant to carry this alone. Some parts of grief are meant to be walked with a companion.

Start with a free 15-minute conversation

You don’t need to prepare anything. No commitment. Just a chance to check in and see if this feels right.

Schedule Call