Can’t make it live? After each class, video and audio recordings are available to download and watch anytime.
Did you know that your presence is so powerful that it can ripple through your whole lineage?
In Mexican tradition, our ancestors can be our most important guides and positive influences on the subtle planes. When we work consciously and actively with them, we send a healing wave of energy through our whole lineage and life.
The living traditions of the Mexican Day of the Dead bring focus to our relationship with ancestors. They weave remembrance rituals such as face painting, prayers, flowers, music, altars, and processionals into sacred places for this very reason...
... to help you grieve, ease pain, and heal trauma.
The Mexican people who generously share Mexican Day of the Dead, or Día de Muertos, show us how these life-giving rituals guide us to a deeper understanding and acceptance of death — which actually brings greater joy and celebration of our own lives.
In an unprecedented 7-week course with curandera Grace Alvarez Sesma, a leading figure in understanding the spiritual importance and practices of Mexican traditions, you’ll be immersed in Día de Muertos’ rituals, wisdom, and healing power as a path that leads to the sacred within you and your own ancestral roots.
If you’ve been intrigued by Día de Muertos, you’ll learn how its traditions can be reverently explored and celebrated by everyone as they ultimately teach us how to reclaim our own ancestral traditions as a path to healing and wholeness.
In understanding a tradition at its deepest levels, we can craft a relationship with our own ancestors in a way that most honors them and blesses our lineage — giving you peace and freedom from the past, and setting you up for healthier relationships and friendships for your future.
From an early age, Grace was urged to return to the ways of the Ancestors and Indigenous medicine during dreams with a group of Indigenous Grandmothers of various Native nations. The Grandmothers gave her teachings to help usher in a return to feminine leadership, and help restore balance on Mother Earth, including respect and protection of land, water, and holy places.
She currently educates conventional healthcare providers on how to respectfully integrate curanderismo cultural healing traditions with Western medicine in a way that addresses the whole person.
As you journey with Grace into the living traditions of Día de Muertos to understand how this cultural practice can apply to your own lineage, you’ll experience a Soul-Mending Ceremony to help you reclaim the parts of yourself that have become fragmented...
... by letting go of trapped emotional energy that resides within you and dissolving connections with deceased loved ones that may be draining your energy.
In doing so, you’ll heal unhealthy connections to those who have passed and begin to rebuild these relationships in a way that uplifts your life — and that of future generations.
You’ll learn how to reverently celebrate Día de Muertos observances without appropriation, prayerfully experiencing its spiritual dimensions and those of your own ancestry...
... and how to move through life with a deeper understanding of the purpose of death.
You’ll gain a new perspective of the impact of trauma through the Mesoamerican view of the human body, and explore how Indigenous cultural practices can help you shift out of unhealthy mental and emotional patterns.
Grace will also share how Día de Muertos’ cultural icons, La Catrina and El Catrin, can be catalysts for you to live your life with greater connection and authenticity — and how death and your inner wisdom prompts you to align your heart, identity, lifeways, and spirit.
Are you ready to access the rich living traditions of Día de Muertos to receive deeper heart-healing and guidance — and a new way of celebrating and honoring life, death, and living?
The Importance of La Catrina
and El Catrin
Grief Is a Journey
What Happens When We Don't Acknowledge Unresolved Grief?
In conjunction with this course, The Shift Network is donating $2500 to House of the Moon, a grassroots and Indigenous-led organization that focuses on empowering and training Native women to end the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls epidemic. It is our intention to further their efforts with Grace, who serves on their Circle of Advisors, with this donation to support the holistic empowerment and self-defense facilitator training they provide to Indigenous women.
— Dr. Shamini Jain, Founder of the Consciousness and Healing Initiative:
“Grace Is a Phenomenal Leader in Helping Us Understand the Impact of Indigenous Wisdom”
In this 7-week transformational intensive, Grace will guide you through the fundamental skills you’ll need to connect with your ancestors through the rich traditions of Día de Muertos to receive deeper heart-healing and guidance — and a new way of celebrating and honoring life, death, and living.
You’ll connect with Grace and experience her teachings through livestreaming video via any connected device. This connection is easy to use and will enhance the impact of Grace’s transmissions. Can’t make it live? After each class, you can download the video and audio recordings to enjoy later.
This course will feature LIVE teachings, interactive training sessions, experiential practices, and Q&A with Grace. Each session will build harmoniously upon the previous ones, so you’ll develop a complete holistic understanding of the practices, tools, and principles you’ll need to connect with your ancestors through the rich traditions of Día de Muertos to receive deeper heart-healing and guidance — and a new way of celebrating and honoring life, death, and living.
Grace will welcome you and your ancestors into her circle with reflection and prayer during the opening week of class, and set the intention that will guide the course pláticas, or heart-to-heart talks.
You’ll explore the meaning and importance of Día de Muertos for mental, spiritual, and physical wellbeing, and for healing ancestral-lineage and intergenerational wounds.
You’ll learn how the rituals and practices that are part of this observance can help you begin mending your relationship with someone who has died...
... and experience Día de Muertos as a vibrant, joyous, living tradition that continues to be revered and celebrated by Mexican, Chicanx, and Indigenous communities in Mexico and the United States.
You’ll also gain a deeper understanding of the spiritual dimensions of your ancestry from an Indigenous perspective, rather than the Western approach of interpreting spiritual phenomena as archetypical or symbolic.
Grace will also encourage you to begin a journal of the blessings and lessons of Día de Muertos, which you can track throughout the course.
As you explore the living traditions of Día de Muertos, you’ll:
Rituals that transcend the mundane are central to worldwide observances that honor ancestors. Ceremonies, incense, prayers, and flowers are universally accepted as ways in which we can show respect and honor what is sacred to us.
This week, you’ll learn why Día de Muertos is not Halloween, and how you can reverently participate in Día de Muertos celebrations to connect with your ancestors in a respectful way — one that honors the sacred in you and that of the Mexican people who generously share Día de Muertos with you.
You’ll also learn how your presence influences the energies of sacred places, including the campos santos, where your loved ones are laid to rest...
... and how Día de Muertos holds profound wisdom that can help guide your life choices.
Lastly, you’ll expand your understanding of Día de Muertos’ origins in Mesoamerica to today’s blending of Catholicism and Native Mexican philosophy.
This week, you’ll:
During Día de Muertos, you see adults and children wearing fancy hats and clothes, and very white makeup applied to evoke the faces of skeletons.
This reflects the tradition of La Catrina and El Catrin, the female and male iconic representations of faces of death in Día de Muertos. Within the festive attire of La Catrina and El Catrin are lessons of social justice, cultural resistance, and the notion of death as the great equalizer.
This week, you’ll discover what you may have in common with La Catrina and El Catrin, and when it is and isn’t appropriate to dress as them.
Grace will also guide deeper reflection and discussion on how La Catrina and El Catrin can be catalysts for you to live your life with greater authenticity.
During the third class, you’ll:
The effects of colonization in the U.S. have contributed to a feeling of soul wounding and uncertainty for many — of susto, or soul fright. Many have lost their connection to ancestral practices, giving rise to a feeling of rootlessness.
Seeing Día de Muertos celebrations, you may question whether challenging relationships with your grandparents, parents, and other family members merit honoring them on Día de Muertos.
You may long to remember your culture and customs, but don’t know how to reclaim your ancestral practices and worry about misappropriating another culture.
Your journey of reclaiming your ancestral customs and heritage can be difficult as many of us carry more than one lineage... yet it can also be life-affirming and empowering.
The call you feel to remember your ancestors is one way that your inner wisdom prompts you to align your heart, identity, lifeways, and spirit.
Upon reflection, you may recognize that healing is needed — for yourself and those who come after you.
This week, you will be invited to compassionately acknowledge those parts of yourself that have been impacted by the actions and decisions your dead beloveds made — decisions that may be making you feel less present and engaged in your day-to-day life, and with others.
As you reflect on how to heal your ancestors and yourself, you’ll:
This week, with your permission, Grace will guide you with loving-kindness in a Soul-Mending ceremony, a re-membering of the parts of yourself that have been fragmented as a result of harmful energetic ties to people, situations, grief, and loss.
You’ll learn how to set your intention for the ceremony in order to dissolve spiritual connections with deceased loved ones that keep harmful energy trapped within your energy field...
... which may be draining your energy and affecting your ability to have healthy relationships.
Grace will share an overview of the Mesoamerican understanding of the human body and how trauma affects your body, mind, and spirit.
You’ll also explore how the Ancestors are calling on us to do the work that’s needed to heal ourselves, our families, and our communities — through our daily actions and in our larger world.
You’ll discover how in ways big and small, they are nudging us toward transformation and joyous rebirths — and how reflecting, praying, releasing, mending, and resting are all part of your transformational journey on this Earthwalk.
During the fifth class, you’ll:
As Día de Muertos draws near, it’s time to begin gathering all that you’ll need for the construction of your unique ofrenda, or altar.
This week, you’ll learn the meaning of the various elements of an ofrenda — beginning with how your family altar is an invitation to your deceased loved ones to visit for a joyous family reunion!
You’ll explore how personal and community altars can be dedicated to the memory of persons you do not know personally, but wish to honor — or to a cause dear to your heart such as missing and murdered Indigenous women, Mother Earth, the oceans, or animal relatives.
Grace will share how your cultural identity, family history, and commitment to preserving ancestral traditions in a respectful and humble manner will guide the creation of your altar — and the items you place on it.
You’ll be guided on how to welcome your special guests with prayers, how to say farewell, and how to respectfully take down the altar until next year.
As you plan this very special party, your checklist includes your guests’ favorite delicacies, beautiful flowers, drinks, fragrant incense, and of course, music!
As you learn how to welcome your beloved dead, you’ll:
Being a good ancestor means planting seeds of good memories and actions today.
During the concluding week of class, you’ll explore how to include family, children, and friends in your Día de Muertos celebration so that your family stories are preserved and passed to the next generation with every altar that is created.
You’ll learn ways of helping preserve the beautiful soul of this tradition by actively supporting Mexican, Chicanx, and Indigenous artists, craftspeople, and families who are working to preserve the integrity of their traditions.
Grace will also share a meditation practice using the phases of the moon to continue the healing that she has shared with you during this course.
Bringing the circle to a close, you will link your breath, mind, and spirit in prayer with Grace and set your intentions for being a good ancestor and an ally for intercultural healing in your community.
During the final class, you’ll:
In addition to Grace’s transformative 7-week virtual course, you’ll receive these special bonuses to complement the course and take your understanding and practice to an even deeper level.
In this plática (heart-to-heart talk), Grace and artist Lilia Ramirez of Liliflor Arte share how the celebration known as Día de Muertos was observed by Lilia’s family, and how that influences her paintings. Lilia also shares the ways she uses her art and understanding of Mexican (Aztec) cosmology to create public Día de Muertos altars, and the ways in which non-private altars and celebrations affect the non-Mexican community’s interactions.
Join Grace and Pegi Eyers, author of the award-winning book Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community as they talk about the increasing number of people wishing to discover their authentic self-identity in the reclaiming and revival of cultural traditions. The profound wisdom of ancestral practices such as Día de Muertos has been set aside or forgotten through diaspora, but can be regained and celebrated in a respectful and joyful way that reflects healthy pride in our own heritage.
You’ll receive a beautiful journal to use during your time in this course with Grace. Inside, you’ll find questions and quotes to help you reflect, ponder, and doodle as you move through the seven modules. Write as much or as little as you like — about your thoughts, feelings, and reactions to what’s shared during each class. If you like to write freehand, you can print your journal out and write on hard copy. If you prefer to write using your computer, you can type directly in the blank pages. This is a great place to jot down ideas for creating your unique Día de Muertos altar and celebration, and for reflecting on personal, familial, and social traditions.
Learn a unique ritual from the Mexican curanderismo tradition that uses a stone to cleanse and release stagnant emotional energy from your body, mind, and spirit. Grace explains step by step how to mindfully perform this easy-to-do healing practice to help you release worries and stress. It’s also a gentle and powerful practice that’s safe to use with children.
Immerse yourself in Grace’s conversation with Andras Corban-Arthen — president of the European Congress of Ethnic Religions and founder of the EarthSpirit Community — as they discuss ancestral traditions of the original peoples of Europe and Mexico. With mutual respect, we can learn from one another’s culture about death as transformation; the importance of cultivating community, ceremonies, and Mother Earth; and living with rooted awareness of those who came before us and those who come after us.
— Erin Mitchell: “Grace's Compassion and Wisdom Is So Ever-Present”
— Susana Salgado: “Grace Was the First Teacher Who Truly Spoke to My Spirit”
— Lisa Martinez: “I Always Am Able to Take Grace’s Teachings and Apply Them to My Life”
— Chief Judy Wilson: “Grace Brings a Breath of Fresh Air to the Work She Does”
— Emilia Ortega-Jara: “Grace Is a Beautiful Storyteller”
It’s difficult for me to put into words how much Maestra Grace’s teachings have impacted my life. She is a powerful woman who empowers others with her work. I felt her strong presence in the hallway at the retreat center before I even saw her. She is a beacon of light who shares her practical life experience and has devoted herself to bringing us back to what we already know. While she is adept at spiritual teachings and intuitive insights, she also has her feet firmly planted on the ground; she balances heaven and earth. She is not afraid to tell things as they are and has a rare gift of connecting with spirit and communicating with heart. I went home with a sense of gratitude and appreciation.
— Angela Scala, certified BodyTalk practitioner, Reiki practitioner, and Buddho/Enersense master practitioner, Massachusetts
Tlazocamatli (thank you) for generously sharing sacred knowledge with our community. For some, this is teaching how to reclaim what has been taken from us, but that is familiar. I am personally grateful for my own healing work that she has been part of, walking spiritually side by side with me. Her understanding that healing may take time, and her commitment and ability to allow yourself to be a vessel and support for creators’ work is truly an inspiration to me. Her advice and prayers are invaluable to me and my familia. I have so much to learn from Maestra Grace! Blessings to her as she walks her prayer.
— C.D., Denver, Colorado
Each time that I have worked with her, I have experienced profound changes in my relationships... to self (body and mind), with others, and within my own sense of the sacred in my life. I consider this to be true healing. Sometimes the changes are unexpected, as when I came to see her for assistance with digestive issues. The session was very helpful in addressing those concerns and, in addition, resulted in healing a deep and long-standing rift between myself and my mother before she passed away. I bring my whole self to the work I experience with her; because she has the capacity to meet me there.
— Jennifer Wolfe, Iowa
Maestra, I am eternally, so very grateful to you. My healing is ever-flowing and these loving energies have surpassed all the obstacles from the past. I feel like myself again. I feel wonderful. I feel happy!
— B.G., San Diego, California
Turn Your Grief Into an Affirmation of Life offers some of the most transformational online teachings available, within a thriving global community of learning and practice.
Join fellow students and practitioners to support and inspire each other as you integrate the teachings and practices Grace Alvarez Sesma will share in this powerful training.
You’ll be part of an international community that’s on the leading edge of a global movement of people manifesting a world grounded in principles of cooperation, harmony, and reverence for all of life.
Experience a unique opportunity to be mentored by and learn from curandera Grace Alvarez Sesma from the comfort of your own home. Each class includes a livestreaming video option and guides you to discover specific skills and abilities to connect with your ancestors through the rich traditions of Día de Muertos to receive deeper heart-healing and guidance — and a new way of celebrating and honoring life, death, and living. Course sessions are on Tuesdays at 5:00pm Pacific.
After each class, the digital video will be available for you to download or stream in a high-quality format. You’ll never have to worry about missing a session, and you can watch anytime and anywhere at your convenience.
After each class, the audio will be available for you to download in high-quality MP3 format. You’ll never have to worry about missing a session, and you can listen anytime and anywhere at your convenience.
In addition to the high-quality videos and MP3 audios, you’ll also receive the entire class transcription after each session is completed. You can then review, print, and highlight the most important insights and practices you were given.
Between class sessions, you’ll have the option of completing related exercises, practicing new tools, and answering questions to accelerate your learning and integrate each week’s lesson.
Our exclusive Facebook online community is the perfect place to continue your discovery process after each class. Here, you can continue the discussion about your course materials and interact with your fellow students to take your exploration to an even deeper level.
We feel honored that Grace Alvarez Sesma has chosen to partner with The Shift Network to offer this exclusive LIVE online training. This is a unique opportunity to interact directly with a curandera whose powerful insights and pioneering work are helping us heal and awaken ourselves and our world.
If you’re serious about connecting with your ancestors through the rich traditions of Día de Muertos to receive deeper heart-healing and guidance, then you owe it to yourself, your loved ones, and our world to take this one-of-a-kind training.
If you’re ready to take the next step in evolving yourself, click the register button below to reserve your space now.
Your satisfaction is 100% guaranteed! If you don’t absolutely LOVE Turn Your Grief Into an Affirmation of Life — or don’t feel that it meets your needs — please submit your refund request form on or before September 20, 2022 and we’ll happily issue qualifying customers a refund.
Curanderismo is a way of viewing and interacting with the natural world and the spiritual energies of people and elemental forces. At the time when I met Maestra Grace, I was trying to make sense of these physical and unseen forces I was beginning to come in contact with after many encounters with death and loss. It was through Maestra Grace's teachings and stories that I experienced a rebirth and affirmation of what I was experiencing. Beyond showing me what traditional healing systems look like and how they’ve functioned for our ancestors, what Maestra teaches is how to deeply revere sacred ways of knowing and the responsibility one takes on when on this journey of healing.
— Mario Ceballos, POC Fungi Community
As a knowledge keeper, teacher, mentor, and practitioner of traditional healing systems and curanderismo, Maestra Grace Alvarez provides beautiful learning experiences, uniquely delivered through storytelling and heartfelt sharing of her years of experience dedicated to cultural perseverance as an act of community resiliency. I have had the honor of learning directly from Maestra Grace about aspects of traditional healing systems, as well as indirectly in community spaces, talking circles, and healing ceremonies. She generously shares teachings that benefit the health of family and community structures with all the strength and love of a wise grandmother matriarch. She leads by example of what it means to walk with integrity, respect and love for sacred traditions.
— Phoebe Velazquez Islas, Traditional Birth Attendant and Student Midwife
As a descendent of European, Mediterranean, and Eurasian Steppes immigrants, Grace has inspired me through strong mentorship to challenge myself with heart-centered remembering and honoring my own ancestral path. For me, this means recovering myself and the cultural values of my ancestors, and awakening to these times as a good ancestral ambassador who is being responsible for acknowledging I am a guest in this land as a caring human.
— Susan Estep
Maestra Grace is a respected elder in many communities from Southern California to Colorado, all the way to Canada. In the last 10 years, I have been blessed to have participated in her classes and in being of service to Indigenous and healing communities in Southern California. Maestra Grace has selflessly provided healing, teachings, and guidance for many people who are ready to reconnect with their Indigenous roots and reclaim ancestral healing practices. Her teaching style is simultaneously warm and welcoming and also very direct and straightforward. Her approach to sharing and teaching ancestral ways is understanding of how colonization has stolen from us what was once common knowledge. She patiently leads by example, always naming, teaching, and using proper protocols to honor the ancestors and their lineage of teachings. Maestra Grace is a powerful healer whose gifts I have experienced and witnessed many times over. She is able to move easily between the spirit and dream realms in our modern-day society and provide leadership, activism, and healing at this time when our world needs it most. To receive teachings and guidance from Maestra Grace is a blessing in and of itself that is paid forward in service to the people who need it most.
— Celina Jacques, LMFT
Grace Alvarez Sesma, a cultural practitioner of Yaqui descent, was born in Mexico. Called to the path of curanderismo (a traditional Mexican healing system) in childhood, she was profoundly influenced by the work of one of her aunts, a curandera, and an uncle who was a well-known huesero, as well as by her mother’s remedies that were part of her family’s daily life.
Beginning in early childhood, Grace was visited in dreams by Our Lady of Guadalupe and a group of Indigenous Grandmothers dressed in the traditional clothing of different Native tribes of the Americas, who urged her to return to Indigenous healing ways and help bring forth the call from Mother Earth for a return to Indigenous values and the protection of the land, water, and holy places.
Keeping the words of the ancestors in her heart, in 2013 she successfully launched an online social media campaign that helped stop the trademarking of Día de los Muertos by The Walt Disney Company.
In addition to her healing practice, Grace is a facilitator for the Academy for Professional Excellence at San Diego State University School of Social Work, and she annually serves as Elder-in-Residence at the First Nations Iskotew and Kumik teaching lodges in Canada.
Grace is a 1993 Fellow of the National Hispana Leadership Institute, a collaborative project with the Center for Creative Leadership and Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government. She is a member of the Kumeyaay-led Kanap Kuahan (Tell the Truth) Coalition, an advisor to House of the Moon (an Indigenous healing and restoration program to address the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women/People crisis), and a board member of the Yaquis of Southern California.
Grace is an engaging cultural educator who helps organizations understand and be responsive to the historical experiences of Indigenous peoples as well as contemporary issues affecting them. She warmly welcomes into her circle those who are ready to listen with an open heart and are willing to do the work of healing, understanding, and supporting Indigenous culture and traditions.
Q: What’s a virtual course?
A: It’s a great way to engage live and pre-recorded teachings and each other from the comfort of your home! All you need is a computer, mobile device, or telephone. If there’s more than one person in your household taking the course, you’ll each need your own connection. We use Zoom video conferencing to make it just like an in-person event, where you can ask questions and deepen your exploration of the course themes.
There’s no additional charge for connecting to Zoom with your computer or mobile device. Please note that dialing Zoom from your telephone is a toll call; your telephone service provider will charge you according to your existing long-distance calling plan. International access numbers are available.
“I’ve never seen a course so well put together ever...”
I had never participated before in an online course. The packaging, presentation, inclusion, and Facebook postings created a wonderful, safe cocoon within which to participate. I’ve never seen a course so well put together ever — not in all the years of taking college classes — and I had my doubts about doing an online course. The wealth of organization and ease of learning materials and support made this fun as well.
— Claudia F., Medford, Massachusetts
Q: Can I get benefit from the course if I miss the live classes?
A: Absolutely! You can download the recordings and transcripts of all course sessions from our online media archive, so you never need to worry about missing live calls. You can also engage the full community and leaders on our private online community group.
Q: Can you tell me about the private online community group?
A: We’ll have a private online community group for all course participants that will support you in making connections with others, sharing insights, engaging in discussions, and completing homework assignments that can supplement your transformational journey. You’ll have the ability to share your experiences, projects, and growth throughout the course.
Q: Are there scholarships available for this training?
A: Yes, we always make a certain percentage of spaces available for partial scholarships, for those who otherwise would not be able to enroll at the regular rate. If you’d like to apply for a scholarship, please review our guidelines, which include a link to our online application form.
Q: What’s your refund policy?
A: Your satisfaction with The Shift Network and this course is our highest priority! We offer a satisfaction guarantee so that you can sample the course risk-free. The deadline to receive a full refund is September 20, 2022. To request a refund, please click on this refund request form and submit your request. Qualifying refunds will be processed within five business days and an email confirming the refund will be sent. However, we’d love to have a chance to address and resolve your concerns first. If there’s something we can assist you with, please email us at [email protected] and we’ll be happy to help! (No refund requests accepted after the above date or with scholarship awards.)
Q: How can I reach Customer Support?
A: Please visit our Customer Support Center, where you should be able to find the answer to your question or the solution to your problem. And if you can’t, you can submit an online request form and we’ll get right back to you.
