Let’s Face It: Meet Mimi Gonzalez

April 29, 2025 | An award-winning social impact strategist, mental health advocate, LinkedIn influencer, and founder of griefsense, Mimi Gonzalez is reshaping how we talk about grief and mental health, especially in the workplace. To get here, Mimi has gone through a deeply personal journey through grief, identity, and the radical act of living with intention.  

“I’ve lost 36 people before the age of 29,” Mimi says. “People hear that and ask how I’ve done so much at such a young age. But it’s because of who I’ve lost that I live this fully.” 

“My life started with loss,” Mimi says. Her father died when she was just 8 months old. Raised by a teenage mother in Hartford, Mimi experienced housing instability and hardship early on. “I learned about death before I ever understood what it meant to live,” she reflects. 

In high school, Mimi experienced a series of devastating losses, including the deaths of her best friend and godfather, both to suicide, in addition to other losses. “I didn’t know how to go on,” she says. “I was so depressed and isolated, and I didn’t have the words for what I was feeling. I attempted to take my own life.” 

Her mother and stepfather tried to find help, but the therapist available to Mimi, a white man disconnected from Mimi’s reality, couldn’t meet her where she was. Who did help was her principal, Dr. Slater, who checked in regularly and reminded her that her life mattered. “If it weren’t for Dr. Slater, I wouldn’t be alive today,” Mimi says. 

That support helped ignite Mimi’s activist journey. She began speaking publicly about suicide prevention as a teen and carried that passion through college, where she organized open mics around mental health, disability justice, domestic violence, and racial equity. She graduated early with a degree in psychology and a master’s in organizational psychology, all while navigating undiagnosed PTSD and the ongoing weight of grief. 

At age 24, during the week of the anniversary of her best friend’s death, Mimi was invited to be a keynote speaker and one of just four panelists to share a stage with President Barack Obama as part of the Obama Foundation’s Community Leadership Corps. The same year, she was made Chief of Staff for the Chief Diversity Officer at Stanley Black & Decker, a fortune 500 company. 

After several years in the corporate world and hearing firsthand from other young adults about the lack of meaningful grief support and stigma faced, Mimi made the bold decision to step away. She launched griefsense: a platform offering a podcast, newsletter, workplace support, and brand partnerships centered on grief literacy and mental health advocacy.  

Growing up, Mimi didn’t have a word for the feeling that followed so much loss. The feeling was a quiet drive to live more fully, more lovingly, and more unapologetically, even in the depths of grief. Eventually, she gave it a name: griefsense, a sixth sense, an inner knowing that life itself is a privilege. 

“I needed more tools than just therapy. That’s why griefsense exists: to offer alternatives, to build community where you don’t have to explain your pain, because we already get it.”  

Mimi’s mental health work is driven by the reality that traditional systems often fail to support young, grieving people. “There’s a deep stigma around talking about death, especially in Black and Latino communities. We’re losing people at alarming rates, yet silence often follows. We attend the funerals, but rarely speak their names after. These were people with full lives, eyes, birthmarks, stories, and they deserve to be remembered.” 

What makes griefsense unique is how Mimi refuses to sanitize grief. “Ceasing to talk about someone is a second death. I will talk about my people. I will honor them in life and in death.” 

Mimi has helped peers and strangers navigate loss, spoken with companies about grief literacy, and consulted on how to support young professionals in the workplace. “Grief doesn’t clock out at 9 a.m.,” Mimi says. “And bereavement leave doesn’t make you whole.” In fact, Mimi prefers to reframe bereavement as ‘integrated loss support,’ emphasizing an ongoing process of healing and connection rather than a finite period of mourning. 

Still, she has had to pause and recalibrate many times. The losses have continued with friends, family, and even beloved pets. And as a young Afro-Latina leader navigating entrepreneurship, caregiving, and content creation, burnout and PTSD remain constant companions. “People call me strong, but it’s the strong ones you have to check on,” she says. 

From hot yoga, journaling, and cooking (inspired by her mom) to helping open Hasta Luego, Friend, a community-focused café honoring her grandmother’s legacy, Mimi finds healing in movement, creativity, and connection. Her affirmations, sent as texts to herself every morning, ground her. Her fiancé, who she calls the best thing that ever happened to her, helps her find peace through the noise of complex PTSD. 

Mimi’s next big dream? Launching The Grief Sala, a conference and community activation that brings creators, culture, and mental health into conversation, right in Connecticut. “There’s so much creator energy in Atlanta, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Why not Hartford? Why not us?” Mimi chooses to stay rooted in her city. “I get invited to speak in LA and New York, but I want to be here. I want the youth in Hartford to know someone believes in them.” 

Mimi Gonzalez is proof that grief, when honored and expressed, can be a guide. And while the losses have been many, her will to live, honor those she lost, and desire to help others do the same persist. 

“If you’ve ever experienced grief and turned your pain into purpose, you have griefsense too. That’s our superpower.” 

You can find Mimi on LinkedIn, Instagram at @mgonzz and @griefsense, or tune into the griefsense podcast on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple. For any businesses looking for workplace, branding, or partnership support, contact Mimi at griefsense.com.