Grief Counseling
WHO IS THIS FOR?
Grief is the word we use to represent the absence of something important. Loss can be felt across a spectrum of meanings and intensities. Grief itself is a spectrum as well, with a range of emotions or processes that can be experienced through a nonlinear journey.
Grief is a reckoning of where you thought you were going and where you have ended up. Grief hurts, immensely, and there is no loss that is excluded from the feelings that come along with grieving.
If you are grieving a loss of any caliber, this page is for you.
For Those Who Have Lost Someone
Sometimes, we see it coming. Other times, loss blindsides us.
Grieving a loved one is a life-long process. It is a change to the very fabric of our being. While the fabric can be mended and we often find a way to carry on, we will never be the same after we’ve lost someone important to us.
Whether you are grieving the loss of a beloved family member or longtime friend, support is an imperative part of a healthy process of reconciling the before and after of that loss.
For Those Who Have Lost Something
Grief is often associated with the loss of someone but grieving something can be just as harrowing. If you have lost a life plan, an idea or a concept that felt imperative or certain, you may be grieving.
Grief is a process and it’s not a linear one. When something doesn’t go as you expected or hoped, that’s still loss. It still hurts, and a guiding hand in processing the unexpected change in direction or circumstance can offer you a new grasp on a world you maybe never wanted. But we are confident even through grief, we can help you thrive.
For Those Who have Lost Themselves
Loss of a loved one can be a profound pain. We often never recover from that, but it’s visible to others what or whom you’ve lost. But when it’s yourself you lost, how do you quantify that to anyone outside of you?
Losing yourself can happen so quietly you don’t even realize it’s begun until it’s ended. You wake up one day and you’re standing still in a life you recognize, in a headspace you don’t. Your heart feels wrong, your thoughts feel foreign. When you lose yourself, you can feel out of touch with everything—but we can help you reconnect.
THE UNIVERSAL FACT OF GRIEF
The messiest thing about loss is that it’s as personal as our fingerprints. From the catalyst to the impact, every aspect of grief is highly personal even though it’s something everyone experiences at some point. We will all grieve in our lifetime, but none of us will grieve the same as someone else.
No matter the facets of the grieving experience, the causes, or the healing balms we may find to soothe ourselves, every grief shares one element:
It hurts.
Lies we’re told about loss
You’ll move on eventually.
Time heals all wounds.
You’re living in the past.
All of these lies are told with the most compassionate intentions. Those who love us want to help us. They use their words to bring comfort and hope, to try to lessen our pain. A reminder of what lies ahead, when all you can see is what’s behind you that can’t come along. But these lies are just that- lies. They are platitudes designed to cover and comfort instead of helping you to work through the harsh landscape of a reality you do not want.
They’re hard to hear, and harder to reconcile with what you know.
The Truth About Grief
The truth about grief is that there is no "right" way to do it and it looks different for each person. Grief is not linear. However, there is still hope and we can help you reach forward toward it even when all you crave is to reach into the before and find the loss that sent you down this path of pain.
Maybe it won’t get easier but it will get more familiar. You will learn the lay of this unwanted land. You may not heal entirely, but you will find your way through the most dangerous pains. And you can move forward without leaving the legacy of your loss behind you.
Frequently Asked Questions
My loss feels catastrophic, I don’t think I can recover. What do I do?
Maybe you can’t recover the person you were before this loss, but you do not have to walk through your grief alone. A counselor who has the tools and experience to sit with you wherever you are and hear you in an honest way is the first step toward finding sustainable purpose and direction in the path that comes along with the pain.
There’s no easy answer to what you do in the long term, but in the short term, you keep breathing. You keep going and when you’re ready, we will go with you.
Is my loss big enough to grieve?
Yes. That’s really the long and short of it. When something or someone that means something to you leaves your life, it hurts. Grief comes in not just waves and stages, but a spectrum of intensity too.
Every loss is big enough to grieve because it mattered to you.
So whether you are grieving a change in direction or a monumental end, it is worth your pain.
Your loss is not anyone else’s to quantify.
It’s been too long, why am I not getting better?
It hasn’t been too long, and there is nothing wrong with you. Loss is a radical redirection of life. It’s not something that works on a time frame or even that you recover from. You may not get better.
You will, however, get different. You will find new coping mechanisms to work through the most painful moments of grief. There will be times it feels less cutting.
Even in therapy, you aren’t working toward better. Together, we are working toward understanding and healing.
Do children feel grief?
The aching truth is- yes, they do. Children feel pain and loss acutely. Though they may seem direct or abrasive in their processing or questions regarding the loss they’ve experienced, that grief often becomes engrained in the fabric of who they are. Children feel grief just as, or more, intensely as we do.
We cannot stop the pain of loss for the children we love any more than we can for ourselves. We can offer them the support, patience and language to express and understand the intense emotions that accompany loss. We can offer them love and compassion as they grieve.
Absence is a house so vast that inside you will pass through its walls and hang pictures on the air.
Pablo Neruda
GRIEF IS LONELY BUT YOU ARE NOT ALONE
Progress is messy too
Healing is not linear. You may indeed find yourself revisiting the same places of pain so often that they become familiar.
Familiarity breeds both comfort and resentment, especially when those places begin to feel like regression in the progress you have worked hard for. There is no right or wrong way to move beyond loss.
Sometimes we have to revisit uncomfortable stages of grief in order to learn lessons fully enough to move through them. No matter how many times you go there, you never have to go alone. Let us support you.
Give yourself grace
Grief changes us at the very root of who we are. It is the risk of loving, to lose the things we love the most.
The risk of love is often worth the pain of loss.
When we are hurting from the worst result of having taken it, maybe it doesn’t feel it. You may feel angry at yourself, at life or at others who may be involved in the loss you’re experiencing. Those feelings are valid. Feel them, but know that feelings are not facts. Be patient with yourself as you move through the stages of loss.
Share Your Thoughts & Feelings
Who or what you lost has not ceased to exist in your memories. If it helps you to reconcile this new world with the one you hoped to remain in, talk about the treasured memories you shared before your world was colored by the pain of grief.
A legacy of stories and memories can be a beautiful gift to those who share in your loss, and an even more compassionate offering to yourself. Allow the memories of before to accompany you in the after if it suits you. Say their name, speak your truth. Loss means there was great love. Keep giving great love when you need to.
