Grief Processing
The truth is grief and loss happen. They are the product of living life attached to other people, ideas and identities. With time, things change. It is part of living. Acknowledge and process the emotions and it will get a little easier. Ignore or avoid them and it will get harder with each loss. When we deal with the emotions, even when it is really hard, there is healing. The pain is less intense and before you know it, you will find your way back to living. The moments can be rough, but they are just moments.
What I know to be true is that the things the help with processing loss are time and space. Grief can feel really big when you’re in the middle of it. Some days you might feel like you’re doing well and getting through ok and others it will feel like the walls are caving in. The initial challenges are anything from taking and making phone calls and telling people about the loss. Doing these things can create anxiety and avoidance of doing simple tasks. There will be several periods of sadness and feeling unsure about what life looks like without that person, idea, title or identity. There is a time when you will have to redefine much of what you thought you knew. It will be helpful to take some space from people or even the environment you have been in to adjust to your new normal. The time can feel like an eternity. It does end and it does get better. It is helpful to give yourself grace and patience through the rough parts.
Processing for Family Groups
2-hour processing session. In this session we will process the initial loss and narrative of who the person was in the family. There will be some education about what next steps are in the near future of adjusting. How to set boundaries with other people. We will talk about addressing the feelings that come up through the grief process.
Small group of 2-6 people. Max 6.
Individual Grief Therapy
Short term therapy to help with the adjustment to recent loss and the subsequent emotions that come up. Tools to help address the challenges of putting life back together missing a significant part of yourself. Space to allow yourself to feel all the things that loss creates.
What my clients have been able to achieve:
Being able to work through the challenges of dealing with significant loss.
Get to a place of appreciating the memories of a life rather than focusing on the loss.
Build health boundaries with well-intentioned people in their lives.
Learn how to increase their self-awareness of unhelpful coping, while creating healthy skills to deal with loss and change.
Increase motivation and re-engagement with their lives.
Create a new story beyond this one very hard chapter.