Grief and Loss Counselling in Gibsons, BC.

Grief can leave you disoriented and staggering. Your loss may recent, or in the past but never mourned. The loss of a person, a relationship, a career, your health, a pet are all serious disconnections. As a therapist, I will accompany you as you face your loss and express all the different emotions you may need to express. These may include sadness, anger, guilt, abandonment, and fear for your future. In time, you can move towards accepting and integrating your loss into the larger narrative of your life. With patient and compassionate support, you can gradually start to live again with enthusiasm.

If you have lost someone, I offer a compassionate and supportive space to explore your unique experience of loss. Listening carefully to your story, there's an opportunity to identify and honour your feelings, your memories and your relationship. Through gentle conversation and questions, there's a chance to rewrite your grief story, discover strengths, attend to resilience and find meaning amidst your pain. You can begin to acknowledge what you've been through while promoting healing, growth, a continued bond with the one who has passed and learning to live with loss

Are you feeling sad, anxious, angry, lonely, guilty, relieved, isolated, confused, or numbed out? Loss and grief is most often associated with loss of life, but it can also be central to the presenting problems and underlying issues that are brought into my counselling office by most of my clients. Death, divorce, relocation, immigration, job loss, relationship breakdowns...these are all losses that we need to work through. Talking about your loss and processing your feelings is a good place to start.

Are you using alcohol, substances, or addictive behaviors to cope with grief and loss? Although they provide relief in the short term, their long-term effects on your relationships and health can make it even more difficult to cope. Through a compassionate non-judgmental approach, I help clients explore their relationship to grief and loss so that they can overcome addictive coping strategies. If you're looking for another way forward, feel free to reach out and we can set up a free consultation to discuss further.

Grief is common to us all, however, how we grieve, is a very individual experience. My focus is in familiarizing you with your process of grieving and helping you reorganize your emotional life with grief as a predominant character. Grief can be alienating, to our former self, as well as to our those closest to us. My role is helping you integrate your grief, as much as we can.

Grief & loss can seem debilitating and overwhelming and many people struggle in moving on. Counselling is a highly effective resource for healing after a loss. Through compassion and understanding we will work to heal the pain of the event and move into acceptance and peace. Whether you are grieving the loss of a loved one, the loss of health or mobility, divorce or mid life transition, we can help.

Grief and loss leave us feeling distressed and destabilized. Whether your loss is through a break-up, death, or transition, grief can feel constant and heavy. I provide a supportive environment in which to reflect on the impact of your loss, and make sense of what this means for you - your sense of self, and your future. Whether it is the early days of your loss and you are looking for support to anchor you, or you have been struggling with this loss for months or years, we can work together to reconstruct meaning in your life.

Coping with the loss of a loved one can be a very painful experience. When you are caught up in strong emotions such as sadness, anger, fear, or shock, you may feel alone and misunderstood, and wonder if your experience is normal or if it will ever end. You do not have to walk this journey alone. I will come alongside you, to patiently and gently help you move through the grieving process toward a place of acceptance and peace so that you can recover a sense of contentment and meaning in life.

Grief and loss affect everyone in different ways. Your lived experience will be our guide and it is always a privilege and an honour to walk with someone as they navigate and work through these most difficult, and often unexpected, times in life. Together we will find ways to integrate grief and loss into the story of who you are; to remember and cherish, to mourn and yet also find ways to thrive.

In my work with grief and loss, I utilize Dr. Alan Wolfelt’s “grief as a garden” approach which offers a gentle, nurturing framework for understanding the grieving process. By viewing grief as a garden that requires tending, individuals are encouraged to honor their emotions, embrace vulnerability, and allow healing to unfold naturally over time. In a therapeutic context, this metaphor fosters self-compassion and patience, reminding clients that growth often comes from intentional care—such as cultivating self-awareness, processing feelings, and seeking support. This perspective can empower individuals to see grief not as a problem to solve but as a journey toward renewal and transformation

Loss may comee in many forms. The most obvious is relationship loss. A partner, spouse, relative or friend whos is not lomger with us can be an incredibly intense experience. Even someone who has moved away can leavchments to their e a void that may be difficult to fill. Other types of loses include that of ones pet. Many individuals form strong to their pets and this loss can be devistating. Grief is a naturel process that promotes healing. If grief persists for too long then it may dominate a persons ability to return to normal functioning

I will guide you through the work of healing loss and grief in a safe and thoughtfully-paced process. I will bear witness to your pain and walk with you as you find a new way of being in life after loss. I will listen, suggest coping strategies, and help mobilize resources to help you cope during this time of great upheaval and sadness. You are not alone.

While grief and transition are a natural part of life, we are still often overwhelmed by sadness, anger and all the confusing emotions that come with loss. There is no right or wrong way to grieve—just your body and mind doing what it can to process the pain of major life change and the loss of how things were. Working with me means compassionate care that helps you to approach and feel your feelings in a safe way, taking things one step at a time. I promise you that all grief can be transformed into a gentle honouring of who or what was lost. I would be happy to team up with you in your journey towards peace and acceptance.