Grief and Loss Counseling in Forest Heights, MD.

Are you struggling to find your way through the painful journey of grief and loss? As a compassionate and experienced therapist, I am here to guide you towards healing and renewed hope. Together, we will create a safe and supportive space where you can freely express your emotions and unravel the complexities of your grief. Through active listening, empathy, and personalized therapeutic techniques, I will help you navigate the stages of grief, offering validation and understanding every step of the way, to help find meaning amidst the darkness. Together, we will embark on a transformative journey towards healing, acceptance, and growth. You don't have to face this alone.

We experience loss around many different events in our life. Loss of a loved one (including a companion animal), a job, our hopes and dreams, and financial security are some life changing circumstances that bring about grief and loss. I help to create a space where it feels safe to talk about the many different feelings, thoughts, and behaviors that can arise. You don’t have to go through this alone. Contact me and start getting relief during a difficult time.

Grief and loss can require therapy because they frequently involve trauma--death, divorce, moves, job losses. They lead to a feeling of loss-of-control in many areas of life, even when the control you had is actually still there. In therapy, we work through the loss and accompanying grief, and find ways to express your feelings while still recognizing the trauma--and the reasons for the loss. We create coping mechanisms and turn negative ideas into positive ones.

When someone lost the loved one, he/she will experience different feelings, such as sad, angry, lonely, confused, and guilty. When these strong emotions all come together at the same time, one can be overwhelmed. Hence, grief counseling can help. Everyone goes through birth, aging, sickness, and death, and grief is a normal process of human’s life. Grief counseling gives you an opportunity to find a better way to memorize the loved one while moving forward your life.

Loss is inevitable. It is the flip side of love and the greatest pain we know. Hearts can break and hearts can heal. We must first accept ALL feelings. We can cultivate gratitude for the gifts our loved one gave us. Sometimes it is also important to acknowledge and learn from the mistakes of the one we have lost., the ways they may have caused pain to themselves and others. If the person has been a large part of our daily living, it is as if we need to recreate our lives bringing new resources into the emptiness. The waves of extreme pain become less frequent with time. The person's memory remains with us, and their gifts to us can inspire those very strengths in ourselves.

Grief is an intense feeling of sadness or sorrow. You can try to suppress your grief but can’t avoid it forever. We are here to help you face it head-on with bereavement therapy. Understanding the different types of grief is important so we’re better prepared and so we can be supportive of others who are going through it. It's your battle, but you don't need to fight alone. We are here to help you with grief counseling.

Though I don't pathologies grief and loss, I help to prevent it from continuing to burden your life by (1) allowing you to freely talk about the deceased; (2) assisting with distinguishing grief from a traumatic event, and (3) assist you in dealing with any guilt and effectively organize your grief. We support persons encountering grief, adjusting to loss, in need of bereavement care, as well as seeking support while facing an anticipated loss.

Learning how to healthily grieve is foundational to experiencing peace in the midst of a broken world. We all experience various forms of loss, from the "little" disappointments that we don't even consciously notice, to the catastrophic losses that feel as though they will drown us. We are relational beings who are meant to grieve and work through all of these in the context of relationships. As one who is no stranger to loss, I know how scared we can be to face our grief and loss. And I know the great peace and strength that comes through doing so. I would be honored to guide and walk with you in your grief journey, helping you to eventually find new life on the other side of your loss.

To help a client cope through grief and loss, I sometimes use the example of how an oyster forms a pearl. The oyster ingests a grain of sand that causes pain, and which cannot be removed or dissolved (just like we cannot eliminate the pain of missing a loved one). So the oyster begins to encase the grain of sand with layers of calcium-like substance, that makes the grain of sand easier to carry and hold, without the rough edges. Coping through grief and loss can involve learning how to unpack, experience, and adjust how we carry the pain. Therapy can help you soften and encase the pain of loss, forming a "pearl" around it that is easier to carry with you, and perhaps make it more precious.