Grief and Loss Counselling in Birkendale, ON.

Grief is primarily associated with the death of a loved one, whilst this is certainly true the term grief can be used more widely to capture any significant loss experienced in life. I work with clients to help them acknowledge the loss they have experienced and explore the emotional impact it has had and how this will shape their lives as they seek to move forwards and live their own lives.

Addressing grief and loss in therapy has profound benefits by providing a supportive environment to process emotions, express feelings, and find meaning after the loss. I can help you navigate the stages of grief, reduce feelings of isolation, and possibly preventing complicated grief or depression. Through therapy, I can help you develop coping strategies, build resilience, and ultimately find a path toward healing and acceptance.

Grief is a normal process that each of us goes through when we have been separated from someone or something that we have felt connected to. There is no time limit to the experience. During this journey, you may find yourself grappling with a range of emotions, from anger and isolation to fear and many others. These emotions are all part of the normal process of grief, as we navigate our way through the loss. You can stay trapped in these feelings which will extend the time you grieve. Alternatively, you may consider new events from the perspective of how your loved one enjoyed or managed them in the past.

Mourning a loss can include not only what we no longer have but what we never received as well. It takes time to recover from a loss and unfortunatley most of us do not give ourselves or others enough time. We want to hurry the process along. As a therapist I encourage my clients not to rush the process, but rather we sit together as they express their feelings of grief and loss. Gradually, in your own time you will begin to let go of these feelings and start to feel the burden of sadness lift.

What makes grief so painful? Perhaps it's because we experience a double loss. The first is losing a loved one, the second is losing a part of our ourselves. This is why the familiar saying, "you gotta let go," can sometimes make things worse. Instead of letting go, I'm interested in how we can bring people closer: closer to what we hold dear, closer to what we cherished most… In doing so, we can begin to develop a new relationship with our departed loved one, and simultaneously offer comfort and healing to parts of ourselves.

At some point in life, everyone will experience grief and loss. Grief is a normal response to a final disconnection from something or someone important to us. While grief is a common human experience, we will all experience loss in very different ways. It may occur following the loss of a pet, job, relationship, or loved one. Together, we will explore your grief to develop an understanding of what your loss means to you, and how it has impacted you. Together, we will explore how you can effectively experience and express your grief in a way that makes sense for you - there are no rules or timelines when it comes to grief.

Contemporary approaches to coping with grief and loss have shown that the path of acceptance and healing is not linear, but a winding road and unique process for every individual. Psychotherapy can help you along your path by providing an outlet for those challenging emotions and providing you with tools to help you cope. With personal experience, I will lend a hand in helping you to cope and integrate the challenges presented by the loss of a loved one or a significant relationship as you find your new normal. Those we lose remain in our hearts, and by remembering them with gratitude we can begin to heal.