Understanding Grief Counseling
Grief Counseling
When loss touches your life it can leave you feeling unmoored, disoriented in time, disconnected from others, unsure how to move through the days. Sometimes the pain comes in sharp waves; other times it settles in quietly, leaving numbness or exhaustion in its place.
There’s no single right way to grieve, and no timeline that makes sense of what you’ve lost. But you don’t have to navigate it alone. Grief counseling offers a space to slow down, breathe, and begin to make sense of a world that’s been altered by loss.
Sadly, many bereaved begin to feel like a burden to those around them. It's often difficult to find people willing to listen and fully share the space of pain, which leads to emotions, thoughts, and sensations being compartmentalized.
Recognizing your need for grief counseling is a strong act of defiance against the common belief that we must simply "get over it and move on."
Grief counseling may be right for you if:
You’ve experienced a recent loss and feel overwhelmed, numb, or unsure how to move forward.
Your loss happened years ago, but certain moments still bring strong emotion.
You’re caring for someone who is ill and experiencing anticipatory grief.
You feel pressure to “move on” but know you need more time and space to heal.
What is grief counseling?
Grief counseling is a person-centered process that helps you explore and understand your experience of loss. While grief is a universal experience, your individual grief is unique, like a fingerprint, and is treated with dignity and respect. In grief counseling we work together to:
Understand how grief shows up in your body, thoughts, and relationships.
Learn ways to tolerate emotional waves without feeling lost in them.
Reconnect with the parts of life and self that have been disrupted.
Find ways to honor your loved one and the bond that continues.Grief therapy aids clients in integrating loss into their ongoing life by building a new relationship with what's been lost, rather than focusing on "getting back to normal."
How is grief counseling different from other forms of therapy?
Grief work is often cyclical, tender, and non-linear. This approach contrasts with traditional therapy, which frequently follows a more structured path toward specific goals or insights.
While many therapies focus primarily on a client's internal experience and present relationships, grief therapy also validates and explores the ongoing connection, the continuing bond, with the deceased.
Because grief often lives as much in the body as in the mind, grief therapy tends to be more somatically aware.
It honors the paradox that you can hurt and heal at the same time; that grief and love are two sides of the same coin.
In grief counseling, we prioritize a deep exploration of your “griefscape”, focusing on learning to listen intently to the thoughts, sensations, and feelings within your experience. Clients frequently begin to strengthen their self-compassion, leading to a trust that grief holds sacred messages for them to learn from.
As you delve into your grief, you'll often find that other areas of your life surface, such as relationships, caregiving responsibilities, past losses, family beliefs about strong emotions, and attachment wounds. While these topics may seem peripheral, they are all ultimately intertwined with your grief journey.
My approach to grief work
My embodied and gentle method is centered on the conviction that you possess an inner guide and teacher. We collaborate so you can build trust in your own lived experience. I incorporate mindfulness and somatic awareness, which enables you to connect with the physical sensations in your body as you move through emotions. Fundamentally, grief counseling involves making space for your grief; an essential act of self-validation that affirms your grief is worthy of attention and care.
Sometimes we move through deep sadness; other times we sit quietly and notice what’s present. In the recounting of stories about your loved one, we might also share moments of delightful laughter and fond remembrance. Together, we work at a pace that feels safe, allowing space for both pain and meaning, for remembering and for re-engaging with life.
Grief can take many forms: the death of someone close, the end of a relationship, a change in identity, or even the loss of health, stability, or home. However it appears, grief counseling will help you deepen an appreciation for how integral grief is in the human experience.