When grief and loss have impacted us, the relationship we engage in with them can’t help but affect every dimension of our lives.  As your counsellor, I can sit with you in the midst of the chaos and the mess and help you to work through it. 

“All the fine art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on”

 - Havelock Ellis

If you would like to explore what counselling could look like for your grief and loss experience, please reach out.

You might be experiencing some of these symptoms:

• grieving the passing of your beloved pet,
• the loss of a marriage
• the loss of a relationship or friendship
• the loss of your identity
• the grieving of your past
• the loss of a job
• the loss of health
• ageing

We tend to align grief and loss only to the passing of someone that we love.  And whilst this is an extremely important reason for engaging in grief counselling and I encourage it, It could also look like:

• Not being able to think clearly
  
• Memory blocks
• Not being able to sleep well
• Not being able to eat well
• Not being able to get out of bed or leave the house
• Isolation
• Feeling like you’ve died too
• Regrets
• Shame
• Guilt
• Anxiety
• Anger
• Denial
• Not being able to cry - or not being able to stop crying

Therapy for Grief and Loss

As humans we are all unique, we may have similarities but we are each individual.  Therefore it’s not surprising that we will all experience grief and loss in our own way and in our own timeline.  Think of grief and loss like a fingerprint…each one unique…hence none of us will experience grief and loss exactly the same way, and we all will have a relationship with them in our own way.

The stages of grief are not linear, they don’t follow a model or a plan.  You may have heard of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ model or stages of grief?  This is certainly helpful for gaining some understanding of how we travel through grief, however, grief is not neat and tidy - we don’t follow a set of steps and then discover a magical finish line.  If only!  Our brains and our bodies just don’t work that way.  Grief is chaotic.  Grief is messy.  Grief shows up differently for all of us.

Ultimately, grief and loss are an “emotional and physical response to the loss or death of someone or something, as the mind and psyche experience a free fall of mixed emotions, with potentially lasting impact on our wellbeing” 

(Edy Nathan, 2023).