Are you feeling desperate with the heaviness of missing a loved one who’s died?
Are you struggling to get out of bed in the morning, unsure of your purpose in life since your loved one has died?
Are you deeply caught in regrets, wishing you’d done things differently before it was too late?
Does it seem impossible to imagine going forward without your loved one being there?
Grief can feel like you’ve been hit by an overwhelming tidal wave of pain, loss and uncertainty. In the first days after a loved one has died, you may find yourself going around in a fog. You may wish you could just blink and everything would go back to the way it was. You may find it difficult to sleep and to eat and to focus on anything but your loved one. As the days go on you may feel unsure of which way is up and you may feel like you don’t know how you’ll ever go about your days and attend to the simplest of things again. Grief can feel all consuming, making it hard to breathe and focus and make decisions.
Traumatic Loss
Grief and loss can be especially difficult when death comes in unexpected and traumatic ways. When loss comes through a critical illness, violence, suicide, car crash or other tragic means if can feel like you’ve been robbed of all that you held dear and knew to be true. You may find yourself railing in anger against the circumstances that brought on your tragic loss and the fact that you are left to move forward without your loved one’s presence.
Grief can also be experienced through the loss of a much loved pet, or through a significant life change such as divorce, the loss of a job or career, the loss of health if you’ve developed a chronic or incurable disease. Situations like these can bring up feelings such as denial, anger, regret, blaming and more. All your emotions matter and need to be supported when it comes to dealing with grief and loss.
Grief is the loss we all experience
When you feel lost in a sea of grief or pushed around by the ups and downs of many emotions after losing someone dear to you, you are not alone. We have all been there. Grief is the downside of living, loving and losing that we all experience, yet never feel ready to face. It changes all of us.
Many people go through a variety of emotions when they first are faced with the death of someone they love. Emotions such as disbelief or denial can be strong if your loved one died suddenly and you didn’t have time to process their coming death. Emotions such as anger, regret and blaming can also be feelings that surface in the weeks following your loss. These emotions are part of the grieving process and are felt by many people going through similar situations. They are feelings to navigate with the support of others around you.
The demands of life don’t stop
Struggling with the demands of work and family while you are navigating through grief is a struggle many have in our society today. Most workplaces only allow five days of bereavement leave and this is nowhere near enough. You may feel caught in the culture of ‘get right back at it’ when all you want to do is slow down time. You may have children that still want to go to their sports games, or spouses that want to carry on with their lives. Navigating the speed of life’s demands is something we all struggle with when we are negotiating deep grief, and we feel we are operating on a time all unto ourselves.
The good news is that you don’t need to journey through grief alone. With the help of our experienced therapists you will feel supported and find strength and hope for adjusting your life around your loss.
How Can Grief Therapy Help?
Grief therapy is an opportunity for you to express all of your emotions in a safe place and have guidance for adjusting and finding new meaning on the painful journey.
Grief therapy is a way to accept your loss and process what it means for your life and make sense of all the mix of emotions.
Emotions such as anger, denial, regret, guilt and blame are some of the heavy emotions that many people struggle to reconcile after the death of a loved one.
It can help you find ways to honor and remember your loved one. It can help you figure out your life without your loved one and gently move forward as you adjust to new ways of being.
Grief therapy helps you adjust to what life looks like as you move forward, and invest in what is next for you in the life you are now adapting.
We offer Grief Therapy that is informed by the work of Megan Devine, Therese Rando, David Kessler, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and others.
What Grief Therapy is Like
At Transforming Tides Counselling we talk about what’s on your heart and make suggestions on how to best move onward. We know there is no ‘right way’ to grieve. We walk alongside you, where you are at. We offer ways to calm and hold the heaviness that can feel overwhelming.
At Transforming Tides Counselling we have over thirty years of experience supporting people in grief and loss situations, we know the palliative care journey and are well used to the anticipatory grief that comes while you watch your loved one deal with incurable illness. We have walked the walk. We know what it’s like.
Grief therapy sessions will ask you questions about your loved one and get you talking about your memories, your fun times together, your regrets and wishes and everything in between. Talking about your loved one helps you figure out how to continue being connected to your loved one, and come to accept their death.
We will also help you explore the meanings you hold that are associated with the loss you have experienced. Discussing your beliefs can be helpful in integrating this loss into your life and in helping you figure out how to shape your life going forward.
Common Concerns:
There’s so much to do, I don’t have time to feel sad, let alone come for therapy.
When we lose a significant loved one, all the busyness of responding to their death can keep us from ‘feeling’ the loss. Yet moving forward in a healthy way involves facing your grief and taking the time you need to heal from the shock and pain. Setting aside time to get support in the early days following your loved one’s death can help you avoid falling into unhealthy coping down the road.
I’ve used up all my bereavement time. How can I take off more time for therapy?
No problem. At Transforming Tides Counselling we offer evening and weekend sessions. We work hard to offer you appointment times that work for you and your lifestyle. We also offer appointments over video so that you can attend a counselling session without travelling to a location that may not be convenient for you.
Have questions or are interested in exploring counselling with Transforming Tides Counselling?
Click this link to book a free twenty minute phone consultation. In this consultation you can start to get to know your therapist and explore what working with them would be like.
