I know death, as I have witnessed and experienced it throughout my life, so I know it well. I know what it is to lose loved ones, a child that never survived to infancy, the loss of companions, both human and furried. I have evolved into clear perspectives about death and dying, and offer support and coaching to assist the bereavement and transition process. This support helps the grief process by: countering the sense of isolation that many experience in our shame-based, mourning-avoiding culture.
- providing emotional, physical, and spiritual support in a safe, nonjudgmental environment.
- allowing them to explore their many thoughts and feelings about grief in a way that helps them be compassionate with themselves.
- encouraging you to receive support and understanding for yourself
- offering opportunities to learn new ways of approaching problems (e.g. the friend or in-law who lacks an understanding of the need to mourn and pushes you to “return to normal”).
- helping you trust again in what for many in grief feels like an unsafe, uncaring world.
- providing a supportive environment that can reawaken your interest in life.
Grief Coaching helps you feel less helpless so that you are able to discover new meaning in life. This process of being understood is central to being compassionate with oneself as a bereaved person.
Our mourning-avoiding culture often forces bereaved people to withdraw from insensitive friends and family or to adopt ways of avoiding the painful, but necessary work of mourning; support groups, which instead foster the experience of trusting and being trusted, can do wonders in meeting the needs of bereaved people. In grief coaching, I offer a Sacred, safe harbor where you can pull in, anchor while the wind still blows them around, and search for safe ground on which to go on living.
Beyond this there is a path through which we can grow through grief.
- Growth means encountering pain
- Growth means change
- Growth means a new inner balance with no end points
- Growth means exploring our assumptions about life
