Grief
What is grief?
We've all felt loss in one way or another, whether we’re mourning the death of a loved one, a companion animal, or saying goodbye to our life before the pandemic. Grief is a natural response to the inherent losses involved in being human. Grief can take unexpected forms, such as the grief that may come with a new opportunity, the doors that close when we choose a certain path, or recognizing the impermanent nature of being human. There is a lot to grieve for in our times, we can feel grief for the devastating losses caused by climate change, for the extinction of species, for the loss of human rights, for the victims of war, and the list goes on.
Grief can take many forms and be expressed in various ways. It can come over us slowly like a wave, or hit us with unexpected intensity.
It can also seem never-ending and insurmountable as if we will never fully recover from loss and move on. Depending on how we each experience grief, symptoms can include a general sense of malaise, heaviness, and fatigue. Grief can also show up in feelings of dissociation, shock, sadness, guilt, anger, jealousy, betrayal, and helplessness. In concrete ways, it can affect our concentration, appetite, and sleep. Symptoms of grief can feel overwhelming, heavy, and all-consuming. That said, our grief can reflect back to us our capacity to love and feel connected to the people, places, beings, and experiences we cherish. Grief is complex. Know that you don't need to experience your grief alone, we are here to support you.
How can counselling help?
Counselling provides a compassionate and non-judgemental space to help you navigate emotions, memories, thoughts, and experiences while offering you support throughout the process.
Counselling provides a compassionate and non-judgemental space to help you navigate emotions, memories, thoughts, and experiences while offering you support throughout the process. Working with a therapist can help you gain insight into what you're experiencing, and provide you with strategies or tools to tend to your grief and move forward on your healing journey.
Working with a therapist can help identify any "shoulds" or judgments about particular thoughts…
And emotions that are coming up around your experience of grief, and help make room for all of your experiences to belong and co-exist. There is no right or wrong way to grieve and in this process, we build the capacity to hold the complexity of our grief. A therapist can offer us ways to express and experience our emotions, at our own pace, which is vital to working through our grief. Feeling our grief allows transformation to happen, whether that be internally within ourselves, or a catalyst for collective change. Your counsellor can work with you to find an approach that resonates with you best.
Work with our counsellors who specialize in grief:
