GRIEF, LOSS AND LIFE TRANSITION
Is your Heart hurting? Do you need help coming to terms with a loss in your life?
Have you been feeling sad, depressed or angry for a long time and don’t understand why?
Grief is defined as the “conflicting emotions that follow the ending or change in familiar patterns of behavior.” Loss has many faces and can show up in the most diverse ways in your life. Grief and loss counselling can support you during times of loss and life transitions as you come to learn to live with a change in your life, that most often has been imposed on you
Everyone deals with loss differently.
Wounds take time to heal and so does your heart.
Some losses are more obvious, like the death of a loved one or the end of a relationship. Other’s are more subtle, like your children leaving home, changes in your health or aging.
Grief and Loss counselling can take the form of Life transition counselling when you are addressing and getting support to adjust to what has disappeared or become different in your life.
Grief and loss counselling can support you in areas of relationship:
- Coping with the end of a relationship or marriage
- Grieving the death of a child, parent, sibling or other beloved person in your life
- Navigating the loss of a beloved pet
- Coming to terms with fertility issues and/or the inability to have a child
- Addressing unresolved childhood or adolescent abuse
“Grief counselling gave me a space to be honest about my feelings.
Last year my father died of lung cancer. My parents had been married close to 40 years and Mom just collapsed. I have been taking care of her ever since. It had become overwhelming to have to deal with her grief and my own. After a while everyone only asked how my mother was doing. People seemed to forget that I had lost my father. Before I decided to see Ina I felt I had lost myself somewhere during this last year. I just felt numb. Everyday it was becoming more and more difficult to get out of bed. My days just seemed filled with work and pain and taking care of Mom. Grief counselling gave me a space to be honest about my feelings especially all the anger I was trying not to feel. Ina helped me move forward and find a balance with my feelings of responsibility for my Mom and needing to take care of my own life. It was a relief to let go of guilt. Counselling helped me reconnect with my Dad thru what Ina called a ‘continuing bond.’ I still miss him terribly, but I feel much more at peace now.”
Grief and loss counselling in the form of life transition counselling can help you:
- Deal with changes in your health such as chronic pain, life altering surgeries and illnesses
- Come to terms with the aging process and how it is impacting your life
- Transition through menopause, empty nest and career changes that often occur during this time of life
- Accept the losses that come with recovery from an addiction
- Cope with the loss of a job
“2 years ago I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue. I couldn’t come to terms with how incapable I seemed to do things that I had taken for granted. I used to get so much accomplished in a day. Family and friends were sympathetic for a while but also didn’t understand because from the outside I pretty much looked the way I always did. Sometimes I wondered if I was kidding myself and was actually lazy and a loser in life. I had started to isolate. It was embarrassing to keep explaining that I was too tired to work and in too much pain to get things done. I was glad when I found a counsellor who understood chronic pain. Ina taught me new ways to cope. Her non-judgmental and compassionate way helped me come to terms with my life and deal with the pain. I have started loving myself again. I have learned how to take life one day at a time and stay in the moment.”
While you may be fortunate enough to have the support of family and friends, as a society in general, we are often poorly 
equipped when it comes to dealing with grief, loss, and major life transitions.
In your mind you may not want to burden others with your sadness and pain after a certain period of time. You may feel shame or like a burden because you haven’t moved on. You may decide that what you have to do is put on a brave face and soldier on.
Grief can create some very powerful emotions. Suppressing these feelings can create significant emotional and physical side effects. Grief and loss counselling can not only help resolve the feelings of helplessness, anger, sadness and anxiety that accompany loss but prevent psychological ramifications.
You don’t have to suffer the pain of grief and loss alone. Don’t get stuck in a downward spiral of loss and pain. Call Burnaby and North Vancouver Grief and Loss Counselor Ina Stockhausen at 778 558 8207 or email me today to schedule a complimentary 20 min phone consult so we can discuss how I can best support you during this challenging time.
Burnaby grief and loss counselor Ina Stockhausen specializes in life transition counselling for clients in Burnaby, North Vancouver, New Westminster, Coquitlam, and Port Moody.