Grief & Life Transitions
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On Grief
Grief is likely the most excruciating experience we will ever have as human beings. If we live long enough, we will experience loss. We grieve because we have loved, but there are often not enough spaces in our world that can truly admit or comprehend our sense of loss and grief. Jeanette Winterson describes this experience exquisitely: "“You’ll get over it…” It’s the clichés that cause the trouble. To lose someone you love is to alter your life for ever. You don’t get over it because ‘it” is the person you loved. The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never closes. How could it? The particularness of someone who mattered enough to grieve over is not made anodyne by death. This hole in my heart is in the shape of you and no-one else can fit it."
Making Space for Grief
Grief used to be held in community, with ritual and support. Nowadays we are often expected to return to jobs and "regular life" quickly, even after the loss of a significant person in our life. This is one of the unhealthy hallmarks of our society. Therapy is a place where we can reclaim sacred space for our grief. There are as many ways to grieve as there are living beings. While I have experienced personal losses in my life and can offer an empathic understanding of what this can feel like, I have also trained in grief therapy with highly-regarded grief therapist and author Claire Bidwell Smith. I would be honoured to come alongside you in your grieving, wherever you are at and however you wish to express it.
On Life Transitions
Change is inevitable, but we are not always adept at making space for it. Significant life transitions such as divorce, moving, graduation, friendship loss, career change, and becoming an empty nester can often bring grief along with them. Support in reckoning with the complex and often paradoxical emotions that arise during times of transition can be helpful. With reflective, open-minded, and compassionate support we can often find our way through to the gold in such situations, and even experience a sense of vitality and inspiration in the unexpected.