Grief

It leaves our world spinning.

The death of a loved one…

Divorce…

A diagnosis…

The loss of a pet…

A miscarriage…

We feel anger, denial, dread, guilt, and loneliness. Nothing feels the same. We can’t help but replay the events repeatedly, looking for a different outcome… wondering if there was anything else we could have done.

Grief is the expression of our love…

The greater the love, the deeper the grief.

When we lose someone or something important to us, their absence becomes its own presence. The absence represents all that we loved and all that we miss, and we cling to it – revisiting our time together and any other memories we hold.

We want these feelings of grief to end, and yet we never want it to end.

Where are you right now?

It might be something new that you are experiencing… or perhaps the grief has been with you for too long.

Or perhaps you are experiencing anticipatory grief – the grief a person sometimes feels in the days, weeks, or even years before the death of a loved one or other impending loss. The symptoms look a lot like conventional grief.

Whatever you’re going through, the pain of grief can be debilitating.

Is the pain still with you, despite your best efforts to avoid it?

Does it feel like it just happened yesterday?

Do you know whether you need help processing it?

There is no “right” way to grieve.

Sometimes, we feel like grief should be a certain amount of days, weeks, or months, and then we should “move on.” Many people are allotted three days of grieving time per calendar year at work, which is just one illustration of how grossly inadequate our society’s conception of grief is.

But grief can be quite a lengthy process, with many stages. Some days we might feel like we’re doing great, and then a memory or a smell can throw us off-kilter and make us feel like we are going backward.

We know we will feel sad. But when the storm of other emotions comes through – the anger, yearning, regret, guilt – we feel thrown off and like we’re doing something wrong. And while we may feel supported shortly after our loss, others often don’t know how to show up in the weeks, months, and even years afterward.

Grief is like a roller coaster: It goes up and down… and all around.

What does grief therapy look like?

It looks different for everyone, but here are some things we will do:

Work on expressing feelings…

Common feelings associated with grief are anger, guilt, sadness, regret, fear, desperation, numbness, and many more. All of your feelings are valid and welcome in our sessions.

And while feeling all these painful emotions may sound scary, expressing this wide range of emotions leads to healing. When we push our feelings away, the grief can transform into depression or anxiety… or lead to unhealthy habits to numb the pain.

Don’t worry: I’ll help you through the process.

Process the most painful parts…

I find that Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) can be a very helpful modality to help process some of the more painful or traumatic parts of grief.

In our sessions together, I may ask you to write letters that express things left unsaid or talk to a lost loved one as though they were sitting right there. We may also develop rituals or practices for you to help honor the memory of your loved one.

The goal is not to erase the memory… but to feel more at peace with it.

Open yourself to the possibility of something new…

Grief shatters our identity. Suddenly, we are no longer someone’s spouse, parent, child, or sibling. As you process the emotions and pain of the grief, at some point, you will begin to contemplate what a new life and new identity will look like after the loss.

This can be a scary process… and can sometimes cause people to feel guilt or other emotions around which it’s difficult to maneuver.

Together, we will help you learn how to incorporate the past with the future.

You don’t have to do this alone.

Grief is an extremely painful and vulnerable process, and it can be really helpful to have someone to support you through it.

Whether it is recent grief or one that has been sitting with you for quite some time, grief therapy can help you mourn. It is not a way of forgetting or “moving on,” but remembering, honoring, and growing.

Contact me today to set up a free 15-minute consultation to see if we might be a good fit: agarrattcounseling@gmail.com.