Are you in search of grief support?
- Have you lost a loved one, relationship, job, or sense of identity?
- Are you frustrated that you can’t seem to get through the day without fixating on what was lost?
- Being so overwhelmed, do you have a hard time communicating your needs and emotions with those around you?
Grief is consuming
Grief often feels like an emotional abyss. Whether you’re experiencing extreme sadness, anger, rumination, or hopelessness, it may seem as though your feelings are all over the place and difficult to identify. Furthermore, you are likely experiencing setbacks with your focus and concentration, making your work and sense of purpose even more challenging.
Beyond individual emotions, grief can manifest as physical and social symptoms. The pain of grief can be so intense that it feels physically heavy inside the body, sometimes leading to other disruptions like digestive issues, changes in appetite, and fatigue. These feelings can make it especially difficult to socialize or participate in everyday hobbies and activities, often causing distance, withdrawal, and/or avoidance in the context of your relationships.
The pain of grief is often unpredictable, rearing its head in the quiet moments and disrupting you in the midst of joy. This pain can be all-consuming at times, demanding your attention and refusing to be subdued. After days, weeks, and months of living with these feelings, it can be easy to develop the perception that life has come to an abrupt halt.
If this is your experience, remember that you are not alone. A grief counselor can help you find a sense of peace and hope as you learn to navigate life after loss. At Create Wellbeing Therapy, we know how to walk alongside you through the various stages of grief in order to get you to a new, more manageable place physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Many people suffer through the pain of grief alone
Grief and loss are inevitable aspects of life, but nevertheless disruptive to our sense of peace and identity—especially when certain milestones, holidays, and anniversaries occur. Though there is no “right” way to grieve, there are common emotions that we can experience following a loss, including sadness, tearfulness, depression, anger, guilt, heartbreak, lethargy, and difficulty concentrating. It’s normal to experience a deep sense of yearning for what was lost.
Unfortunately, our culture does not always make space for grief. Whether our workplaces don’t give us the time and space to process our emotions, or our social circles disappoint us in their response (or lack thereof), we can experience pressure to move on from the loss before we are ready. Not to mention, there are some losses—including divorce and job loss—that aren’t recognized as catalysts for grief in our culture.
For many of us, it’s easy to support others but difficult to get the help we need for ourselves. Rather, we struggle to justify the investment of therapy or convince ourselves that our grief isn’t severe enough to warrant emotional support. Yet, the truth is that we need to tell our stories in a way that allows us to develop a new understanding and awareness. This process is usually much smoother when a supportive, empathetic professional demonstrates presence and models connection. Offering a sense of attunement and new insights, a grief counselor can meaningfully help us process and heal from the pain of loss.
Our therapists offer grief counseling to those facing bereavement
At Create Wellbeing Therapy, our unique approach to grief counseling offers an integrative model that is designed to support you in stabilizing the nervous system and effectively managing tough emotions as they arise. Using our three-stage model of care, our grief counselors are here to help you:
Calm the distress brought on by grief;
Engage the whole person—mind, body, and spirit—in order to move through grief more effectively;
Integrate healing in your life by helping you fully transition after loss.
Our goal is to help you experience self-compassion, engage in introspection, allow yourself to fully tap into your emotions, identify your community of support, and learn meaningful self-care practices.
What to Expect
Because we take an integrative approach to grief counseling, we support the whole person. We are here to guide you in your grief journey so that your experience becomes integrated as a part of your story—rather than being processed as a trauma in your life.
Our therapists do this by offering support for the daily ups and downs of the grief process, providing you with specific strategies for both honoring what was lost and moving forward in the wake of loss. We create a consistent therapeutic space to connect to and feel your emotions so that you can experience physical and emotional freedom.
Grief emerges via physical symptoms, so we use body-based therapies to support the whole person in healing. Integrative Body Therapy is a meaningful tool we use for moving “stuck” grief and trauma through the body, facilitating the relief and release of painful emotions. We are likely to recommend this approach to clients experiencing physical discomfort.
Can grief counseling make me feel worse?
While it can be painful to encounter the emotions associated with your grief, it is the role of integrative therapy to help you process your emotions in a manner that helps you to both better understand them and to move through them in your body. You will also gain skills for better handling the the grief when you are alone. By sharing your experience with another person, you are able to co-regulate in your emotional state, ultimately helping you to feel more settled and relaxed.
We also incorporate the tear grief model, which stands for:
T – to accept the reality
E – experience the pain
A – adjust to the new environment
R – reinvest in a new reality
Through this process, you will learn to understand the role of attachment and why loss is so painful, the difference between grief and depression, self-care techniques for regulating difficult emotions, and how to make meaning out of loss. Instead of responding to your feelings with frustration or impatience, you will learn how to approach yourself with more compassion.
It is possible to feel better once you can understand and navigate the cycle of pain. Grief counseling gives new meaning to painful experiences in a way that can be deeply transformative. Through effectively integrating your loss, you will not only learn how to relax and find comfort but also establish new ways of being there for yourself and those around you.
Common Concerns about Grief Counseling:
It will be too overwhelming to discuss my grief in therapy.
We understand this concern but want to assure you that you will be gently and compassionately guided through this process. Our clinicians are available to support you in telling your story, honoring your deepest emotions while offering relief for disruptive emotional and physical sensations. As skilled grief therapists, we know how to help you engage with your mind and body in a way that is calming rather than triggering.
I’m worried that overcoming my grief will mean letting go of what was lost.
The goal of therapy is not to force you to simply “move on” from your grief. Instead, the goal of counseling is to support you in adjusting to this new and difficult transition so that the grief no longer hinders your everyday life. Our clinicians are invested in your healing, making sure to offer meaningful perspectives on how to honor your loss in healthy, manageable ways.
I have already thought about my grief so much—how would talking about it with a therapist help?
It’s great to be in touch with your emotions, but that does not necessarily mean you’re moving through the grief cycle. A therapist is essential in guiding you mindfully through this process and can support you every step of the way in a manner that feels productive.
The first step is often the hardest
