GRIEF AND LOSS
Everyone grieves differently, and we understand that.
Grief is a normal feeling after a loss, yet everything about it feels abnormal and leaves people yearning for the life they used to have. Grief can be overwhelming, even making basic necessities like eating and sleeping feel like daunting tasks. Everyone grieves differently and we understand that. Resilient Heart Therapy & Consultation was founded to help be a guide through your grief, offering one-on-one grief counseling, therapy, and training to help you navigate the uniqueness of your loss so you can begin your healing journey, building resilience, restoring passion, and rediscovering hope along the way.
Spouse Loss
The loss of a spouse brings overwhelming pain, anxiety and loneliness. You may feel paralyzed and confused as everything about your life changes at once. Complications in marriage often create complications in your grief journey that can be difficult to discuss in a support group. Whether you are grieving decades of memories, or yearning for future experiences you feel robbed of, we want to help you take the first steps towards healing.
Child Loss
Losing a child is one of the most intense, heartbreaking, and life altering experiences a person or couple can face, no matter your child’s age. And the grief journey after losing a child can continue with every new life stage and milestone you may be longing for. Whether you’ve lost an adult child, a teen or student, an infant or toddler, a pregnancy, or are experiencing infertility, we want to help you begin to see hope for your future, even if it feels impossible today.
Parent Loss
The death of a parent can feel overwhelming, especially if others in your life have not experienced a loss. Expectations to ‘get over it’ can leave you feeling angry and alone while trying to process losing the person who’s known you since birth. No matter the circumstances of your relationship, how old you are, or how long ago your loss was, we will help you begin to take steps forward.
Sibling Loss
Losing a sibling is often losing the closest and most loyal friend you’ve had since childhood and can create a significant shift in your family dynamics. Trying to process your grief without the person you’ve shared everything with can feel incredibly lonely. We want to help you tell your story and give you the tools needed to begin your healing journey.
Anticipatory Grief
Anticipatory grief occurs before a death happens, when your loved one is facing a terminal illness or a serious decline in health. With that comes unique, complex thoughts and emotions you may encounter when witnessing a loved once go through rapid changes in physical or mental functionality. It can be difficult to find support at a time you likely need it the most. We want to support and equip you through this difficult, intimate season of life.
Ambiguous Grief
Ambiguous grief comes with a non-death loss, meaning you are grieving the loss of someone who is alive. This may come from a divorce, breakup, family estrangement, addiction, or diagnosis that changes the future of someone’s life. Ambiguous grief may also come from the loss of a job, financial security, a move or a major life transition. It is often a significant contributing factor to anxiety and depression. We want to help you name and validate your loss so you can begin to heal.
Loss due to Suicide
Losing a loved one to suicide is often shocking, incredibly painful, and can come with significant stigma that can make it difficult to share your story without questions or judgment. People often feel the need to mask their grief while also being weighed down by significant feelings of guilt and regret. We will provide you with a safe, confidential space to share your unfiltered grief and help you begin to take steps forward towards healing.
Loss due to Overdose
The grief that comes after an overdose is often intense and complicated, sometimes shifting attention away from your grief and towards the substance use or addiction. Sometimes it can create or amplify tension and conflict within families that makes it difficult to feel supported at a time you need support the most. Allow us to provide you with a safe space to process difficult thoughts and feelings and remember your loved one.
Traumatic Loss
An accident, violence, suicide/homocide, disturbing images, or just the shock of a sudden loss can create trauma in a person that makes it difficult to process grief. People may experience nightmares, flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, and other symptoms that impair daily life. A traumatic loss may also make a grief support group feel overwhelming and counterproductive initially. Individual grief therapy is a great first step in beginning to process and heal from your traumatic loss.
Benefits of Grief Counseling
Many people interchange the phrase ‘grief counseling’ with a peer-based grief support group. Grief peer support groups have significant value, but they are very different from individual grief counseling with a licensed therapist. Grief therapy allows you to process every unique aspect of your loss, including any anxiety, depression, or pre-existing mental health challenges you struggled with prior to your loss. Grief therapy can be helpful in working through attachment issues, identifying and communicating healthy boundaries to assist with changing family dynamics, working through major changes to your identity, and navigating any distorted thoughts or limiting beliefs that are keeping you stuck in grief. Grief therapy also helps with complicated or prolonged grief feelings, any suicidal ideation, or aspects of your grief that are just too traumatic, intense, or disenfranchising to discuss around others. Finally, grief therapy can help prepare you to participate in a support group by providing coping strategies to assist with any social anxiety or other challenge that may feel isolating. Take the next step on your grief journey and schedule a free 15 minute therapy consultation today!