Grief Counseling

Common Experiences of Grief

Grief affects everyone differently. No two people grieve the same way. Grief is also not a linear process, meaning, we do not start at one point and move neatly to the end. We can flow back and forth through different experiences of grief throughout the process. For many, there is no end, which is actually key to recovery. A fear that recovery means losing the lost forever, actually keeps us from moving toward healing. Grief counseling can help you through that move.

We can experience depressive symptoms when grieving, but grief differs from depression as it is triggered by loss. Grief is a usual part of loss, whether it’s a loss of a loved one, a job, or maybe a part of our identity. It can also involve intense sadness and withdrawal from others or things you enjoy. Grief is a process that can come and go, but changes and changes us. It is concerning when the distress blocks you from your life or from enjoying your life for a long period of time.

Commonly, grief is experienced in the following ways:

• Feelings of sadness and crying. Tearfulness can be unexpected and sudden and can often be triggered by a memory. These surges of sadness can be powerful.
• Fear. Fear of the changes to follow. Fear of the future.
• Irritability and Anger. Having your coping capacity overwhelmed, you feel irritable and confused. You might also have anger at the world, at the person lost, or at yourself.
• Loneliness and Isolation. Unsure how to navigate your new role, you may isolate. You may also struggle with feeling disconnected to others.
• Anxiety. You may experience the symptoms of anxiety, because your capacity to cope is outweighed by the immense change and increase in emotional demands.
• Guilt. You may feel guilty about not being enough before, during, or after the loss.
• Physical Problems. You might feel tired from the emotional work you are doing or you may experience body aches and pains as your emotions come out physically.
• Fear that it will happen again. You fear that you cannot prevent or control more loss.
• Concern about fulfilling your role. This can look like overwhelm worry that if something happens to you, then those left will experience even greater loss.

Grief can be highly distressing and unmanageable. Along with feelings of sadness, our worlds frequently just do not make sense anymore. Finding meaning and learning how to live our lives without something we loved or valued is key to recovery.

This Loss disrupts our assumptive reality, meaning that all the things we knew would be there, happen, or that you could trust become disorganized. This shakes our foundational core.

Grief Counseling

Grief counseling begins with learning to feel safe enough to experience the intense emotions of loss. It can include talking about the loss or other areas the loss is affecting, it undoubtedly needs to create a space in which you feel safe enough just being what you are. It involves accepting that the way you are grieving is the “right way” for you. Understanding the stages of grief and how it relates to your experience can help you understand your own process.

Beginning the process of organizing your world is the first step in healing. This process might involve learning to trust the world again, learning to feel safe from loss, and accepting yourself the way that you are and the way that you grieve. You will then begin to reconstruct your world without the person or thing you lost.

Grief involves a physiological experience as well as an emotional one. Therefore, addressing both is needed in order to help you heal. This requires teaching and learning coping skills to learn how to regulate your body and also processing through the overwhelming emotions. With a counselor, you can identify what is holding you back and what you need to continue your healing process.