Grief Coaching
Let's find sunlight together as you create your new path.
Why a Grief Coach?
Some people think of me as their “Grief Guide”. If you have explored this site a bit, you have seen that one of my specialties is grief and loss and that there are all types of losses. As it says in my special report that you may have already received, loss is not just about death.
I didn’t exactly wake up one day and decide to be a Grief Coach. I didn’t choose to be so expert at grief and loss. It chose me. I surely would not have chosen to go through all that I did in the past. Yet I know that the knowledge, compassion, and learning I’ve acquired, are truly gifts.
Such gifts are not to be taken lightly. Do you believe that we are here on this earth for a reason, or even for multiple reasons? If you do, you may understand why I had to work with those who have lost loved ones, or have experienced other types of terrible losses. When I took my training and established Vision Powered Coaching, it felt like my destiny to help others as a Grief Coach and to impart some of what I have learned. It’s a joy to help people transform their lives after loss. It’s a joy to be able to help them through and beyond their grief.
I can also help with loss issues pertaining to adoption, which can be carried by some people throughout their lives.
As a Grief Coach, I will help you connect with the very best parts of your old self. I will work with you to build new strengths and tools, in order to redesign your life. I won’t lead you in the direction I think you should go. We will work together to reach your own goals and the ways of being and doing that feel right to you. While your loss, sadness and memories will always be a part of who you are, you can learn how to once again feel good about life and how to create a worthwhile one for yourself, and for your family.
Coaching For Widows
Grief coaching is one of my areas of expertise. I work quite a bit with widows. In fact, I have worked with and helped hundreds of widows, in groups, with one-to-one coaching and some widowers too, though these are not the only types of clients I help. I have walked in the shoes of a widow . I know a lot about those particular challenges.
I was just 35 at the time, left with a family to raise and a newly established non-profit agency to run that I had founded with my husband, The business didn’t yet pay me a salary. We had only been licensed and operating for six months. It was all terrifying and quite devastating. This was after several years of being a caregiver to my husband, who had been very disabled by rapid progressive Multiple Sclerosis.
My mother had been widowed less than a year before when we lost my Dad of a heart attack. She was going through her own struggles at the time. Yet many of our fears, the overwhelm and other feelings were very similar, though we were at different stages of life. We had also lost my brother, my young nephew and I had lost a very dear friend to suicide. Little did I know how many other loved ones I’d lose in the future. So you can see that I know something about the grief journey that goes beyond education and training.
But you have your own story, or you wouldn’t be reading this! I want to hear it and want to help you find ways to look forward to life again.
I understand the complexities that widows face. I really “get” the intensity of the feelings and the contradictions too. Sometimes widows are filled with anger. Sometimes fear predominates.
You often bounce between different and contradictory moods and emotions. You may feel like you don’t want to get out of bed in the morning on some days. You cry at nothing.
You may resent others for carrying on with their lives. Even the supermarket becomes a mine field that will set off your emotional explosion without warning and the tears will begin pouring out, much to your embarrassment. How dare others carry on with the mundane tasks of life when yours has been blown apart and you feel you will never again be ok!
There can even be times when you feel great energy and are determined to do new things, or to carry on. You may make poor decisions and then regret it. You may resent anyone who has a husband or partner. Maybe you you can’t stand being around them.
There are days when you want to talk constantly about your loss. You feel hurt and angry if few want to listen. Other times you hate it when people bring up your loss. You jump on the words and phrases they may use and get angry at the insensitivity of their remarks.
There is a good chance you will lose confidence in your abilities, even if you have been a very independent woman. You energy can disappear. You may not sleep much, or may sleep too much. The same goes for eating. Food may disgust you, or you forget to eat. Or you binge on unhealthy things.
You may let yourself dream of finding someone else . Then you feel ashamed and berate yourself for being so shallow as to think about being with anyone else romantically. And then, for some, there’s something called “widow’s fire”. I could go on and on.
All of these things are very “normal”, whatever that means. Grief has commonalities that sufferers experience. It is also quite unique to you, just as you are unique.
Other Losses
Why Not a Therapist?
I get asked that question a lot. There are many therapists who do a wonderful job helping with grief. I definitely support therapy when it is needed. I believe it helps many. In some cases, it is a necessity.
There are also some therapists who aren’t so helpful with grief. You may have already seen a grief counselor or therapist. That’s great if it works, or has worked for you in the past. Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn’t. There might be co-existing diagnoses or conditions that make a mental health professional exactly the right choice for you. Getting help takes courage and is a very good thing. However, a Grief Coach operates a little differently than a counselor or therapist.
Grief is not a mental illness, in my opinion and experience. Unfortunately, a diagnosis of prolonged grief disorder has been fairly recently modified in the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual. That is what therapists, psychiatrists and psychologists use to label and treat patients, and which codes they use to claim insurance reimbursement. The change implies that people should be integrating their grief within six to twelve months. The implication is that if they don’t, they need “treatment” and are not within the “norm”,
This is an alarming view to me and to many. I feel it will not ultimately be helpful to the bereaved. Western Society is not really comfortable with loss and grief, as you may have discovered. A lot of people avoid the topic, or avoid the bereaved and disappear quickly. Doctors, and even friends or relatives may overly encourage the use of prescription drugs, as though grief is abnormal.
Grief Coaching With Me
As a coach, I do not diagnose and don’t normally dig way back into the past. I may sometimes ask questions, though, about your early experiences. This is to create awareness about some limiting beliefs you may have retained and to understand you better. I can help you examine some of those past things. We will usually stay more focused on the present and on the future. I will become your partner. I’ll help you make plans to get you to whatever goals, or ways of being that you want for yourself. Together, we will work to come up with practical ideas, solutions and actions.
Lots of clients who have lost loved ones feel stuck, even after many years have passed. Some have tried therapy. Some have even tried working with several different therapists (Not simultaneously, of course). Quite a lot of my clients who come for help with moving forward or reinventing life after loss, have told me that even after a few sessions with me, they already feel they have a new outlook. They say they are more optimistic than they have felt in years. What a wonderful thing for me to hear that. I know how much it hurts to grieve and how discouraging it is to believe that life is not going to feel better.
I know for a fact that it is quite normal to suffer from grief for way more than six to twelve months. I am concerned that too many people will be convinced they are ill when their reactions are perfectly reasonable after having lost a loved one. I am not saying that you should put up with the suffering, though. That’s where I come in. I can help you find and build strategies, behaviors and thought patterns that teach you how not to suffer so much. I can help you to figure out what you need to have a better life.
When you get to know me, you will often hear me say, “Grief is forever. Misery and suffering don’t have to be!”
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