Grief and Trauma Therapy

You have experienced loss before and been resilient enough, but to keep your heart open through this one, you can’t go it alone.

You are tender and tough

People know you to be strong, real, and caring. You have created beauty and depth out of pain and have built a stable life for yourself. You have been a trusted and respected support to those around you.

But this has brought you to your knees

The shock of this has rocked you. You don’t know what to do. Your old coping skills are coming up short. Meanwhile, the world keeps moving, and your daily responsibilities and commitments still stand (or crawl and toddle around). You find yourself closing off to loved ones who don’t seem to understand. You don’t know where to find the space to fully let yourself grieve. There are glimpses of deeper knowing, but it’s not easy to find the gifts and the teachings of this experience or make sense of how and why this happened. You need some rest, some peace, and a sense of feeling held.

You feel groundless

You are anxious, exhausted, and angry. You are afraid of what life is going to be like now. You are afraid of not knowing when the big waves of grief and panic are going to hit, or when the pain will be so big that you feel like you are drowning in an ocean. You have a new sense of life’s fragility and struggle, and you feel raw and exposed. You need somewhere safe to land between the waves.

You are forever changed

You are constantly adjusting to a new sense of self, new roles in your relationships, loved ones’ responses to the loss, and a present and future worlds different than you expected. You need someone to walk with you and hold up a mirror of your enduring and newfound strengths as you get to know who you are now and what of you remains through it all.

It’s hard to reach out for help

You don’t know if anyone can understand the depth of your pain and not try to “fix” it. You don’t know if you can stand another well-intentioned platitude or usolicited advice for “getting over it” or “being happy.” It’s hard to muster hope that someone has the life experience and presence to get how much your story, your loss, and your love means to you, how deep it runs. You need someone to respect your very personal path of grief as you find your own footing, your own compass, and your own way.

You don’t have to do this alone

I help people facing devastating loss to open to the depth of it and experience the refuge of that openness. To find new bearings in the world, new ways to relate with life and loved ones, and eventually a new understanding of self, purpose, and over time, a fullness of being big enough to include joy and gratitude alongside the heartbrokenness of the love that will never go away.

Together we honor what was, care for your body, mind, and spirit, work to slowly rebuild a life worth living forward, and connect with inner and outer guidance, support, and wisdom that transcend the suffering. When called for, I also offer EMDR and expressive therapies to support release of trauma when negative beliefs about the self can get stuck and traumatic re-experiencing is looping.

It is a great honor to walk with people willing to open up about their love and loss, and to do the work of putting one foot in front of the other to keep going. I walk the path respectfully with people, not treating grief as a mental illness, but as an unavoidable initiation that happens to all of us who have the courage to love in this impermanent world.

Take a step toward support

If you are ready for a safe place to grieve fully, take refuge, and find new whys for living forward, I am here to support you every step of the way. ’Click here to schedule your free 15- minute phone consultation for grief and trauma therapy. My other specialties include psychedelic integration and adult ADHD.