Grief, Loss & Bereavement
Grief is a natural response to losing someone or something that is important to you.
It is part of being human. Whether we have lost someone we loved, or we are grieving a stage of life, our health, our trust – we all grieve.
And there is no one right way to grieve. No stages you must go through.
Except to feel it.
What we feel, we can heal.
It can be shocking to feel the depths of grief.
It can feel like a tsunami at times, a punch in the gut, or a listless depression.
We need and deserve support during those times. But that is challenging in this grief-averse culture we live in.
I can help.
I offer compassionate grief counselling to support you through working through your grief, loss and bereavement.
Whether the loss is someone you care about, your health,
your way of life or your sense of safety in the world,
You are not alone.
“Grief offers a wild alchemy that transmutes suffering into fertile ground.
We are made real and tangible by the experience of sorrow, adding substance and weight to our world.
We are stripped of excess and revealed as human in our times of grief. In a very real way grief ripens us,
pulls up from the depths of our souls what is most authentic in our beings.
In truth, without some familiarity with sorrow, we do not mature as men and women.
It is the broken heart, the heart that knows sorrow that is also capable of genuine love.”
Francis Wheller
Illness
Illness – acute, chronic or terminal – can be a lonely and isolating time.
There can be so many losses, feelings and choices to navigate.
So much grief. You deserve support.
May you find in yourself
a courageous hospitality
Toward what is difficult,
Painful, and unknown.
May you learn to use this illness
As a lantern to illuminate
The new qualities that will emerge in you.
–John O’Donohue, “A Blessing for a Friend on the Arrival of Illness”
Life Review and Honoring your Life
Let’s talk about your life – your dreams and despairs – and what holds meaning for you.
Let’s explore forgiveness of yourself – and others if appropriate. Let’s see if there is anything left unsaid?
Ethical Will
Creating our own death plan is an act of compassion for the people nearest to us who will be left, quite literally, holding things.
Ethical Wills: Putting Your Values on Paper by Barry Baines
Advance Care Planning
Advance Care Planning is a process of thinking about your values, beliefs, and wishes for future health and personal care,
and sharing them with the people you trust. It can include choosing who would make care decisions for you if you cannot.
Care for the Caregiver
Caring for others who are suffering is important work. Probably the most important work we can do as human beings.
And it can wear us down to the bone if we are not careful.
We are hardwired to feel another person’s pain. This is part of being human.
We actually experience their suffering in our own body.
This empathic resonance is powerfully healing.
But when the suffering of another is prolonged, we can get exhausted. Irritable. Reactive. Burned out.
Learning to care for ourselves while caring for others is possible.
Mindfulness training helps. Self-Compassion practice helps. Why?
Because it teaches us how to include ourselves in our big arms of compassion for others.
For more information check out our upcoming trainings in Mindful Self-Compassion
Traumatic Loss
Traumatic Grief is the grief that accompanies unexpected and/or traumatic loss.
In these situations, post traumatic stress can be interwoven with the usual grief process and counselling support addresses both.
“We will not figure our way through this maze of grief and suffering. We must, instead, learn to turn toward our sorrows with kindness, tenderness, and affection. Lean in. Offer love, a touch of affection. Nothing ever heals in an atmosphere of judgment or criticism. We contract and get small under such conditions. We open and soften only when the space around us invites revelation and connection.”
Franics Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow
Grief and the Body
Grief and loss are powerful emotions. For many of us, we are used to suppressing these difficult emotions.
We try to avoid it, or numb it. But it stays in our body. The body keeps score of our unmourned losses.
Part of our healing through grief comes from turning towards the difficult feelings we are holding and learning to feel it.
Part of our healing through grief comes through working with the body.
Where do you hold your grief, loss and stress in your body?
It could be in your heart, your neck, your jaws, your gut. It is different for each of us and it can shift.
Imagine putting a warm soothing cloth on that part of your body.
Just caring for it. For you.
I often recommend therapies like massage, acupuncture, reiki and osteopathy to complement and support the work we are doing in psychotherapy.
In the moment, when you feel a little raw, you can try the following simple exercises:
1. Ground
Feel the soles of your feet on the ground.
Take a deep breathe in and slowly exhale.
2. Breath
Slowly, mindfully breathing in to the count of 3
Then slowly mindfully exhaling to the count of 6
3. Move
Take yourself out for a walk in nature if you can.
Find a way to move your body. You might like to try grief yoga, tai chi, chi gong or Essentrics
Resources
Meditations
Guided Meditations for Dealing with Grief, Insight Timer
Mindfulness and Grief Meditations, Heather Stang
Guided Meditation on Encountering Your Grief
by Joan Halifax (altered slightly by Frank Ostaseski)
Begin by sensing your breath. Feel your breathing in the area of your chest.
Maybe place one hand on your heart as if you were holding a vulnerable human being. You are.
It may be long time since you have entered into your heart.
All the moments you couldn’t protect yourself
The helplessness. The hopelessness.
Feel it, breathe into your heart.
Let go of the resistance. Let go of the self-protection.
A few kind phrases:
May I be open to the pain of grief.
May I find the inner resources to be present for my sorrow.
May I soften around any judgements or resistance that arises.
May I accept my sadness knowing that I am not my sadness
May I forgive myself for mistakes made, for things left undone.
May I be open to receive the kindness of others as I grieve
As you continue to breathe, bring to mind the loss or pain you are grieving.
Let the story, the images, the feelings come naturally. Hold them gently. Take your time. Let the feelings come layer by layer, a little at a time.
Keep breathing softly, compassionately. Let whatever feelings are there, pain and tears, anger and love, fear and sorrow. Let it in. Let it into your heart.
Make room for the pain.
Let the pain come and let the pain go.
Have mercy.
Make space for any images that arise. Allow the whole story. Breathe
Hold it all with tenderness and compassion.
Surrender into the feelings. Let it all come through.
Kindness for it all, for you, for others.
Hold it gently. Let it be honored.
Each breath a warm embrace
Nothing to hold to. Nothing to push away.
You do not have to keep it in anymore. You can let it go into the heart of compassion; you can weep
let yourself be held by the heart of compassion
Caring for the Body After Death
Victoria Pawlowski, M.Ed., R.C.C.
Grief & Bereavement Counsellor
Training
A Year to Live Training Program, Spirit Rock Insight Meditation Centre
Being with Dying, Professional Training Program in Compassionate Care of Seriously Ill and Dying, UPAYA Institute and Zen Centre
G.R.A.C.E. Training in Cultivating Compassion-based Interactions, UPAYA Institute and Zen Centre
Being with Suffering: Tools for Clinical Practice in the Midst of Crisis, UPAYA Institute and Zen Centre
Hospice Volunteer Training Program, Nanaimo Community Hospice
Certified Mindful Self-Compassion Teacher, Centre for Mindful Self-Compassion
M.Ed. Counselling Psychology, O.I.S.E., University of Toronto
Experience
Psychotherapist, Centre for Compassion Inspired Health (current)
Grief and Bereavement Counsellor, Nanaimo Community Hospice (past)
Hospice Care Volunteer, Nanaimo Community Hospice (past)
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