“grief is like a river. there are times when the water flows slowly. There are times when the water moves more quickly. sometimes there are “branches”, complicating factors that slow the river of grief. If you allow yourself to flow through the river of grief, you will heal.”
— David Kessler
grief work
Grief is universal, unique, and lifelong. We all have the capacity to experience grief, and to heal.With unconditional positive regard, I welcome you and your grief.services & connecting
-
Grief is universal, unique, and lifelong. We all have the capacity to both experience grief and heal.
This work is tailored specifically to your individual needs within your grief and experience. Some examples of grief work may include holding quiet space, energy work or Reiki.
We will consider the quadrants of your being (your PIES!) through these four aspects:
Physical: our body, and how we experience the world.
Intellectual: where and how we try to make sense of the world, asking questions, using logic and working to rationalize and analyze the world around us.
Emotional: how we see, feel and express ourselves through our emotions. Emotions = energy in motiton.
Spiritual: how we experience the world through our creativity, music, art, self expression, connection to nature. This is the space where we contemplate life's deeper questions, such as "What is my purpose?"
-
This work allows an individual to have a concrete way of reflecting on their life and making meaning from their story or legacy.
While legacy work is done a lot towards the end of an individuals life, I believe that making space and time to reflect on what we have built of our legacy thus far is a powerful and initiating practice. It allows us to witness ourselves with more compassion and love, and supports us in regrounding into who we are and how far we have come.
Legacy work allows an individual to reflect on ego integrity: reflecting upon life's accomplishments and lessons thus far, having a positive sense of completion for where we have come and to find deeper meaning and understanding of oneself and one's future goals, plans, desires.
Legacy projects are individual and unique to each person and are only limited by the imagination.
-
A beautiful expression to hold your being, ritual and ceremony allow an individual to tailor their grief expression and experience.
During our ritual or ceremony, my goal is to facilitate this space holding so that you may be in the present moment.
Ritual & ceremonies are individually created to fit your needs.
-
As an end-of-life doula, my goal is to provide as much information and knowledge to each individual and professional around death and dying, grief and grieving as possible.
Death, dying, grief and grieving can be scary in that they are unknown processes. In our society and culture, it is less common to be provided information and psychoeducation around experiences of grief or death. We all deserve to be well informed so that when we come up to this point in our lives, we can have tools in our toolkits to use.
FAQs
what is grief work?
Grief work was founded by Eric Lindemann in 1944 following the Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire in Boston. He noted acute grief symptoms in patients who survived the fire and assessed grief work essentially holds three parts:
separating oneself from their loss
adjusting to environment after loss
investing in new relationships
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross paved the way for a majority of our understanding of grief through her book “Death & Dying” and later “On Grief and Grieving” with David Kessler.
Kessler also wrote and synthesized the idea of the 6th stage of grief: finding meaning.
These studies on grief can be a guide and foundation to personalized grief work.
How does grief work, work?
Grief work is individual and will be tailored to your specific needs. Grief work together may include holding space for silence and simply being, Reiki and energy work, ritual or ceremony, oracle cards for reflection or anything else that may be supportive to you during this time.
Who is grief work for?
Grief work is for everyone. We each move through cycles of death and rebirth throughout our larger cycle of life. Grief can take many forms: loss of a loved one or individual, pet, financial, home/security, job, transitions in parenthood, climate change and more.
There are no limitations or restrictions on who can move through their grief in a guided/facilitated setting. In fact, I would encourage everyone to find someone to hold them in this capacity. If you are looking for additional resources, please email me.
When should grief work be done?
It is ideal to move through grief work as soon as we are ready (ideally closer to the time of the event or loss) so that we can allow all aspects of our being to be seen in our grief and move through whatever it is that is needed.
There are different types of grief that we can experience, and it is not necessary to have already experienced a loss to do grief work.
Why is grief work important?
It is paramount that we hold space for our grief to be seen, felt, heard, spoken, etc so that we may begin to heal those parts of ourselves, find meaning, and integrate to move forward.
When we process our grief, we are able to move and live a more authentic, connected and at ease lifestyle. Witnessing and processing our grief allows each individual to more deeply connect with their being and uncover more layer of themselves.
Moving through your grief is a natural human process!
where can I be held in my grief?
It is important that you feel at ease wherever we hold space for your grief.
Some ideas on where we can meet:
in my office on Mondays and Tuesdays at North Sky Co in Biddeford, ME
at your home
outside: is there a space that you feel most grounded and connected into?
Pricing
I believe that everyone has an innate right to grief work. Grief companion services are sliding scale and tier-based to open the opportunity for this work those who are in a different financial situations.I ask that you remain honest in your contributions, and consider that by supporting and investing this work, you are also able to help support others who may not be able to financially invest in this work - but still just as equally deserve the platform to be held.-
$0 - $50 per hour
-
$51 - $100 per hour
-
$101 - $150 per hour
