Grief, Loss and Bereavement
This isn’t about “fixing” or "getting over" a loss.
It’s about understanding it, navigating it, and giving yourself permission to heal at your own pace.
Grief can be incredibly lonely and no one else will know exactly how you are experiencing it. No one can tell you exactly what to expect and no one ca predict the rollercoaster of emotions that will take you completely by surprise.
You carry emotions, expectations and pressures that others may never fully see but you push through. You hope the heaviness will ease on its own - but the ache never quite settles the way you hope it will.
Grief that lingers doesn’t always appear as tears or sadness. It can shape your mood, your behaviour, and even how your body feels from day to day. These emotional and physical signals can be signs that your loss is affecting you more deeply than you realise.
Working together, we could explore how these feelings show up for you, find ways to make them more manageable and gently uncover how your grief is showing up in your life — whether it’s a recent loss, something that happened a long time ago or maybe a mixture of both that has stirred up unexpected feelings.
Recognising the signs of Grief
What is grief:
Grief is a natural response to losing someone or something that was deeply meaningful or even had the potential to be deeply meaningful.
- It can occur following:
- The death of a loved one
- The end of a relationship
- Loss of health, identity, or independence
- Job loss or major life changes
- Loss of a future you imagined
Grief is not linear. While the 5 well known 'phases of grief' might resonate a little, it is not a precise or predictable science and every single person's experience of it is different.
Common Signs of Grief and Loss:
- Emotionally you might feel:
- Sadness, longing or emptiness
- Anger or irritability
- Guilt or regret
- Relief and confusion
- Numbness or disbelief
- Anxiety about the future
- Physically you might feel:
- Fatigue or exhaustion
- Tightness in the chest or throat
- Changes in appetite
- Sleep disruption
- Cognitively you might notice:
- Difficulty concentrating
- Forgetfulness
- Intrusive memories
- Feeling detached from reality
- Questioning meaning or purpose
Grief affects the whole person. These signs are usual but not universal and may often feel overwhelming. This is your mind and body trying to process something enormous.
How we might work with your grief
Grief work is multi-layered. There might be times when you need an in-the-moment strategy for coping when the feeling is too overwhelming to sit with. Longer term you might want to talk about how your world has changed and what that means for you. We can do a combination of this work, for whatever you need that day. This can include
- Allowing feelings to happen: Trying to suppress grief often intensifies it. I can hold the space while you let yourself cry, sit quietly, or acknowledge the pain is part of healing
- Practise grounding yourself: This might include setting emotional stabilisation activities for when it all feels too much, check ins on your sleep hygiene and general physical wellbeing or perhaps mindful or mediative practise to help soothe you - whatever you need.
- Expressing your grief: This could be via journaling, drawing, music, or storytelling can help release emotions that are hard to verbalise. It could be letting your rage out by screaming in to a pillow. It could reminiscing about the funny, happy, sad, frustrating times - again, whatever works best for you.
- Rituals and evolution of grief: What you need might change over time, so we can work on finding rituals that help now (lighting candles, looking at photos, writing messages). We can also talk about moving forward with the loss integrated into your life - which is not the same as moving on and forgetting. Loss and grief don’t disappear, but they do evolve.
Who benefits most from this support?
If you’ve recognised that your grief feels overwhelming or is affecting your life in ways that are hard to manage, you may be someone who would find this kind of support especially meaningful.
Counselling can help you identify the feelings that come with loss - whether this is recent or something you've carried quietly for years. It offers space to explore how your grief shows up, to develop ways of coping with its intensity and to begin to make sense of how loss has shaped your thoughts, behaviours and daily life.
Through therapeutic work, we can explore these layers together, helping you understand what your grief is asking for and finding ways to move forward with steadiness and a greater level of compassion for yourself.
What Next?
Get in touch - we'll have an initial chat and go from there.