Grief and Loss
Your Anger Is Bigger Than Whatever Set It Off
Something small goes wrong, and the anger that shows up is out of proportion.
Sadness follows it, heavy and unattached to anything you can point at.
Something you want isn’t happening. Nobody has told you why.
Why You Punish Yourself for How You Feel About Them
Somewhere in this is a person you believe you’re supposed to love.
On an honest day, what you feel toward them doesn’t match that word.
So the guilt arrives, and you hand yourself the punishment that comes with it. The word doing the damage in all of this is “should.”
What You Lost Never Announced Itself
A partner changed enough in the years after the wedding that the person you married is somewhere behind you.
You walked out of the community that held your beliefs and left people you loved inside it.
You cut contact with a relative who harmed you, stood by the decision, and felt the sadness anyway.
Every one of those is a loss that nobody, including you, counted as one.
Calling It Grief Changes What It Can Do to You
Identifying your pain as ambiguous grief is the pivot the rest of the process turns on.
Anger you couldn’t account for has been grief this whole time.
Guilt loosens its grip once the feeling it belongs to has the correct name.
Understanding comes first in my work, and relief follows close behind it.
Grieve It at Whatever Pace It Takes
The first move is to find the area of concern and see it plainly as a loss. From there, we grieve it, treating your feelings and thoughts about it as accurate.
You’ll get no order to feel things in and no date by which you should be finished. The work ends when you feel safe and cared for.
See It as It Is, and the Lines Draw Themselves
Seeing the situation accurately creates clear lines.
Your boundaries come to feel like plain descriptions of what’s true.
What you come to accept, you’ll accept on your own terms. You’ll know what’s happening, and you’ll know what you want to do about it.
Start With the Anger and Nothing Else
Call me before you’d ever use the word grief for any of it.
Anger is reason enough, and so is a sadness you can’t trace to anything.
If you’re an adult in Michigan, Illinois, or Indiana, the phone consultation costs nothing, and everything after it happens online.
Call me today at (269) 921-6953.
It's Time to BECOME KNOWN
You already know that if you don’t unburden the harms of your past, you’ll keep running from the emotional pain of it.
The running puts more distance between you and the people you love, more distance between you and yourself, and pushes you further into the coping that breeds more shame.
In our work together, we’ll build insight into who you are. Why you function the way you do. How to change the behaviors, thoughts, and feelings that no longer feel helpful.
To yourself, and to the people you love: it’s time to BECOME KNOWN.
Something different. Something permanent. That's what this is.
Unburden the harms of your past and live a life where you truly like who you are.
Call me at (269) 921-6953. We’ll talk by phone first, at no cost, and you can decide from there.
Free 15-minute phone consultation. Online throughout Illinois, Michigan, and Indiana.