Carolyn Jardine
Bendigo Grief Counsellor
Chances are you have found your way here today because life's tough at the moment and you may be experiencing some overwhelming and confusing thoughts and feelings around events like...
- The death of a loved one or a pet
- the breakdown of a relationship or friendship
- loss of a home, culture, job, opportunity, financial stability
- an illness and/or your independence
- being a carer for someone who is chronically and/or terminally ill
- a traumatic event from the past or present
- life isn't working out the way you had planned or dreamed about
- a major life transition where you find yourself looking back on your life with disappointments, regrets, guilt or anxiety
- facing a crossroads you never anticipated, with a decision to be made
All of these situations are just some of the events that can occur in our lifetime. These can cause us to feel a real sense of loss, which can throw us into grieving. Grieving is hard, messy and completely overwhelming and, unbearable at times. Many of us have never been taught how to grieve or, had it effectively modelled to us as we were growing up. Grief is painful and uncomfortable for us, and for those around us. We often do not want to burden others with our grief so we tend to bury it and in time, can go on to experience emotional, mental and physical problems, because we have not given ourselves permission to “feel and heal.”
As humans we all have unacknowledged losses and the unresolved grief that accumulates over our lives, that sits there often pretending to be anxiety, sadness, depression, confusion, frustration, irritation, anger, guilt, shame, boredom, numbness, procrastination and perfectionism, along with unexplained physical symptoms... to name a few.
These can have a major impact on how we live our lives... sometimes leaving us feeling very alone, misunderstood and disconnected from others, disengaging from our life and even not knowing who we are... Carolyn Jardine
Grief counselling
Our family and friends, although they have the best intentions are sometimes too close and “just don’t get us or try to fix us,” because they love us and want us to get back to “normal” as quickly as possible. Everybody grieves differently. Grief also doesn’t have a timeline, nor does it follow a prescribed neat pattern. Your grief is your grief and you need to move through it in your own way. This is where, as an independent, trained counsellor, I can give you the space to be able to explore your grief and empower you to take the next steps to living fully once more.
I set no expectations for you to be “healed” within a timeline because grief is something we learn to live around rather than heal from. What I do offer you is the opportunity to safely unpack your grief in your own time and learn to understand why you think and feel the way you. You can then develop effective coping strategies to acknowledge and feel your grief, stand stronger and move toward hope and meaning once more.
