Understanding Your Rights: The Griever’s Bill of Rights
Here, we delve into each of these 10 rights to offer you a roadmap for your grief journey.
I’m Charlotte, a grief and loss therapist. I help adults and teens like you: ones who want to cope better with grief and loss and are looking for non-judgmental support.
I help folks find hope, connection, and engagement in the wake of loss by sharing education, tools, and strategies that help them explore and understand their grief reactions while finding new ways to foster relationships with those who have died.
Often, approaches to grief support are pathologizing, outdated, or minimizing, leaving many folks feeling judged, confused, and misunderstood. I recognize and honor that your grief is unique, not limited to consecutive stages, and I am here to encourage you to explore and express your grief in ways that feel authentic for you.
In our work together, first, we identify the pain points in your grief—the things that feel like pouring salt into the wound and make a loss even more unbearable. Then we focus on your priorities and goals surrounding how to address, adapt to, or eliminate the pain points. Through our work together you will feel more comfortable to directly face and sit with your grief, more equipped to cope with intense grief surges, and increasingly able to advocate for your grief support needs in your personal life.
I am dedicated to helping people find new ways to connect after a loss—with a person who has died, with other important people in their lives, and with themselves.
My training and professional experience in grief counseling qualifies me to support those who grieve. However, many folks want to know they are working with someone who truly “gets” grief. As someone who experienced a formative and traumatic loss over 20 years ago, while in my teens, I’ve learned how to live with and adapt to grief. I will not plague you with cliches or platitudes. I will never tell you to “move on.” Instead, as I have done in my own life, I will talk about moving forward while honoring the person and the past. I know that when someone we love dies we might feel hopeless, purposeless, and unrecognizable even to ourselves. In working with me, you can feel confident that I understand the gravity of what you are going through.
I believe that pet loss is incredibly painful and important. If you are navigating the loss of a furry family member, I will hold space for you as you grieve. We will discuss ways to honor your special companion animal and strategies for adjusting to life without them.
As a lesbian, I am aware of the unique grief support needs of the LGBTQIA+ community. I hold space for queer and trans folks to explore their unique grief experiences: death, and non-death alike.
With all clients, I create space for processing death and non-death losses. Perhaps you are facing divorce, job loss, a severed friendship, or a life-altering medical diagnosis. Grief is not limited to death-related losses and all types of grief deserve to be seen and supported.
Grief work can be heavy and it takes effort. Our work together is not a “quick fix.” Our work together is an excavation of feelings you may have hidden away because you are used to being “the strong one” and you do not want to “bring others down.” Our work is sacred to me as it is dedicated time for you to authentically share about your person, your pet, your ex, your diagnosis, without being judged. Just because you are grieving does not mean you are sad all of the time. And though grief work is hard, it is not always serious. It is okay to laugh and find joy in our work together. I have found a sense of levity helps my clients and while there are many tears shed there is much laughter, too.