Education
Understanding grief.
Grief is as personal and unique as your fingerprint. Learning the many forms it takes can help you name what your body already knows.
Loss & stress affect us on every level.
Emotionally, physically, and cognitively. Loss and stress impact the whole mind-body connection, from sleep to cognitive ability. It is time to be gentle with yourself. It’s personal, it’s your journey, and it needs to be honored.
We often think of grief only as the death of someone we love. It is also the divorce, the diagnosis, the empty nest, the job that defined us, the parent who is still here but no longer themselves. All loss is real loss, and the body holds onto unexpressed grief regardless of how much time has passed or what the specific event was.
Types of grief
You may recognize yourself in more than one. That is normal; grief plays by its own rules.
Anticipatory grief
The experience of mourning or anticipating a loss before it actually happens. When you know an ending is coming, you may experience a mix of emotions, an emotional roller coaster, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Examples: A terminal illness or a long decline. It is a complex and exhausting emotional and physical landscape.
Ambiguous grief
A special type of loss that happens when there is no closure or clear resolution. Perhaps it is a relationship where they are physically absent but emotionally constantly present in your mind, or physically present but emotionally absent.
Examples: Alzheimer’s, dementia, and drug abuse. Society does not have a roadmap for support like a death: no funeral, no sympathy cards. Your brain gets trapped in an “unresolved” loop.
Secondary losses
The indirect losses, the domino effect, that occur as a direct consequence of a primary loss. The domino effect reshapes a person’s daily life, identity, and future.
Examples: The loss of relationships after a divorce, financial loss, the loss of dreams, homes, and security.
Compounded grief
Happens when you experience multiple significant losses in a short period of time, before you have a chance to heal or process the previous ones.
Examples: A sudden family death, the loss of a job, and a major health scare all within a short span of time is a cascading crisis. In “the stacking effect,” your nervous system doesn’t get a recovery window.
Disenfranchised grief
Grief that society does not openly acknowledge, validate, or give you permission to mourn. Because outsiders don’t recognize the loss, you might feel like you have to grieve in secret, which strips away normal social support systems.
Examples: The death of an ex-partner, losing a pet, a miscarriage or abortion, losing a friend to suicide or an estranged family member, or the loss of a job that defined your self-worth.
Prolonged grief (complicated grief)
When the sharp, stabbing pain of a loss does not soften or evolve over time, keeping a person stuck in intense, relentless longing and sorrow long after the event, typically lasting past 12 months for adults. It heavily disrupts daily functioning and prevents a person from finding a new baseline of living.
Examples: Being completely unable to accept a death years later, experiencing extreme bitterness or intrusive thoughts, or feeling like a part of you died and refuses to move forward.
Collective grief
A shared, large-scale sorrow felt by an entire community, culture, or country when a common tragedy occurs. It connects individuals through a mutual sense of vulnerability, fear, and loss, even if they did not personally know the individuals affected.
Examples: Mourning after a major natural disaster, a community shooting, a national crisis, or the loss of a beloved public figure who united a community.
Delayed (or inhibited) grief
Occurs when your mind and body automatically push grief away in the immediate aftermath of a crisis because you have to stay strong and survive. The emotional processing is postponed, and the full weight of the sorrow doesn’t hit until weeks, months, or even years later when life finally feels safe and quiet.
Examples: Holding it together to handle funeral logistics, legal issues, or caring for other family members, only to experience a major emotional crash or physical illness long after the chaos settles.
Life transitions that carry loss
The losses that don’t always look like grief
Women in mid-life and beyond are often navigating complex, multi-layered losses at once. If your body feels chronically exhausted and your mind feels overwhelmed, this sanctuary is for you.
- The “sandwich generation” stress: caring for aging parents while managing adult children.
- Empty nest: navigating the sudden shift in identity when children leave home.
- Late-life divorce or widowhood: rebuilding a life after decades of partnership.
- Menopause and aging bodies: acknowledging how hormonal shifts and physical changes impact the nervous system.
- Accumulated or delayed grief: processing old, buried grief from youth or mid-life that is finally catching up now that life is slowing down.
“Grief is love.”
My practice is intentionally designed for women navigating the profound shifts of mid-life and beyond. Whether you are moving through the loss of a parent, navigating an empty nest, adjusting to retirement, processing a divorce, or carrying the accumulated weight of a lifetime of stress, this sanctuary is for you. I provide the gentle, body-centered support you need to feel grounded and whole again.
Whatever you are carrying, it belongs here.
A free 20-minute phone call is a gentle first step. We can talk about what you are navigating and whether this work feels right.
Free 20-minute consultation · Take your time. There is no rush.