For most people, the prospect of dating - of seeking a life partner - is one filled with anticipation, excitement and promise. However, dating following the loss of a partner can prove far more complex. This blog will address some of the most commonly asked questions on this topic and suggest that although re-entering the dating world can be fraught with challenges, if you are prepared to navigate these challenges consciously and honestly, you’ll open yourself up to a world of exciting new possibilities.

# 1 When should I start dating?

One of the questions I’m often asked is, ‘when is the right time to start dating again?’ And my answer: I don’t believe there is one. I have met some people who have been out and met someone within weeks or months of their person dying. Others can take years to grow comfortable with the idea of dating someone else and then there are some who vow never to meet anyone again. It’s all very individual. What...

When we lose a life partner, there are so many secondary losses we are forced to come to terms with such as financial stability, our sense of purpose and changes to our lifestyle. However, there’s one loss that is rarely spoken about, one that we find so hard to talk about openly and honestly: the loss of sexual intimacy, also known as sexual bereavement.

As human beings we are biologically wired to crave connection to others, both emotional and physical. When we are in a loving relationship, we experience that connection in many forms: being touched, hugged, kissed, caressed or sexually fulfilled. It becomes part of our everyday lives and is something we often take for granted. And so, when we lose our loved one, we are left with this unspeakable void. Whilst our partner is gone, we are still here, living, breathing and desiring human affection and yet our wants and needs are suddenly no longer being tended to.

This blog will explore the subject of sexual...

I’m often met with confusion and outright disbelief when I mention the words ‘grief’ and ‘positive’ in the same breath. And I get it, because let’s face it, grief is the antithesis of happiness. In fact, the word grief, has its roots in the Latin ‘gravare,’ which means to make heavy or to burden.

When our loved one dies our whole world, our sense of who we are, is ripped from underneath us. We’re left broken and bewildered and the pain that we feel - that deep, aching sense of loss, begins to smother us. Day to day life becomes a matter of survival, of mere self-preservation. We just want to get through it, without expending any additional effort. Our tanks are empty. We simply don’t have anything left to give.

How on earth then, are we supposed to grieve positively?

In this blog, I’ll discuss how grieving positively is not about dismissing or minimising our grief, on the contrary, grief is hard work. It has to be...

When we lose a loved one, dealing with their possessions can be one of the hardest parts of our grieving journey. As we begin to grapple with the notion of a life without them, knowing whether, when and how to part with their belongings can compound our grief and leave us feeling even more confused and upset.

Whether you’ve experienced a sudden loss, like I did, where my husband Simon was here for breakfast and gone by lunchtime or whether you’ve lost your loved one following a prolonged illness and you’ve had some time to discuss what to do with their belongings, knowing what to do and when to do it is still incredibly hard. 

Our person has gone, they have physically left our world and yet, there is so much around our homes that reminds us of them and connects us to them – their shoes by the front door, their clothes in the wardrobe, their slippers by the bed, even their toothbrush in the bathroom. Every corner of our house is filled with...

 In many ways, guilt is grief’s unwanted companion and it shows up for so many of us, in so many ways. We feel guilty for what we did or didn’t do, for what we said or didn’t say, for not being enough, for surviving, for carving out a new life for ourselves, or for finding some joy in the midst of our grief. And we feel guilty for feeling guilty. It’s relentless. This blog will try to explain why we feel so guilty and explore some of the ways in which we can manage this guilt, for although it is natural to feel guilty during grief, it doesn’t have to be a constant reality. We don’t need to continually beat ourselves up. We can find our way through it and give ourselves permission to live a fulfilling life again.

Why do we feel guilty when we grieve?

Irrational guilt - the ‘shoulda, woulda, couldas’

Guilt during grief is so common and more often than not it stems from what we perceive to be our own inadequacy. When our loved...

For me, anxiety and grief are inextricably intertwined. Bound to one another so completely, it almost feels as if anxiety is one of the unnamed stages of grief. I have yet to meet anyone affected by a significant loss, who hasn’t experienced some kind of anxiety. When we lose someone we love, especially a life partner, all the familiarity, security and comfort we have known is suddenly ripped away from us and we’re thrown into a world we didn’t ask to be in and one that we no longer recognise. As our life shatters, we are left exposed and vulnerable, ever mindful of our own mortality and how little control we have over our own future.

Whilst anxiety is a normal and expected part of the grieving process, burying and avoiding our fears will simply encourage them to escalate. Whilst there’s so much in life we simply cannot exert any control over, we have to recognise what does lie within our control and what we are capable of managing. And, when anxiety...

Feeling stuck in our grief is something many of us who have lost a loved one have experienced. Struggling under the crushing hopelessness of daily life, feeling trapped in a world in which we are unable to process our loss or build any momentum for the future – life can feel bleak and heavy. As our motivation to grasp and reshape our lives ebbs away and is replaced by a crippling sorrow, we might find ourselves more irritable, more irrational and more prone to overreaction. It may affect our ability to do our job, to parent our children and to hold relationships with those closest to us. However, whilst this can feel debilitating, it need not be permanent. 

In this blog, I will explain that whilst feeling stuck in grief is a natural part of the grieving process, there are ways in which you can release yourself from this inertia and create movement in your journey. I will explain how developing acceptance, lowering expectations, avoiding unhelpful comparisons with...

What is grief coaching?

Many people have asked me what grief coaching is and how it can help those struggling with loss. I myself had these questions when I entered the world of coaching. But before we delve a little deeper into just what it is, here’s what it isn’t: grief coaching isn’t counselling or therapy. I am not a trained counsellor nor am I a qualified therapist. I cannot help you navigate your way through deeply rooted trauma or severe mental ill health. 

However, what I can do is help you through your grieving process. I can provide a combination of emotional and practical support when one of the most unimaginably devastating things you could ever face, actually happens. I can help you to work out where you are right now, where you want to be and identify the practical steps you can take to get there. I won’t tell you what to do, I won’t patronise you and although we will talk about what has happened, I won’t encourage you to dwell...

Have you ever heard the phrase, ‘happiness is a choice’? Have you ever been told, in the midst of your grief that you can ‘choose to be happy’, as if it’s actually a choice we have, as if during our grief, we can suddenly flick a switch and just be happy. Such sentiments however well-meaning, oversimplify the nature and complexities of grief and underestimate just how powerful a force it is. Those of us that are grieving want to be happy. Desperately. We want to wake up and feel free from the crushing weight we’ve been under. We want to get through each day and not feel like hiding away from the rest of the world. We are not deliberately choosing to be sad. However, as much as we want to choose to be happy, sometimes we just can’t. Grief is heavy and raw and it can smother us. And working through it takes extraordinary time, effort and attention.

However, whilst choosing to be happy is not something we necessarily have control over, and...

Grief can be difficult to comprehend and explain. As such, using analogies can often help to unpick this topic. The four seasons is one such analogy. It provides a helpful framework within which grief can be better understood. Just as the seasons change, so during grief do our emotions, desires and energy levels fluctuate. The seasons can also affect our mood and our motivation as well as drive specific behaviours.

The following blog will focus on the seasonal nature of grief by exploring how autumn, winter, spring and summer reflect various stages of our grief journey. It will look at how the seasons not only influence our emotions but also present us with invaluable opportunities for self-care and healing.

Autumn

In many respects autumn is considered one of our more beautiful seasons, with the air turning crisp and the trees exploding into colour – ablaze with vibrant orange, red and yellow hues. However, during grief, autumn can feel less captivating...