How Can I Help?
Are you wanting to
- improve your relationship with yourself, rediscovering who you are beyond the pain story you’ve been living
- improve your relationships with your children, your parents or your friends
- heal your broken heart after a relationship ends
- find joy again after the death of a loved one, from miscarriage right through to old age
- find meaning in life when living with the uncertainty of infertility
- cope with a major life transition, such as retirement or an emptying nest
- be heard, understood and validated in whatever you’re going through
Don’t let the fear of the unknown, or stigma and shame, hold you back from getting the counselling that can help you thrive. Counselling is not about ‘fixing’ you or diagnosing you as a problem. It is about supporting you as you rediscover your strength, dignity, identity and hope no matter what challenges life is throwing at you.
Whether you are struggling with a particular issue, or just feeling like you’re not thriving as you’d like to, counselling can help you get your life back on track. My professional training and lived experience help me to understand and support you in your personal journey from pain to joy, from grief to growth, from despair to hope. You don’t have to go through this alone.
Grief and Loss Counselling
Grief touches us all, eventually. Is your grief invisible to everyone else but looming so large in your own life you can hardly breathe? Are you struggling to get up in the morning, or sleep at night? Are you holding on to your grief as a way of holding on to the one you have “lost”?
Are you heartbroken by infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, termination or neonatal death, struggling with the invisibility of lost dreams? Your friends are delighting in their babies and children, filling your social media feed with their happy snaps, while you watch on with a broken heart and empty arms.
Are you struggling to come to terms with the death of your partner, your soul mate? You miss them desperately and find it so difficult to imagine a life without them. Or perhaps your relationship wasn’t so great, and you’re struggling with a mix of grief, regret, guilt and shame?
There are so many forms of loss that can result in deep grief. Someone doesn’t have to die, for you to grieve. You may have lost your home in a bushfire, or your much-loved pet may have died. Perhaps you’ve retired and life feels, oh, so empty. Perhaps you’re grieving your empty nest, feeling stuck between missing your children and trying to take brave steps towards the next chapter.
Counselling can be your safe space to grieve, and your pathway to finding ways to live again.
Grief & Loss Counselling
Grief touches us all, eventually. Is your grief invisible to everyone else but looming so large in your own life you can hardly breathe? Are you struggling to get up in the morning, or sleep at night?
Are you heartbroken by infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, termination or neonatal death, struggling with the invisibility of lost dreams? Have you lost someone older and you miss them desperately, or miss the relationship you wish you’d had, or the things you wish you’d done differently?
Are you struggling with the loss of your marriage, home, pet, job, or perhaps a role identity you held dear?
Counselling can be your safe space to grieve, and your pathway to integrating the grief into a life of hope and meaning.
Relationship Grief
Your heart is broken. You didn’t sign up for this! You were in love – you gave your heart to this person, trusting that they would love you in return. They made your soul sing; you never felt more alive than you were together. But now, this… Soul-crushing, heart-breaking grief. It’s hard to imagine feeling happy again. Your soul-mate, the one who should have loved you the most, who was supposed to be by your side until you were both old and grey, has been the one to hurt you more than any other.
It is such a betrayal, to be hurt by the one you trusted. How can you learn to trust again?
Counselling for your relationship grief may be just what you need to help you recover and find joy again. Counselling provides a safe place for you to grieve – to be heard, held and understood. It is a place where you are the most important person in the room. It is all about you and what you need. It is a place to heal, grow, and rediscover your strength, your hope, and your joy.
I know it is possible to recover because I have been where you are. I have had my heart broken more than once and I thought I would never smile again. As a professional counsellor who gets what it’s like to feel betrayed, I can support you through your painful journey and help you find your way forwards, towards a better, brighter future. I can help you heal, and help you prepare for a future relationship or an awesome single life!
If you’re grieving a relationship after discovering your partner is LGBT, you may want to check out my Not My Closet page.
Relationship Grief
Have you discovered that your partner is LGBT+? There is nothing quite like finding out that the person whose eyes you gazed into on your wedding day was not being truthful about who they are. There is nothing quite like finding out that the years of confusion and the absence of desire were caused by closeted homosexuality or undisclosed gender confusion.
People who have experienced this, sometimes referred to as ‘straight spouses’ to differentiate from their partner being LGBT+ often feel overlooked, dismissed, invalidated, unheard, unseen and invisible in this strange, mysterious form of grief. For many, it is a traumatic loss that seems at times to be unsurvivable.
When society says, ‘you should celebrate them coming out’ or ‘why didn’t you know?’, it exacerbates and complicates your grief: you question your ability to trust yourself and your own judgment, you may experience shame, and you probably feel invalidated in your suffering.
I get it, I lived it, I hear you, see you and understand something of the pain you may be experiencing. And I can tell you that there is hope for a better tomorrow. Come and join us at ‘Not My Closet’ where you will no longer feel quite so alone. Side note: counselling really helps.
I Can Help With A Range of Concerns
Depression
Anxiety
Self-esteem
Hopelessness
Emptiness
Life transitions
Substance abuse
Separation & Divorce
Rebuilding Trust
Boundaries
Grief and loss
Guilt and shame
Identity Issues
Trauma
Parenting
Contact Me Today to Talk
I’d love to find out what I can help you with. Call 0411 889 175 or email me for a free 20 minute consultation.