Grief and Loss
When loss stops you in your tracks...You feel like you're in a haze. Everyone else is getting on with their lives, but you don't see a way forward. You're replaying memories over and over, not sleeping well, cycling through anger and guilt.
You're isolating yourself because no one wants to talk about the one you lost. They say "time will heal" or "they would want you to go on with your life." But they were your life. You wonder, "who am I now?" No one understands what you're feeling. They just don't get it.
The waves of grief aren't getting smaller, no matter how much time passes. You lost your spouse, your child, your parent, your sibling, your best friend. Maybe you just found out a parent or sibling you never met has died, and now you'll never get the chance. You lost your soul pet, the only being that truly knew and loved you unconditionally.
The death may have happened suddenly. No chance to say goodbye. They may have taken their own life, and now you're left wondering what you could have done to stop it, asking why. You may be alone now, raising the children you had together, figuring out all the finances on top of your grief.
It may have been a tragic, senseless death where someone else is clearly to blame, and you have this rage built up inside you with nowhere to put it.
You may have been in a car accident. You lived, they didn't, and you don't know why you're still here and they're not.
Regardless of when the loss happened, the hurt, the sadness, the anger, the guilt, those are all still fresh. Birthdays, anniversaries, holidays feel like a gut-punch. You've been declining invitations because you can't bear to pretend you're okay when you're not.
Certain songs, sounds, smells, and places make you feel like you've been punched in the gut. The memories make you miss them so much you can't catch your breath.
Wherever you are in your grief, and whatever the circumstances of it, there is a way to carry this weight without it crushing you.
Life On the Other Side of Grief Work: What You Can Expect After Working Together
You sleep through the night. No more waking up at 2am, staring at the ceiling, replaying the last conversation or running through all the things you wish you could have/should have said.
You're at your niece's birthday party, watching her blow out the candles, and you feel happy for her instead of spending the whole time fighting back tears in the bathroom.
Someone at work shares a funny story about their dad, and you think of your own dad and smile. The memory doesn't knock the wind out of you anymore.
You book a weekend trip three weeks out because you know you'll actually go. You're not just surviving one day at a time anymore.
You're in the grocery store and a song that was "theirs" comes on. You notice it, you feel a little pang, and then you keep shopping. It doesn't send you spiraling for the rest of the day.
Your friend asks "how are you?" and you can answer honestly without your throat closing up or needing to leave the conversation.
You laugh at something your coworker says and it feels natural, not like you're betraying anyone or pretending to be okay. You're just living your life again: making decisions without agonizing over every choice, showing up for people you care about, getting through a normal Tuesday without white-knuckling it.
You’ve Been Looking for a Way Through This…
You've already been working toward this… You haven't been sitting around waiting for the grief to magically disappear. You've been trying to find relief, trying to get your life back. You've shown up for yourself in every way you knew how…
You went to a grief support group at the hospital. It met once a week, but the same two people dominated every session, talking about losses from years ago while you sat there needing space to speak. You left feeling more drained than when you arrived, and after three weeks, you stopped going.
You tried church, even though you hadn't been in years. The pastor meant well. People prayed for you. But sitting in the pew didn't quiet your mind at 3am, and the platitudes about God's plan made you want to walk out.
Your sister gave you three books on grief. You read them. You highlighted beautiful passages. They described what you're feeling perfectly. But when you closed the book, nothing had changed. You still woke up with that same weight on your chest.
Your doctor suggested you "try to stay busy" and maybe consider medication. You tried staying busy: you said yes to extra projects at work, deep-cleaned the house, kept your calendar full. You're exhausted, and you still feel like you're moving through life underwater. The medication took the edge off, but it didn't touch what's really wrong.
You've tried what people told you to try. You showed up, you read the books, you went to the groups. These approaches help some people, but they're not touching what's happening for you. That's not because you’re doing it wrong.
Talk therapy, support groups, and books work with your thoughts and feelings. But when grief has settled into your body and nervous system – when it's living in your chest tightness, your sleepless nights, your startle response – you need methods that work at that level.
There’s a different way forward.
Finding Your Way Through Grief: A Path Forward That Works with Your Brain and Body
Most traditional therapy asks you to talk through your loss week after week, processing your feelings by putting them into words. That can help some people, but for many, it keeps the wound open without giving your brain a way to actually heal it.
The methods I use work directly with how your brain and body have stored this loss—not just in your thoughts, but in your nervous system. You don't have to retell the story over and over. These approaches help your brain process and file the memory differently so it stops controlling your life.
Brainspotting finds the specific spot where your brain is holding the stuck grief and helps release it without reliving every detail. When you think about the moment you got the news or walked into their empty room, your eyes naturally move to a certain position. We use that to help your brain process what it couldn't process in real time.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) changes how your brain has "filed" the traumatic memory. Right now, when you think about the accident, the phone call, the funeral, your brain reacts like it's happening right now. Through guided eye movements, we help your brain move that memory from "current emergency" to "terrible thing that happened that I survived."
Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) helps you change the images your brain keeps replaying. The scene that keeps coming back – finding them, the hospital room, their empty chair at the table – those images are seared in right now. With ART, you keep the facts of what happened, but we help your brain replace the images and sensations with ones that don't destroy you every time they surface.
Somatic Experiencing works with what your body is carrying. Your shoulders are up by your ears, your stomach has been in knots for months, you startle when your phone rings. Your nervous system is stuck in "high alert." We work with your body's signals to help it find its way back to baseline.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) helps with the war going on inside you. Part of you wants to move forward. Another part feels guilty even thinking about feeling better. One part is furious at everyone who has already moved on. Another part just wants to disappear. We work with these different "parts" so they stop fighting each other. This helps you find room to make choices that aren't driven by rage, fear, or guilt.
You've been looking for relief, and you've tried what you thought would help. But grief and bereavement work with me is different. My methods work with where grief lives (in your body and nervous system), so that you can sleep through the night, show up for your family without faking it, and get through a normal week without being leveled by memories.
Hi! I''m SummerI'm a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in California with over a decade of experience. CA LCSW 68507
I specialize in grief and loss. I'm trained in Brainspotting, EMDR, ART, Somatic Experiencing, and Internal Family Systems because I've seen these approaches create real relief when traditional grief counseling hasn't been enough.
I work with people who need direct, effective support without spending years rehashing the same pain week after week.
Contact Summer