Putting together the pieces of the grief puzzle

by Kristie West May 30, 2019

Putting together the pieces of the grief puzzle   Years ago someone said to me that it was such a pity that my dad wasn’t here to see the amazing healing work I was doing with grieving people.  That he would have been so proud of me. Very often people don’t put together the pieces […]

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Remember that your grief is a journey

by Kristie West February 26, 2019

Remember that your grief is a journey   It has a beginning… this is often the real heavy hard stuff (though it isn’t like that for everyone)… It has a middle…which is where you DO YOUR WORK. Travel through it.  Spending time. Unpicking the threads. Learning what there is to learn.  Getting to know yourself […]

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Suicidal thoughts

by Kristie West November 22, 2018

Suicidal thoughts   I was speaking to someone who, after going through a ton of difficult stuff, has now had a death in their life to top it all off. They are finding themselves having suicidal thoughts at times, and this is why they reached out for help. This brings back memories. Both because I’ve worked […]

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There are no holes. There are no spaces.

by Kristie West November 13, 2018

There are no holes.  There are no spaces. One of the biggest learnings that came in my healing process after my dad’s death was truly seeing that we really do only see what we focus on. We only see what we are looking for. After Dad died I, as many do and as we have […]

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Is your grief too ‘complicated’ to heal?

by Kristie West November 11, 2018

Is your grief too ‘complicated’ to heal? Sometimes people will ask me whether it’s possible specifically for them to heal because of all the ‘complications’ around their grief. Things that are happening since, things that happened in the past (sometimes very secret things), special circumstances, other stories. They’ll give me the list of things that […]

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Being cracked open by grief – the pain and the beauty of it.

by Kristie West November 7, 2018

Being cracked open by grief – the pain and the beauty of it.   One of the most beautiful (and often most painful) things grief can do is strip us of our masks and lay us bare. Most of us are used to putting on certain faces. Largely this isn’t even a conscious activity. We […]

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Nick Cave’s letter – No, grief and love are not intertwined.

by Kristie West November 4, 2018

Nick Cave’s letter – No, grief and love are not intertwined. This letter (I’ve included the relevant part) has been shared very frequently this week after Nick Cave wrote it, answering the question of a fan, and discussing the death of his son and his feelings around grief.   “It seems to me, that if we […]

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Take a look at what in your grief might actually NOT be grief

by Kristie West October 24, 2018

Take a look at what in your grief might actually NOT be grief…. It’s common that, after a death, ALL pain, challenge, and stress gets called grief. But your life likely wasn’t 100% easy and joyful before that. So whatever you already had going on carries on…and sometimes gets magnified. I had been on-and-off very […]

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Don’t listen to them….

by Kristie West October 20, 2018

Don’t listen to them….   Recently I was talking with a friend who used to do beautiful grief work. Like me, he healed completely from a huge death in his life, beyond what he imagined possible and certainly beyond what anyone else told him was possible. He went looking for others who could relate, as he […]

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The ‘unknown’ that lies on the other side of healing

by Kristie West October 18, 2018

The ‘unknown’ that lies on the other side of healing Last week I was writing on how one of the big things that can keep people stuck in grief is simply being scared of change….and particularly of change when you don’t know what the other side looks like. It can seem counter-intuitive that we would […]

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