What is Grief Coaching?
Grief and End of Life Coaching is a process of being with people who are grieving and people who are dying. This process, also known as The Coach Approach, recognizes the person (the one who is grieving or the one who is dying) as the expert of their own life. Grief Coaching is appropriate both at times when we have or anticipate losing a loved one, but also when dealing with living losses. Living losses are experiences such as moving, losing a job, living with a chronic condition, adjusting to a new diagnosis for you or a loved one, experiencing financial loss, a broken relationship, or even the death of a dream. Many living losses bring significant change and must be faced and mourned in much the same way as losses involving death.

A Grief Coach is responsible for creating a ‘safe place’ in which the person feels free to share without self-censorship. The Grief Coach asks powerful questions, born out of the coach’s deep listening. These questions invite the person to look within to find the answers that are already there yet have gone unacknowledged.  The Coach affirms the normalcy of the process of dying and the process of grieving. This particular form of being with another offers a person someone to walk alongside them without offering advice, fixing them, or assuming to know what is right for them. The Coach Approach honors the person’s wisdom and explores ways for them to live from it. Transformation occurs when the person is seen and heard in this deep way. The role of a Grief coach is one of honor and privilege.