The world has a way of telling us how grief should look, feel, and most importantly, how long it should last. Maybe your work gave you three days off, expecting you to be business-as-usual when you got back. Maybe your friends and family were so supportive for a month and have not checked in since.
Maybe you’re here because everyone expects you to be “moving on” when you’re still trying to catch your breath.
The loss feels both distant and immediate – some days you can almost forget, and on others, it hits you like it just happened yesterday.
Your body holds grief in ways that aren’t always obvious. Sometimes it’s a heaviness in your chest that comes and goes, or anger that surprises you with its intensity. You might find yourself laughing at a memory and then feeling guilty for experiencing joy. The world might feel slightly muffled, like you’re moving through water while everyone else walks freely through air.
The end of a dream you built your life around. The slow fade of a relationship that shaped who you are. The shifts in your identity due to chronic pain, fatigue, and life transitions. The grief of watching your community struggle, of losing a sense of safety in spaces that once felt like home. The ache of disconnection from culture, identity, language, land.
Here’s something rarely talked about: Grief isn’t a problem to solve or a condition to cure. It’s not a linear path from denial to acceptance. It’s not even really about “letting go.”
Grief is a response to significance. It’s your heart’s recognition of what matters.
Think about it – we only grieve what we care about. Your grief is evidence of your capacity for connection, for meaning-making, for love. It’s an honoring of who and what matters to you, so what if instead of trying to “move on,” we learned how to move with our grief?
Grief rarely travels alone. When we sit with loss, we often find ourselves holding multiple layers of grief, each teaching us something about what matters:
The intimate losses that reshape our inner landscape – a dream we’ve carried, an identity we’re letting go of, a future we imagined differently. Sometimes it’s the grief of becoming someone new, of no longer being able to move through the world in the ways we once did, of no longer being able to believe the world to be just, fair, and kind, of having to recognize our complicities in this system even with all our well-meaning intentions.
An absence that echoes in everyday moments – an empty chair at the table, a phone number we can’t delete, a story we turn to share before remembering. Or perhaps it’s grieving the relationship we were supposed to have but couldn’t – the parent who should have been safe but wasn’t, the conversations that remain unspoken between estranged friends and partners, the support we needed but had to learn to give ourselves, the heaviness of having to carry the weight of what should have been.
The weight our bodies inherited before we had words – the forced migrations, the disconnection of diaspora, the silenced stories, the complex feelings that arise as a settler on stolen land, especially for those whose own ancestors experienced displacement, the traditions, practices, and languages that were forced to skip generations. The grief of piecing together what was scattered, of learning to reclaim what was taken.
The exhaustion of navigating systems not built for our survival – the constant micro and macro aggressions, the doors that keep closing, the justice that feels overwhelmingly out of reach. The weariness of constantly translating yourself in spaces not designed for you, the rage and heartbreak when another act of systemic violence impacts your community, the bone-deep fatigue of fighting the same battles your parents and grandparents fought, the grief of watching spaces meant for healing become sites of further harm, the complexity of seeking care in systems that weren’t built to recognize your humanity.
The heartbreak of watching our earth relatives under attack – disappearing forests, polluted waters, changing climates. A grief that challenges colonial notions of separation between humans and the natural world that emerges as an anxiety and overwhelm of living through climate crisis, extreme weather, and environmental uncertainty. The weight of carrying knowledge about environmental destruction while living in systems that demand we ignore it. The deep ache of witnessing reciprocal ecological systems be transformed by extraction and commodification for capital gain.
How we work
At Venturous Counselling, we understand that grief work isn’t about “getting over it” or developing better coping mechanisms (though tools for navigating intense emotions are part of what we offer). Instead, we’re interested in:
Creating Space for Complexity
Your grief doesn’t need to be simplified or rushed. We work with all the layers – personal, relational, political, systemic, ancestral, ecological – honoring how they weave together in your experience.
Finding Your Unique Relationship with Grief
Rather than prescribing how grief “should” look, we support you in discovering what helps you feel grounded, what rituals bring comfort, what meaning you want to make, and how to tend to both loss and life. After all, grief is love with nowhere to go. We’ll support you in figuring out where your love needs or wants to go.
Moving Beyond Isolation
Grief can feel incredibly lonely, especially when your experience doesn’t fit society’s narrow scripts. We create space for grief to be witnessed and held in community, challenging the idea that we should grieve alone.
Reclaiming Cultural Wisdom
Many of us come from cultures with rich traditions around grief and mourning that colonization tried to erase. We support you in reconnecting with practices that feel authentic and meaningful.
including somatic practices, nature-based sessions, and expressive arts therapy.
Our counsellors bring both professional and living experience to this work. We are Master’s level practitioners with specialized training in grief counselling, anti-oppressive, intersectional feminist, and anti-colonial frameworks. Most importantly, we understand firsthand the importance of finding therapy that doesn’t require you to explain or justify your identity and experiences.
Sessions are offered virtually across BC, and in-person in Vancouver and Burnaby. We are covered by most insurance providers (check for RCC or Registered Clinical Counsellor in your plan) and can provide direct billing for certain insurance providers, including ICBC and CVAP (Crime Victims Assistance Program). You can also access sessions with us through WorkBC or FNHA.
Start with a free 15-minute video conversation to find out more
Q&A
If you’re feeling the impact of a loss – whether recent or from long ago, whether “big” or “small” by society’s standards – you deserve support. There’s no timeline for grief, and all losses are valid.
There’s no such thing as “normal” grief. Your experience is uniquely yours, shaped by your relationship to what was lost, your culture, your support system, and many other factors. We work with your grief exactly as it is.
We understand that grief often involves cultural practices, spiritual beliefs, and community traditions. We welcome and honor these aspects of your experience, integrating them with other healing modalities in ways that feel authentic to you.
Your tears are welcome here. There’s no pressure to “keep it together” in sessions. We’ll help you develop tools to feel grounded even as you explore difficult emotions.
The goal isn’t to forget or “get over” your loss, but to develop a different relationship with it. Many people find they can hold both their grief and their growth, remembering what matters while continuing to live fully.
Both options can be equally effective. Virtual sessions offer convenience, accessibility, and comforts of being in your own space, while in-person sessions might feel more grounding for some. We can explore what feels right for you, and you’re welcome to switch between the two.
Life happens! We ask for 24 hours notice for cancellations or changes. This helps us maintain accessibility for our community and sustainability for our practice.
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occupying the stolen, ancestral territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), S’ólh Téméxw (Stó:lō), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh), Qayqayt, and kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem) peoples. Our relationship with these lands dictates our commitment to understanding and responding to the ongoing impacts of colonization in our practices in and out of the counselling room.
Learn more about the land you’re occupying at native-land.ca
Building reflexive and fulling relationships can be difficult without guidance, support, and effective communication strategies. Our Services Overview provides insights into various therapeutic approaches designed to help individuals and relationships navigate their journey toward deeper connections.
