Sessions Overview

Dedicated Widows

A Spiritual Path for Catholic Women Experiencing Grief

Personalized One-on-One Grief Coaching

Sessions Overview

Grief is a process. It cannot be rushed. The timeframe for your sessions depends a great deal on your preferences. Generally, however, at least two/three weeks or more between sessions is advised. Adequate time is needed to integrate the information thoroughly and implement the techniques provided.

Session 1: Honoring Your Story

You grieve because you loved! In this first session, you will introduce the grief coach to your spouse and to the story of your life together. You will be asked to bring a few pictures/memorabilia that can assist in “fleshing out” your story, as well as the special aspects of your story. You will also be asked to share your individual death story — the events leading up to and surrounding the passing of your loved one. Telling your story and talking about the life you shared together is an important component for healing. Your story must earnestly and forthrightly be expressed often enough over time for healing to take place. You will receive guidance for facilitating this process.

Session 2: Managing the Emotional Roller Coaster

Emotions can be powerful and intense, especially during grief. Loss elicits vehement emotions that may feel overwhelming and overpowering. What can one do?

In this session you will learn the correct interplay between emotions, intellect, and will and how each is designed to function in the psychological make-up of human beings. Rather than repressing or denying intense, powerful, painful emotions — which are actually messages from one’s inner psyche that something is not right, not the way things should be — you will understand the importance of acknowledging emotions by using the gift of your God-given intellect, along with the power of your will, to engage with them. Over time you will learn the process of toning down their influence so they become less intrusive.

Session 3: Dedicating the Suffering of Widowhood
in Union with the Suffering of Jesus Christ

The existence of evil is a pressing human question. Suffering, sickness, anguish, and death are deeply distressing. Something within human persons suggests these things ought not to be, that suffering, sickness, anguish, and death fall extremely short of expectations for personal happiness and fulfillment. This session will draw on St. Pope John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter Salvifici Doloris (On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering). It will also explore the meaning of “sacrifice.” By definition, a sacrifice involves offering something tangible to God with the proper submission to him, in acknowledgment of his dominion over us and our subjection and obedience to him. According to St. Augustine, “every action done so as to cling to God in communion of holiness, and thus achieve blessedness, is a true sacrifice.”

Therefore, you can turn your suffering into a “sacrifice” (something holy) by uniting it with the suffering of Jesus Christ. In Salvifici Doloris, St. Pope John Paul II states: “By participating in the sufferings of Jesus Christ and, thus, in his work of Redemption, each ‘sharer in suffering’ is performing a spiritual service. Together with Christ, he or she is working for the salvation of his or her brothers and sisters.” St. Pope John Paul II calls this “an irreplaceable service.” He goes on to say that “those who share in the sufferings of Christ preserve in their own sufferings a very special particle of the infinite treasure of the world’s Redemption, and can share this treasure with others.”

Session 4: Creating a Legacy to Honor Your Spouse

What long-lasting impact did your spouse have upon your life, the life of your family, extended family, community, or the world? In this session you and your grief coach will examine the lasting impact your spouse had upon your life, then expand the examination to more far-reaching effects. The question here is: What can you do to acknowledge his “legacy?” In what way can you create something, do something — a memorial, an event, a unique tribute — that captures the essence of his life? What lesson about life did you learn from him? What lesson did others take away from knowing him? These are some of the things to consider when contemplating your loved one’s legacy.

Session 5: Considering a Plan for Your Future

Unfortunately, one cannot change the past. The loss of your spouse and other subsequent losses have upended your life in ways unimaginable and unanticipated. But here you are! Dr. Erich Lindermann, a leading grief researcher and practitioner, often stressed that “grief must be faced relentlessly, no matter how painful, to enable emotional wounds to heal. It is necessary to feel the hurt, the loneliness, and the anguish until it becomes thoroughly familiar.” Thus, not being able to change the past, one must face it — not repress it nor run from it. Rather, with the assistance of a grief coach, one learns to integrate the past into the present and figure out how to move forward, not in a way that leaves the lost love behind, but in a way that allows it to be part of who one is now and will be in the future.