For those struggling with grief, loss, or spiritual crisis, grief counselors offer unique support: bearing witness and coming alongside each individual’s personal journey of grief, including your unique expressions of spirituality and your unique complexities in your grieving and healing process.
Through Grief and Bereavement Counseling, Rev. Jess can support to you in times of crisis or difficulty. I work with individuals, families, and groups that are experiencing grief or loss. I also offer ritual services and can serve as celebrant at funerals, officiate wedding ceremonies, and offering pre-marriage spiritual guidance.
How do I schedule?
- Email revjess@peacethroughgrief.com to share briefly about your story and the best days and times for you to meet. Most of my zoom sessions happen on Tues – Thurs from 8am to 4pm.
- In an emergency, please call 9-1-1
- For other sudden crisis, end-of-life support, or bereavement, please email me and I will respond as quickly as I am able. It may take me up to 24-48 hours to respond, especially if I am with another care recipient.
Paying for your session
Currently Death Doula and Chaplain Services are not covered by insurance. Session payments can be made via Zelle, Venmo, PayPal, or Check at time of service. If you would like to make a payment, or are paying for a session as a gift, please indicate the name of the person you are supporting and offer payment through our Donation page. Current Session rates are $175 for 60-90 minutes.
Individual, Family and Community Counseling Services
I offer a calm presence and non-judgemental support, coming alongside you as we explore your pain and healing process, together. My personal style of counseling is grounded in deep listening, mindfulness, and presence. If desired, we can also incorporate guided meditations and if you’re in the Seattle area, I offer nature walk counseling sessions.
A Grief Counselor may be a beneficial part of your support system if you are:
- Bereaved or experiencing grief and loss
- Experiencing a sudden death in the family
- Living with a terminal illness, or nearing end-of-life
- Facing a new diagnosis
- Struggling with emotional regulation
- Experiencing chronic pain
- Struggling with coming out as LGBTQIA+ or other family/societal issues around sexuality, gender, gender expression, or sexual orientation
- Questioning your spiritual path or journey, including those who have experienced religious or spiritual trauma
- Supporting someone you love who is experiencing any of the above
I have specific experience and sensitivity to the unique needs of the following communities:
- LGBTQIA+ / queer / transgender / gender nonconforming community
- Those who identify as “Spiritual but not Religious”
- Cancer patients and their families
- Youth and young adults
- Veterans
- Those facing the loss of a parent or sibling
- Those who have experienced sexual trauma or abuse
- Those facing loss of a loved one by suicide, or experiencing suicidal ideation themselves
- Schools, classrooms, or workplaces facing crisis or loss
What does a session look like?
Just like people, each session is unique. I work intuitively and collaboratively with you to uncover what may be most beneficial for you on any given day. Our time together will always include my deep listening, validation, understanding, and a calm, peaceful presence. Sessions can also include breath-based and somatic resilience skillbuilding, mindfulness of body sensations and feelings, working together to discover root causes of suffering, facilitated guided meditation practices, rituals, or ceremonies. Each session will depend on what collectively we feel may best serve the moment. Sessions are confidential, unless there is a communicated risk of immediate harm to oneself or another, in which case, we may need additional support. In these cases, my goal would be to make any additional necessary contacts on behalf of a client with the full consent of the client.
Where do we meet?
My grief and bereavement sessions are done on ZOOM, with occasional in-person sessions in the Seattle area to incorporate the healing resources of nature. For Death Doula work, I offer at-home visits or travel in the Seattle area to businesses, hospitals, nursing homes, community centers, youth centers, schools, or hospice centers.
Note of Understanding
While grief counseling, death doula work, and chaplaincy is not therapy, it can offer therapeutic benefits. Chaplains can be a part of your psycho-spiritual-emotional healthcare team, and work wonderfully in tandem with other services. With this understanding, please note that I am not a licensed therapist, psychologist or mental healthcare professional, and my services do not replace the care or advice of psychologists, psychiatrists, or other healthcare professionals. As a chaplain, I will exercise my best professional efforts, skills and care to support you along your path of healing. Keep in mind that these efforts are expressions of my own unique lived experiences, training, expertise, and opinions. ~ Rev. Jess
What is a Chaplain, Anyway?
Meeting with a chaplain can be a helpful and healing resource as we journey through the pain, trauma, and grief that is inevitable in life.
Chaplains are of all faith traditions, including secular (no religious affiliation), humanist, atheist, and agnostic. We are trained to provide compassionate non-denominational and interfaith support to diverse populations. Chaplains provide emotional and psycho-social-spiritual support–regardless of religious affiliation–to people experiencing crisis, trauma, injury, illness, grief, and/or loss. Often Chaplains refer to this work as “coming alongside” others, providing ministry of presence without an agenda, help one uncover their own meaning and path toward healing.
Chaplains are often found working in institutions like hospitals, hospice care facilities, prisons, and military facilities, rather than in a particular church, temple, or synagogue. Depending on their personal standing as clergy in a faith tradition, Chaplains may be ordained to provide specific religious services and ceremonies. Chaplains work in interdisciplinary teams with other support personnel and collaborate with local clergy of various faiths to offer spiritual care and support.
From my training and a Socially Engaged Buddhist perspective and from a systems perspective, Socially Engaged Chaplaincy also includes efforts toward transforming suffering that is induced by structural violence, which affects individuals, communities, the environment, and the world.
