Grief support that doesn't rush you, fix you, or ask you to be further along than you are.
One-on-one grief support for bereaved individuals navigating life-changing loss.
Online, worldwide. In English and French.
For those who feel changed by loss.
If you've found your way here, you probably know that the kind of support grief needs is hard to find. Support that doesn't rush you toward something. That doesn't treat your grief as a problem with a solution, or a wound with a timeline.
This loss is changing you and maybe you need a place to land. Consider this that place. An uncommon space where grief is something we sit with, explore and honour. Together.
I’m Marie Goudreau,
A certified Death & Grief Doula trained by Dr. Alan Wolfelt at the Center for Loss and Life Transition. I've been companioning bereaved individuals since 2020, through one-on-one sessions, groups, and workshops, and have sat with hundreds of people in some of the most disorienting experiences a life can hold.
My approach is rooted in a philosophy of grief care called companioning. Companioning means that I walk beside you, not ahead of you. I don’t bring a map or a timeline and healing doesn’t mean a return to who you were before. I believe that grief is a teacher. A portal. A sacred experience that, when befriended rather than fought, can transform you into someone with more wisdom, more heart and more depth.
I also know loss, personally and deeply, having lost my life partner to cancer in my early 30s. I don’t know that I’ve done anything more meaningful with my life than to walk my person on his journey between life and death. His death has changed the trajectory of my life and this work is part of his legacy.
Ways we can work together.
I offer a depth-oriented, deeply attentive companioning experience for those seeking grief support that is personal, existentially curious, and held with reverence for the love that doesn’t end at death.
1:1 Grief Companioning sessions
This is the heart of my practice. We meet one-on-one, online, for an hour at a time, as often as you need. There's no curriculum and no timeline. Your grief is held and you are met deeply each session.
Grief Intensives
A grief intensive is an extended, dedicated session, two hours with a small break partway through, designed for concentrated, unhurried time in the territory of your grief. Intensives are often booked around an anniversary, grief milestone or for those who are unable to meet weekly or bi-weekly.
Mentorship for Grief Practitioners
This is mentorship and grief support for the person doing the work. A space to tend to what this work demands of you, to recognize the signs of cumulative practitioner grief, to keep your own loss history from quietly bumping into your client care, and to stay in this work with honesty and integrity over the long term.
Free Consultation
This is a free 30-minute conversation about where you are, what you're looking for, and whether we're the right fit for each other. No pressure and no commitment, just a chance to feel out whether this is the support you've been looking for.
On Grief
Western culture has taught us that grief is something to get through, something that, if handled correctly, you eventually leave behind.
I don't believe that.
I believe that grief, when faced and held, without rushing, without bypassing, without the desperate need to arrive somewhere on the other side, is one of the most profound invitations available to a human being.
The people who befriend their grief don’t emerged healed in the traditional sense of the word. They do emerge profoundly changed. Often becoming deeper, wiser and more awake to what is real.
They also sometimes find that the love of their person sustains in surprising ways. That there was never a need to let go, but rather, to let love in differently.
This is what grief does when it is tended to.
This work creates the conditions for that tending.
Contact Marie
Email: marie@empoweredthroughgrief.com
Sessions are held online. In English or French.
Marie’s office is located in the Greater Montreal area, Quebec, Canada.
Certifications & Trainings
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End-of-life Specialist (death doula)
Trained and certified by the Institute of Traditional Medicine in Toronto, Canada.
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Death & Grief Certification from the Center for Loss and Life Transition
- Grief Companioning Skills Training (30 hours)
- Support Group Facilitator Training (30 hours)
- Supporting Complicated Mourning (30 hours)
- Comprehensive Bereavement Skills Training (30 hours)
Trained & certified by Dr. Alan Wolfelt, one of North America’s most respected bereavement educators and clinicians at the Center for Loss and Life Transitions in Colorado, USA.
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Continuing education & training
Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training through LivingWorks
Trauma-informed group facilitation training with Katie Kurtz
Ongoing weekly supervision with Thais Sky, psychotherapist (LMFT) since 2020.
Self-Paced Support
A Gentle Guide to Early Grief
A self paced course that brings you clarity, stability & offers a sense of direction in the face of overwhelming loss.
When you sign up, you’ll have instant access to 3 Modules helping you:
Manage expectations of yourself in grief
Build in thoughtful self care that is supportive to the overwhelm of early (acute) grief
Help you navigate relationships that can be complicated by loss
Grief Coaching Code of Ethics
15 Essential Principles for Responsible & Sustainable Non-Clinical Grief Work
This downloadable 17 page guide is designed for those who feel the calling to serve bereaved people in a responsible & ethical way.
Because the Coaching Industry is an unregulated field, it is necessary to uphold a strong code of ethics that protects you, your clients & your business.
It is my intention that this guide continues to be a reference to you as you build & run your own ethical, responsible and sustainable grief coaching practice.
This work matters deeply.
Your commitment to holding this work with integrity and care is both beautiful and needed.
Podcast Interviews
Learn more about Marie and her work in this conversation. A look at how bereavement care might be supportive to you.
Pieces to Wellness Podcast
Listen as we have a real and honest conversation around grief, loss & how to show up for ourselves and others in the midst of suffering.
What Clients Are Saying
“What I most want to express is gratitude for all that I have learned through this process. I have gratitude for you, your commitment to my healing, and for holding a safe space for me to have genuine, truthful conversations about the grief of not only watching my beloved die, but a part of myself as well. You have continuously held the belief for me that he will never leave me even in my moments of sadness and fear. The tools presented have given me the opportunity to delve into what are the roots of my anxiety and how I actively avoid it. With the awareness, as tough as it may be, comes healing. No longer do I awake crying because I awoke. I do not feel the desperation I once did.
The work is just that—it is a commitment to practice, to put forth the effort, to embrace change despite the discomfort that may come. I now find there are areas of my life that I find joy and peace. I am finding what makes me authentic and relevant for who I am now, because the loss of the love of my life has irrevocably changed and molded me into another being. Thank you”,
— Mary B.
“Thank you for helping me see that I do have a true vision of myself through the eyes of my brother. And that it's so important I take time to tap into his vision of me, because it helps me align with my true self while shedding the stories that have been projected onto me throughout my whole life, due to external wounding that was not my own. I am thankful for the safe space you have provided through this work. It is getting me more in touch with myself every day”.
— Anita F.
“I started working with M-C two years into my grief journey. I had read all the books, done all the therapy, but my life still didn’t feel like “me," which left me unhappy and unsatisfied with most aspects of my life.
I joined M-C’s Empowered Through Grief program, hoping to gain something new that I had not found elsewhere. And I did! She has helped me first to realize that I have been living in victim mode for two years without even noticing it, and second, to help me consciously step out of that mindset and into a life of gratitude.
This has been transformational for me, and the program overall has helped me look at my healing journey through a new lens. I am the creator of my life, and creating a life that aligns with this new “me” post-loss is something that has brought me total clarity and purpose. All the opposition and uncertainty has disappeared, and I owe much of it to the work I did with M-C”.
— Jennifer C.
“Just want to say thank you Marie. You are such a skilled facilitator. The space, shaped by your expertise, experience and emotional intelligence is the perfect forum for sharing. The world is a better place because of your work.”
— Susie W. on her experience in Sisterhood in Grief (cohort 1)
“Thank you Marie-Claude for creating such a beautiful and sacred space. I have learned so much. You are such a bright and beautiful guiding light for us on this earthly plane and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for sharing so openly your love and loss of A, for doing the hard work of processing all of the strategies and knowledge you have gathered surrounding grief and so lovingly share this information with other women. Your hard work, empathy, kindness and care make the grief path just a wee bit easier to navigate. Your work is a calling”.
— Maureen on her experience in Sisterhood in Grief (2nd cohort)