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. Rather, healing in this context means that we can find our wholeness again and go on to live meaningful lives that will forever be informed by the loss (as well as by the love that never ever dies).
I believe that grief and loss often act as a portal, putting us in touch with the impermanence that’s embedded into this life and in doing so, clarifying what’s most important. In this way, grief can change us, making us people who carry wisdom, heart and depth. But for that transformation to happen, we first need to receive support.
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.
About Me
On Grief
Somewhere along the way, the modern world has applied a medicalized model to the experience of grieving a profound and life-changing loss.
You might have even experienced this yourself, the bereavement care offered to mourners often looks like symptom management meant to move grieving folks towards “recovery” and a swift return to their daily activities and life.
And if you grieve for too long, you might even receive an actual diagnosis; prolonged grief disorder, now in the diagnostic manual used by mental health professionals.
I come to this work with the deeply held belief that grief needs a different type of intervention and support.
I believe that grief, when faced and held, without rushing and 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 or recovered. They do, however, emerge profoundly changed.
Often becoming deeper, wiser and more awake to what is real.
They also often find that the love of their person sustains them 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.
The support offered here aims to create the conditions for that tending.
Certifications & Trainings
Death & Grief Certification from the Center for Loss and Life Transition (150 hours)
Grief Companioning Skills
Support Group Facilitator
Supporting Complicated Mourning
Comprehensive Bereavement Skills
Supporting Suicide Loss
End of Life Doula
Trained and certified by the Institute of Traditional Medicine in Toronto, Canada.
Cont. Education and Supervision
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.