Empowered Through Grief with MarieSanctuary
The world moved on. You didn't. This is the year you stop carrying that alone. Sanctuary is a space just for you where you’re held through the next calendar year of your grief.
You might not be in the early days anymore, but you still want to talk about your loss, your person and make sense of life in the “after”.
There’s a moment after we lose a life partner where the visits, the calls and texts begin to slow down or stop. Often, that comes when we are just beginning to really come into contact with the fullness of what has been lost. When the support we need is even greater than in the early days because we’re beginning to understand that this is forever and that our person really isn’t coming back.
The widows and widowers I sit with tell me that the years after the very first one feel like being suspended in time, like being in this liminal space between the life that has been lost and the one they’re trying to rebuild for themselves.
Losing a partner is a unique landscape of loss. It can feel like every single corner of every single day is touched by our person’s absence.
The way we wake up alone and make one cup of coffee instead of two, to the texts we no longer receive throughout the day reminding us that we’re someone’s most important person, to the shows we watch, the way we eat, parent and sleep.
Everything has changed. Adjusting to that, and grieving what can no longer be, takes more time than our people often have patience for.
If months or years have passed and this loss still feels incredibly disorienting, there is nothing wrong with you. Losing a life partner is just that big. I have created this space to give your experience a space to be spoken about, held, explored and tended to.
The widows & widowers who find me aren’t looking for strategies or permission to grieve. They already know that their grief is real and profound. What they’re looking for is someone who understands that the month they died is always hard. Someone who knows that February 14th is not a hard day because of Valentine’s Day but because of the ritual they created together for that day.
Someone who remembers their name and asks about them in detail. Who holds the whole of their person, not just their loss.
Here’s how it works:
Before we begin, I send you a letter.
In it, I ask you to write back and tell me about your partner, who they were, how you loved each other, the particular way your life was shaped around their presence. I ask you for the dates that mark your year. Their birthday. Yours. The day they died. Your anniversary. The holidays that have changed. The ordinary days that hurt the most.
I hold that letter and keep those dates in mind.
Across 12 months, we meet once a month for an extended 75 minute session. There is no agenda or curriculum. We go together where your grief takes us that month. We follow what’s most present for you.
Between sessions, we stay in touch through one exchange a month, a voice note or an email. Sometimes it comes from you, when something surfaces. Sometimes it comes from me, when I know a date is approaching and I want you to know that I am thinking of you.
On their birthday, I’ll reach out. On the day they died, too. You won’t have to wonder who else is holding this grief calendar with you.
At the end of the year, I’ll write you a closing letter. In it, I’ll share what I witnessed across our 12 months together. What I saw you carry, who I saw you become and how your person and your story has been meaningful for me to hold.
On their birthday, I’ll reach out. On the day they died, too. You won’t have to wonder who else is holding this grief calendar with you.
The investment is $ 2250 USD
payable in full or in two payments, one when we begin and one at month 7
I hold a small number of mourners at a time. When those spaces are filled, enrolment will close.
This might feel right for you if:
You are past the early days and yet still deep inside of it. You are tired of explaining your grief to people who have largely gone back to their own lives. You want to talk about your person, share photos and memories and really anchor in the impact they’ve made on you. You want to be accompanied and known in your grief.
Your reminder of what’s included:
An opening letter from me and your written introduction about you, your person and your grief, before we begin.
Twelve monthly sessions, 75 min each
Twelve monthly exchanges - voice notes or email - with me keeping your big milestone dates in mind
A closing letter from me at the end of our year