12/02/2025
Coping With Grief as a Helping Professional 💚🫂
There is a weight I am carrying right now, and I am realizing it is not just personal. It is emotional and spiritual. In both my roles as a mental health professional and as the founder of Josie’s Legacy, I spend much of my time holding space for others. Yet I am also managing my own grief, and today it feels especially loud.
December 7 marks the 26th anniversary of my mother’s passing, and the days leading up to it always come with mixed emotions. The world calls this the season of joy, but grief does not follow the calendar, and it often compounds when you have experienced multiple losses over time.
Yet I still show up for others as they navigate anxiety, depression, trauma, family conflict, and sometimes their own grief. And it makes me ask: How do helping professionals cope while we are hurting? Where is our space to grieve and be held?
This is a reminder that helpers need help, healers need space to heal, and professionals need room to be human.
Today I am reminding myself, and anyone else carrying grief while serving others, that it is okay to pause, to feel, to breathe, and to honor the truth of where we are. We hold others, but we are allowed to be held too.
