Coping with pain of grief and loss in your life

This is a course that can benefit everybody who isn’t fully alive, or doing what they want to do. It tackles stuff you may need to let go of and helps you start living your life. It’s for people who feel stuck, which a lot of people do.”

That’s how Emer Hennelly describes a Healing Loss and Grief Workshop she is giving in conjunction with her brother Richard on March 31 and April 1 in Galway.

Emer is a psychotherapist, who specialises in grief counselling, while Richard practises Reiki and is a spiritual healer. She lives in Galway, he is based in London and both have first-hand knowledge of dealing with grief.

Their brother, Liam died of cancer in 1994 when Emer was 19 and repeating her Leaving Cert, she says. Liam was diagnosed in May and after she finished her exams, Emer moved in with his wife and children to help care for him. Liam died at home five months later at the age of 33.

That loss was followed four years later by their father’s death. Immediately after his funeral, one of their sisters became very ill and was diagnosed with a tumour in her brain. It was benign, but after what had happened to Liam, this was a terrifying time for the family.

She recovered and is a tower of strength, but it was a dreadful period. As Emer points out, coping with her sister’s illness so soon after their father’s death meant that they didn’t have the space to grieve for him.So, from personal experience, they are well placed to talk about issues around loss and grief, and over the years, both Emer and Richard have been drawn to train in this area.

Emer worked in the restaurant business for years, before leaving it in 2006.

“I had always loved it, but there was a sense that I wasn’t loving it any more,” she explains of her decision to reassess her life.Before she left the hospitality business, she trained as a massage therapist, and now offers everything from holistic massage to trigger point treatment. From May, she will be qualified to offer cancer care massage, having trained under the supervision of LARCC cancer care treatment centre in Mullingar.

Emer loved doing massage from day one but wanted to do more in the area of complementary treatment, and when she heard of a course in England, which trains people to support patients who survive cancer, she did it.

Emer points out that there is a fantastic support network while people are receiving cancer treatment, but that falls away when it’s finished and some people can feel isolated and traumatised after their illness.  

For more, read this week's Galway City Tribune.