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Learn to Move Beyond the Pain of Loss

An action-based, powerful, directed approach to healing from life’s deepest heartbreaks.

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We provide grief and loss training, keynotes, and workshops for organisations around Australasia.

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Grief Recovery Method teaches individuals and therapists to support clients as they overcome grief.

Get Help to Move Past the Pain of Grief

Learn the only evidence-based approach to move beyond death, divorce and other losses in your life.

You Don’t Have To Bear
The Pain Of Loss Forever

Grief is the normal and natural reaction to loss — whether that loss was caused by a death, the end of a relationship, loss of employment, or one of the significant life events that invoke this strong and overwhelming emotion.

The Grief Recovery Method is an action plan; a series of small steps that lead to the completion of the unresolved communication that is linked to the loss.

If you are struggling to move beyond the pain of grief or want to provide clients with a strategy to overcome a significant loss, you will find the solutions through our services. Book a call to find out more.

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OUR STORY

Grief Recovery Institute of Australasia is an extension of a global program.

Our evidence-based, sequential method was developed to help people overcome grief.

As a result of our training, people describe having a “weight lifted from their shoulders” and a renewed ability to enjoy their life.

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STERBs: The Coping Habits That Quietly Delay Recovery

Grief is one of the most universal human experiences, and yet grieving is often one of the loneliest.

Everyone eventually loses someone or something significant. And yet, once the funeral, the settlement or the initial shock has passed, the world around a griever tends to move on far faster than the griever does.

This is the grief loss paradox. Something almost everyone will experience becomes something very few people feel they can talk about honestly, for very long.

Friends check in for a week or two, then quietly stop asking. Colleagues expect a return to normal function long before grief has actually resolved. The griever is often left carrying something enormous, largely alone, precisely because grief is so common that everyone assumes someone else is checking in.

How Grief Support Has Evolved

For a long time, grief support meant waiting. Give it time, people were told, and the pain would fade on its own.

That approach has not aged well. Time alone does not complete unresolved grief. It simply allows unresolved grief to sit quietly underneath a person's daily life, sometimes for years.

The shift towards action-based recovery reframes grief entirely. Rather than a wound that simply needs time, grief is treated as something with real, learnable actions that lead to genuine completion, not just distraction or endurance.

This is a significant shift, because it gives grievers something time alone never could: a way to actively move through pain, rather than simply waiting for it to become bearable.

The Grief Recovery Method Action Plan:

How Recovery Actually Happens

The Grief Recovery Method is a structured, action-based process that helps a griever complete their relationship with a specific loss.

Completion does not mean forgetting, and it does not mean the relationship or loss stops mattering. It means being able to remember the whole relationship honestly, the good and the difficult parts both, without being overwhelmed by unresolved pain each time.

The Action Plan typically helps a griever work through:

Unspoken words, things they wish they had said, or wish they had not said

Unfulfilled hopes, dreams and expectations tied to the relationship or loss

Both the positive and the painful parts of the relationship, since most relationships include both

This is meaningfully different from simply "getting over it" or "moving on." It is a guided, structured way of finishing what was left unfinished, so grief no longer sits quietly underneath everyday life.

Supporting Someone Who Is Grieving

If someone you care about is grieving, you do not need the perfect words. You need to avoid the unhelpful patterns most of us were taught by default.

More helpful approaches include:

Acknowledging the loss directly, rather than avoiding the topic altogether

Asking open questions like "Do you want to talk about it, or would you rather I just sit with you?"

Continuing to check in well after the first few weeks, when most other support has quietly stopped

Avoiding comparisons to your own losses, even when well-intentioned

Letting them feel however they feel, without rushing them towards "moving on"

Less helpful, even if well-meaning, approaches include:

"Everything happens for a reason"

"They're in a better place now"

"At least you still have..."

"You need to stay strong"

"It's time to move on"

Presence, consistency and honesty tend to help far more than any perfectly worded sentence.

Training & Certification

Learn a step-by-step framework to help your clients overcome grief and loss.

Grief Recovery Program

Work through an action and evidence-based program to move on from grief.

Helping Children with Loss

Equip your team to help their clients transition beyond feelings of despair.

Resources

Access helpful publications written for children, adults and therapists.

Download Guide for Loss

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TESTIMONIALS

Hear from Australasianss who have participated in the Grief Recovery Method training.

Loss of a Child

Grieving the Loss of a Child

Grieving the Loss of Family

Grief from Childhood

Why Choose Grief Recovery Method?

A unique program that is more than counselling

46-Year History

Grief Recovery Method has been shared for almost 50 years.

Evidence-Based

You won’t find any other evidence-based grief recovery method training.

Step-by-Step Program

Go beyond understanding and take action to move beyond the pain of loss.

Improve Your Therapeutic Services

Grief Recovery Method has been shared for almost 50 years.

Caring, Authentic

Team

You won’t find any other evidence-based grief recovery method training.

Learn to Live

Go beyond understanding and take action to move beyond the pain of loss.

From Our Blog

You don’t have to feel alone.

Grief Awareness Day: Normalizing Grief and Grief Recovery

GRM Blog

July 10, 2024•3 min read

You’ve probably heard this famous Benjamin Franklin quote, “…nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes.”

We say grief should be on that list too.

Raise your hand if you’ve experienced the heartache of a break-up, the death of a friend, family member, or pet, a miscarriage, loss of trust, losing a job, a child leaving home, bankruptcy, retirement or any other loss?

There’s a huge likelihood that you have.

August 30 is Grief Awareness Day, a perfect time to spread the word that everyone grieves, that grief is normal and natural and that no one should grieve alone.

HOW DID GRIEF AWARENESS DAY START

Grief Awareness Day was founded in 2014 by Angie Cartwright. Angie knew what it was like to experience grief and the loneliness and misinformation that comes along with it. As a young child her sister died, then years later she lived through the death of her husband and mother. In fact, Angie chose August 30 for Grief Awareness Day to honor her mother’s birthday.

Angie Cartwright’s goal in creating this day was not only to educate others about grief but to inspire people to be honest about their own heartache so that grievers around the world would know that they aren’t alone. Angie even started a petition to make Grief Awareness Day a national holiday.

GRIEF EDUCATION

Grief Awareness Day is the perfect time to discuss misinformation about grief. One popular example is the infamous stages of grief. In 1969, Elizabeth Kubler Ross wrote the book On Death and Dying in which she discussed emotions that a patient might feel upon finding out they have a terminal illness. I’m sure you know the stages: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. The problem is that people have applied these arbitrary stages that a terminal patient might feel to something that all grievers do feel. And it’s simply not true. Some grievers cry, some don’t. Some grievers are angry, others are not. Grief is unique to each individual, so classifying stages can be harmful.

Although there are no stages of grief, there are common characteristics that grievers may experience. Difficulty concentrating and sleeping, or changes in their eating habits are just a few.

Another huge piece of misinformation is the advice people give about grief. Have you ever heard the myth that grief just takes time? In over 40+ years helping grievers we’ve found that time hasn’t healed anyone’s broken heart. It’s the action someone takes during a certain time frame that helps them recover.

Or have you heard or that you should keep busy? All that keeping busy does is distract grievers from their feelings. Keeping busy keeps people stuck in their pain.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Awareness is a great first step. A plan to recover is a logical next step. For over 40 years the Grief Recovery Method has helped countless grievers heal their broken hearts and trained thousands Certified Grief Recovery Specialists to help others using a program that is proven to work.

So let’s all unite to help society become more aware that grief is normal and natural and that The Grief Recovery Method heals broken hearts when someone is willing to do the work. Let’s make sure grievers get the support they need.

Here are a few actionable steps you can take today to get started:

Share this blog
Check on someone you know who has a broken heart
Give a copy of The Grief Recovery Handbook
Join our 90-Day Heal your Heart Challenge
Become a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist

Are you grieving and interested in knowing more?

Amanda Lambros

Amanda is the Executive Director of the Grief Recovery Institute of Australasia …but how she managed to get here is no less than pure passion, purpose and serendipity.

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