Loss and Grief program comes to Strathmore

Melissa Strle
Times Reporter

 

Lee Simonin, Certified Edu-Therapy Specialist, has started a Loss and Grief program in Strathmore to help people who are suffering from any one of a multitude of different losses including the loss of a loved one, divorce, job loss, illness or financial losses, to name a few.
According to Simonin, there are approximately 60 different losses in life, and Strathmore had very few resources available in loss and grief when she needed the help in her own life. So she researched and found a program titled Edu-Therapy Grief Resolution to help people gain freedom from the life-limiting effects of unresolved loss events.
Edu-Therapy solutions is a cognitive behavioural process designed for healing grieving hearts.
Simonin decided to research and offer this program for Strathmore residents after she experi-enced a tremendous loss in her own life, when her husband Ron passed away from esophageal cancer on Oct. 26, 2015. He was 59 years of age at the time and had been diagnosed only three and a half months prior.
“It’s very difficult watching someone you love die. Watching him slowly lose pieces of himself, I lost pieces of me,” said Simonin, adding that she lost her best friend, her biggest cheerleader and her companion of 31 years and father of her only daughter Bailee.
Three months into her grief journey, she called Alberta Health Services (AHS) to try to talk to someone offering a grief program and was told there would be a waiting period of three months. “That’s a long time when you need help now and you can’t get it,” said Simonin.
Eventually, she was able to talk to someone at AHS, but found out she would have to wait an-other month for the next session.
Around the same time, Simonin sought out joining a widows group but revealed that she was told there would be a seven-month wait.
“That really pushed me forward into thinking there is something I can do to help Strathmore and the surrounding communities and just help other people who are feeling the same way I was,” said Simonin.
So, Simonin took the Edu-Therapy Grief Resolution program, first as a griever and then as a training program. The program provides effective tools for dealing with the conflicting emotions caused by loss. Additionally, it moves grievers into the present and teaches healthy, emotional coping skills.
The program tries to help grievers reduce and eliminate intense uncomfortable emotional re-sponses to loss, trauma and abuse.
Simonin thinks the program is important since some people may not understand those who are grieving. Additionally, grievers may tend to isolate themselves and grieve more.
Simonin attributes the program with helping her to take baby steps in dealing with her pain and live in the present as opposed to the past.
“The program has helped lower the intensity of the pain and the emotions,” she said. “I believe this program has moved me forward in just living today.”
She also attributes pet therapy and Reiki healing as methods she has utilized to help her handle her loss.
Simonin offers the program on a one-on-one basis, and also helps facilitate group therapy ses-sions along with Francis and Lynn Van Bussel through Wheatland Funeral Home.
Currently, an eight-week group session is underway and registrations are open for future eight week sessions.
According to Simonin, the efficacy of taking group versus one-on-one sessions “very much de-pends on the individual,” since everybody grieves differently.
It is coming up to a year since Simonin’s husband passed away.
“Leading up to this date, I have a little bit of anxiety,” she said.
But, she added that she has learned acceptance and is trying to live life to the fullest and would like to make a difference in someone else’s life.
“I am and always will be grateful for my husband Ron’s encouragement throughout our life to-gether,” she said.
Simonin believes the program will help people a great deal.
“I think it’s something that Strathmore and the surrounding areas will really benefit from,” she said.
Both individual and group sessions are offered from one to two hours, once a week for eight weeks.
Simonin offers a free consultation and can be reached through her Facebook Page at Divine Hearts Healing or webpage (www.divineheartshealing.com).