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Grief and End-of-Life Journey: a discussion for caregivers

05/24/2023 , 11:00 am 12:00 pm

During the one-hour session, Holly Strelzik ( Founder & President of Center for the Heart) will discuss:

— An Exploration of Grief and the End-of-Life Journey

— How Grief Myths, Behaviors  and Our Relationship with Grief Can Make Us Freeze in Our Grief Journey, Preventing Completion

— The Benefits of Having Support

— How End-of-Life Providers Work In-Sync with Hospice, Hospitals, Senior Facilities and More

Holly’s personal grief journey, training and professional experiences have uniquely prepared her to serve those facing a wide variety of loss and grief in their lives. At the age of 15, her parents divorced and her mother moved away, leaving her to care for my siblings. Within the next two years, She experienced two close friends’ deaths, while they were only in their teens, and she then moved away. Holly graduated from university and after several more moves made her way to New York City.

Through a series of traumatic events (flashbacks of abuse, a near-death experience due to an aneurysm and the dismantling of her family), grief became debilitating. Still sick and having seizures, Holly began volunteering with hospice and in other capacities at the hospital, in between her testing and procedures. Holly found the company of these individuals in similar situations comforting and sacred. After continuing this for many years, she began to explore the art of dying. Following various trainings, grief emerged as the most present factor in all her work with clients (grief for family members, first diagnosis, non-tangible grief, etc.). 

The onset of COVID was compounded by an enormously grief-inducing life change. Holly’s husband of over 40 years was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, a disease that has touched several people close to her. Just before the health crisis and throughout, her family also lost many loved ones. Though Holly was no stranger to loss, she became keenly aware of how ill-equipped most people were to deal with it and the resulting grief. This is when Holly discovered the Grief Recovery Method®, and she is now a certified Advanced Grief Recovery Method Specialist™.

The enormous changes and the intense grief in these last few years have propelled Holly into creating the Center for the Heart. As she walks together with her husband in his illness, her driving passions are supporting research and care for the Alzheimer’s community and any other life-threatening disease, as well as providing end-of-life and grief services to all regardless of their financial ability.

Free
290 Broad Street
Summit, NJ 07901 United States
908.598.5548