A grief counselor shares how reframing loss as love transforms our relationship with grief, helping us release emotional weight while honoring those we've lost.
Influential Woman · Grief coaching
Julie Farnsworth
TBRI, EMDR
Trauma informed certified grief counselor, One Free Soul Grief Journey, LLC
Center Valley, PA 18034
1Article published
3Awards received
Her Story
About Julie
Julie Farnsworth is a social worker and grief coach based in Center Valley, Pennsylvania. She works full time as a social worker for Early Head Start and operates her part-time grief coaching business, One Free Soul Grief Journey, which she founded in February. Her professional journey began as a foster care caseworker and has included various roles in mental health and counseling with families, with a growing concentration in grief and loss. She holds a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's degree in human and social services with a concentration in counseling, and she has been accepted into a doctorate program. Farnsworth maintains certifications as a trauma-informed grief coach, TBRI practitioner, brain-body medicine practitioner, EMDR practitioner, and NeuroChange Practitioner. She serves as a contributing editor for Brains Magazine, where she received a global creative contributing award, and she was featured in the Women in Power documentary. She is a member of the Lehigh Valley Women's Summit, Lehigh Valley Chamber, Moms Demand Action, and Ceasefire. In addition to her professional work, Farnsworth volunteers with foster parent trainings through the Kindness Project and assists with bingo at Cedarbrook Nursing Home.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Julie
01What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Don't lose yourself in the work. You can't be the one to think you're gonna save people and change people. People aren't problems to be solved. They're individuals with their own beliefs, their own thoughts, their own lives, and the best you can do is to be there for them sometimes... you have to also have a boundary so that you're not losing yourself in the work.
Her Content Hub
Articles by Julie
Unpack and feel lighter for your healing journey ahead
Learning to carry love instead of burden: a grief counselor's perspective on healing.
When People Hear That I'm a Grief Counselor
They all have a similar reaction. I usually hear, "Wow, that's so heavy."
I disagree with this.
Yes, the emotion of grief can make us feel heavy if we don't know what to do with it in the future.
One of the biggest reasons grief feels so heavy is because it starts out as a form of love with nowhere to go.
Over time, if we carry it around like a heavy burden, though, it will continue to weigh us down.
So, what if we start to think about grief differently?
What if, instead, we think of it as learning to let go of the grief while carrying the love for the person we lost?
What if we challenge the notion that grief and loss are so heavy that we can't carry them?
What if we start thinking about it like packing for a future trip?
- We only want to carry the best things with us.
- We only want things that make us feel good to come on the journey.
- We can choose to carry the love we have for our loved ones, and the love they gave us, with us.
If we do this, we realize we are not simply moving on. We are learning to lessen the burden of carrying heavy grief with us.
Can You Imagine What That Might Feel Like?
Close your eyes and picture them.
Picture them floating in your mind and in your heart.
Picture them in a happy memory or in a place they enjoyed being, or somewhere you enjoyed being together.
Let these memories fill you with love, peace, and warmth.
This doesn't feel heavy.
This doesn't feel burdensome.
This feels like honoring them in a way that lets you carry them lovingly, fondly, and warmly.
This is not a weight to carry.
Your body feels freer, lighter, stronger. It endured something that once felt impossibly heavy.
Much like a backpack full of things we don't need, we can recognize that we don't have to bring everything with us on our future journey.
The backpack is no longer weighing us down.
It feels freeing.
So, actually, being a grief counselor is just the opposite of holding something heavy.
It's about helping others learn that they no longer have to feel weighed down by grief.
It's about helping people discover that they can release some of the weight while carrying forward the love.
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