Tina Kopko, LMFT, Certified Grief Recovery Specialist

01/23/2025

https://youtube.com/shorts/fIhV0fneK0E?si=8t-i4CB_cElF1oiI

You can find the full interview on Dr. Ramami’s Network https://firesidechat.com/drramaninetworkWhat is the definitive symptom? Why might we do it? How to ge...

11/29/2024

Memories can be like a rollercoaster—sometimes they bring joy, other times they leave you feeling raw. But the important thing is to make more room for them to exist and to stop judging yourself for having them. As the year winds down and we're surrounded by memories, missing loved ones, or feeling alone, allow yourself to feel everything. Create times on your calendar for feelings and self-care. Allow yourself to be in service to your heart and not to others, even if it’s just for 5 minutes one day.

Curious about how grief may be affecting you this season or what happens in my 8-week grief recovery groups? Let’s talk. I offer free consultations to explore what healing could look like for you. Reach out today and stop putting yourself on the back burner.

11/22/2024

Unresolved grief doesn’t vanish over time; it waits patiently, held deep within. Often, it can show up unexpectedly, in moments we thought were behind us. That’s because grief needs acknowledgment—it needs to be heard, understood, and given space to breathe. Facing our grief isn't easy, but it's a crucial part of finally healing the broken and wounded parts of our hearts and souls after any kind of loss.

If you're ready to explore what healing can look like, I’m here to support you. Reach out for a free consultation, and we’ll discuss how this journey can lead to peace.

11/15/2024

Grief isn’t something you can avoid by going around it, ignoring it, or pushing it aside. The truth is you must go through it to get to the other side. That means telling the truth about your emotions, acknowledging the past, saying what needs to be said, and getting help to hold the parts of your loss that feel too heavy. The advantages of taking this approach to healing from loss are:
-Improved relationships
-Reconnection to your life force and motivation to make plans for your future
-Less procrastination or avoiding things
-Getting out of overwhelm and into healthy, balanced action toward your goals
-A cessation of unexpected painful memories popping up
-Feeling at peace with the souls and personalities of those who have died

I teach people the steps of grief recovery over 8 sessions, with lots of acknowledgment of their unique situations, experiences, and feelings.

If you’re curious about how your life could improve by learning about grief recovery, let’s talk. I offer free consultations, and I’m here to guide you down the path toward relief and recovery after significant loss.

11/14/2024

If you've been struggling with fertility issues and have tried everything western medicine has asked of you with no results, it's time to go see Jessida at Rivers of Qi Acupuncture. If there are few people you can talk to about this right now, Jessida will listen with compassion and hopefulness. She'll even help you get more comfortable understanding the needles, how small and short they are and how very little pain is involved in acupuncture. She's had great results with her patients, and I highly recommend her to my community.

Fertility or "infertility" is a journey of ups and downs, which are much easier to navigate when you have a support system. Even if you're not ready to tell family or friends, creating a support system of people who know the types of things that happen on this journey and can be a sounding board for you is key.
Choose providers that you click with who can really support you. It is also helpful that acupuncture is very good at unblocking the body and calming the mind!

11/08/2024

Grief isn’t something we "get over." It’s something we learn to live with. However, in my work with those impacted by loss, I guide them to the places where something has been left incomplete. That can include undelivered or unspoken sentiments and feelings, regrets, gratitude, and thanks, or truths that were hard to verbalize while the person was in your life. If you find yourself wishing the ending could have been different, or even that there didn’t have to be an ending (in the case of divorce, breakups, and friendship endings), I can show you the steps of recovery so that you can move forward with joy and aliveness again.

When you’re ready, I’m here to show you the process of Grief Recovery. Reach out for a free consultation to discuss working through this together, either in a group environment or one-on-one.

11/01/2024

Most of us were never taught how to handle grief. Growing up, we were told to be strong, keep busy, or just “move on.” But real recovery doesn’t happen by ignoring the pain. True healing comes from learning skills we should have been taught as kids—skills that allow us to face our losses head-on, without fear or shame.
Grief isn’t a life sentence; it’s a call to heal. If you’ve ever felt like you don’t know how to “get over” a loss, it’s not a flaw in you; it’s simply a lack of tools. Let’s change that together.

Reach out for a free consultation to learn more about healing from loss.

10/25/2024

Recovery isn't passive, it’s something you actively work on. It’s not about waiting for time to heal things or hoping feelings will just go away on their own. Real healing takes action—action that requires your full attention, open-mindedness, and the willingness to face things head-on. Yes, it’s uncomfortable at times, and yes, it takes courage. But that’s how you begin to recover—by being brave enough to acknowledge what’s been left incomplete and taking the steps to finally let go of the pain.

Want to learn more about why attending to your grief will help you, your physical health, and your relationships in the long run? Contact me today for a free initial consultation. I look forward to working with you.

10/18/2024

Healing isn’t quick, and it's definitely not a straight line. Sometimes it feels like you're stuck, not moving forward fast enough. But the truth is, healing takes as long as it needs, and that’s okay. Every emotion has its place, and when we stop trying to rush through or push them aside, that’s when real progress happens. It's not about pretending everything’s fine when it’s not—it's about feeling each wave fully and letting it wash over you without judgment.

If you’re ready to stop ignoring the pain and start working through it, I’m here for you. Reach out for a free consultation, and let’s see how we can walk this path together.

10/11/2024

Unresolved grief isn’t just about the loss itself—it’s about the words we never got to say, the sentiments left unspoken, the failure to be acknowledged and validated in our pain, resentment or anger, and the emotional weight we still carry. When we don’t have a chance to express what’s on our hearts, it doesn’t just disappear. It lingers, showing up in ways we don’t expect—through frustration, sadness, resentment, powerlessness, righteous anger, disillusionment, or even physical ailments and syndromes.

True healing happens when we take the steps of Grief Recovery and deliver those emotional messages to a neutral third party who will not argue with our perspective or tell us we shouldn't feel how we feel. Finally being heard, witnessed, and validated, is tending the ground to be ready for letting go and moving forward without the painful feelings.

If you’re ready to explore what’s been holding you back, let’s talk. Reach out for a free consultation, and we’ll see how Grief Recovery can help you find resolution.

10/04/2024

Ghandi was not just a great teacher, but a great practitioner of AHIMSA, or the complete lack of violence in word, thought, and action (what we call nonviolence). I choose to honor his courage and bravery by choosing to not violate one of the core aspects of my humanity - my emotions. One of the ways you can practice nonviolence is to refuse to bury, suppress, or ignore your own grief, and instead make more room for it, honor and respect it. When we honor something instead of hating it or condemning it, it can transform into something beautiful. Ghandi practiced unconditional love, and a refusal to hate or violate the human rights of even his fiercest enemies, who often became great friends and supporters. We can follow in his footsteps in even small ways, turning rigidity against vulnerability, or wanting to appear "strong" into actual connection with our fellow humans; turning hatred and rage into compassion and support. How will you choose to remember Gandhi and practice nonviolence today?

09/27/2024

Isolation can often be a self-protective response to a hostile or scary world.
I know a lot of people right now who have turned inward to:
-Reduce overstimulating sensory information
-Hold healthy boundaries with other people
-Recover from grief, loss, trauma, disappointment, disillusionment, frustration, etc.

So isolation isn’t all bad.

How do you know you’ve become too isolated?
-You tell yourself you have failed at creating friendships
-Your self-esteem is tanking
-You start to believe you’re permanently flawed, or no one could love you or care about you
-Your self-care has gone out the window
-Other areas of your life are suffering because you avoid connecting with others

When those things start to happen, reach out to your inner circle, the people you trust implicitly (it might just be one friend, a therapist, or a mentor), and share honestly what you’ve been going through. Find a connection to a power higher than yourself – what do you believe is the connecting force of the Universe? Who’s your fairy godmother? Imagine asking for guidance from those sources and receiving wisdom in the form of your intuition.

When isolation is becoming harmful to your health, it’s time to find something you can trust in and begin to open the doors to the outside world again. Whatever that is for you – I encourage you to start to embrace it and make it a part of your daily ritual.