As a grief coach, I am here to support you through life’s most difficult transitions.
Andrea Sugar
With years of experience working alongside individuals and families navigating loss, I’ve supported people through grief in many forms, from sudden loss to anticipated death, and the complex emotions that follow.
Core ValuesYOU DON'T HAVE TO CARRY THIS ALONE
Making friends with grief, a necessary companion. Grief, although often rejected, is a necessary, albeit uncomfortable companion.
I believe the depths of our grief are directly connected to our capacity for joy; I create a safe space to befriend and understand what grief is for you.
Here’s how we work together
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Here’s how we work together •
1.
We begin by creating a space where your grief can be named and honored without judgment. This is a place where you can show up exactly as you are and feel supported in your experience.
A Safe Space to Begin
2.
Next, we gently explore tools that help you better understand your emotions and build steadiness within yourself and your family. This becomes a foundation for navigating grief in a more supported way.
Understanding and Tools
3.
Then, we begin integrating your grief—learning how to live with it as a companion rather than something to fight against, so you can move forward with more clarity and connection.
Integration and Moving Forward
"I cannot overstate the impact Andrea had on our family’s ability to communicate. She has a rare gift for facilitating the 'hard talks'—from discussing advanced directives to addressing unspoken fears—with grace and clarity. By helping us build our comfort with the inevitable outcome, Andrea empowered us to have honest, meaningful interactions that we would have otherwise avoided. Andrea didn't just support my dying family member; she gave our entire family the tools to support one another without regret."
Keren C.
To stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness, and wanting to get revenge - that is the path of true awakening. Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic – this is the spiritual path.
-Pema Chӧdrӧn
Andrea became a death doula at the beginning of 2020 and received her certification from the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine. As she was preparing to serve new clients, COVID-19 hit the world, and she had to readjust what serving would look like in these new, and incredibly challenging, times. She was inspired to create a virtual death doula network so that people did not have to move through the dying process alone, despite not being able to be physically present.
Partnering with other colleagues, the Virtual Death Doula Network (VDDN) was born. It was a natural and seamless alliance between the three of them, and together they have cultivated an opportunity to serve and reach people worldwide.
About Andrea Sugar
Andrea (She/Her) is a Boulder, CO-based Grief & Life Coach and End of Life Doula. She is also a Reiki practitioner with a background in community mental health, addiction studies, and suicide research. Andrea also has extensive experience working with veterans who have returned from war zones.
Andrea started intuitive life and grief coaching as a professional in 2019, although she has done this most of her life. She supports people in their journey to hear their inner voice and trust it, as it is tied to our self-worth and ability to grow.
This includes many aspects that she has brought forward as a grief educator through her life’s work and coaching:
Learning the tools to hear and trust your own innate wisdom.
Learning to sit with discomfort and difficult emotions.
Assistance with identifying and working through self-sabotaging behaviors.
Help to fully explore one’s life purpose.
Exploring tools to overcome traumas.
Creating safety and security within oneself and surroundings.
Certifications and Memberships
I strive to talk about death and grief with people to break the stigma of living in a death-denying culture. As a death and grief educator, I show up authentically, proudly, and openly. My purpose is to remove the taboo, have these crucial conversations to ensure that people can have a “good” death, whatever that means to them. And, albeit difficult, to build a strong relationship with grief because ultimately it reduces suffering, because what you resist persists. If you don’t get to know your grief, it will still come out in surprising and unusual ways and get in your way, versus standing next to you as part of an integrated human experience. Grief tells us that we’re alive, and it is a gift that helps us to reaffirm how we want to live our lives."
-Andrea Sugar
Founder and CEO, Grief & Life Coach, Certified End of Life Doula, Educator, VDDN Co-Founder, CEO
From Andrea:
My journey with grief – anticipatory and complicated grief - throughout my life has provided the painful life experiences that have grown my heart to what it is now. Every other year from the time I was 8 years old to 17, someone close to me died. From my close Aunt dying from cancer to my best friend at 14 years old, who was killed by being struck by lightning, and I watched it happen. At an early age, I realized that grief shows up differently for each person. My mom couldn’t stop holding me, and I found it hard to breathe. I needed space, and she needed closeness. No one is wrong in their experience of grief, but we all need something and experience something different.
While my heart was shattered, it gave me the opportunity to put it back together the way I wanted, and I gave it the space to grow. It is my biggest muscle! I had to get intimate with my own vulnerability, as it was spilling out everywhere. My grief was “messy,” and this is a realistic way to describe my inner turmoil, confusion, and feelings. Grief is unpredictable, and by getting to know my grief intimately, I am able to move with it, and greet it when it shows up, recognizing it and naming it as “my grief,” and honoring what it needs within me. I might need to sit down and cry, maybe not do anything, but acknowledge that it exists. It is a visitor that was perhaps once unwelcome, to now becoming my companion. Something that I have learned to live with over my lifetime. And I’m a lifelong learner, and I don’t believe anyone is ever done with grief, whether in small situations or major life events.