When a beloved pet dies, the owner’s world usually collapses. Not only do they lose a loyal companion who accompanied them day and night and gave them affection and trust, their everyday life also changes massively as a result of the loss. There are no longer regular cuddle and play times with the animal and dogs no longer have to go on daily walks.
But those affected often encounter little understanding of their deep grief from people who have never had a pet. Sentences like “Get another kitten right now” or “Don’t be so sad, it was just a dog” are particularly painful.
“I know how difficult it is to lose your animal companion and how painful it is when others dismiss this difficult loss with little empathy,” says Claudia Kolb. The grief for her cat Mucki, which the PR expert from Linz lost in January 2023 after more than 16 years together, pushed her to the limit of what she could bear on some days.
Writing helps
At that time, she began working on her grief with deep journaling (writing therapy). “It’s about writing down what’s bothering you deep down,” explains the 51-year-old, who completed training as a deep journaling constructor in 2022. This method made it easier for her to accept and overcome her cat’s death.
In order to help other people who have lost a beloved pet, Kolb developed an eight-week online course (www.pfotentrauer.com) based on deep journaling under the title “Pfotentrauerreise” in June 2023. “On this journey, I accompany mourners through the recurring phases of grief with loving writing impulses and rituals,” says Kolb.
The Linzer native also runs a blog on her website called “Soul Food” with encouraging texts and her own experiences. There is a new post every Sunday. “In it, I repeatedly address topics that particularly concern people on my social media channels, which I have been running since the summer.” The experiences of the past few months on Facebook (www.facebook.com/Pfotentrauer) and Instagram (www.instagram.com/pfotentrauer) have shown that those affected particularly benefit from the community they would experience there: “They want to be understood, to grieve and share their own stories.” Because every grief is as individual as the shared history with the animal.
“In the closed group on my Facebook page and on Instagram, I offer people space for their grief and support them with individual posts on the topic,” says Kolb. In addition, those interested can find a seven-day accompaniment on a specific topic every month. In September the theme was “Memories” and in October the theme was “Pain”. For November (starting on November 13th) the community asked for the topic “The legacy of your spirit animal” in a survey.
“The fact that I show my own grief openly encourages many people to own their feelings,” says Kolb happily. An old video alone, in which the woman from Linz strokes her cat and quotes “What it is” by Erich Fried, had 134,000 views on Facebook in three weeks.
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Source: Nachrichten
