Grief & Loss Practitioner | Warboys, Cambridgeshire
Hello, I’m Jane
I’m Jane Swannell, a Grief & Loss Practitioner, and I offer compassionate, personalised support to people navigating bereavement, grief and significant loss.
I work from The Garden Room in Warboys, near Huntingdon – a calm and welcoming space where you can take some time away from the demands of everyday life, talk openly and simply be yourself.
But perhaps more importantly than where I work is why I do this work.
Caring for Others Has Always Been Part of Who I Am
From an early age, I felt drawn towards supporting and nurturing those around me, so a career in Learning Disability Nursing felt like a natural path.
What I valued most about nursing was supporting people to recognise their own strengths, develop confidence and live their lives as fully as possible.
It taught me something that has stayed with me throughout my life:
People often have more strength and resources within them than they realise.
Sometimes we simply need the right support and someone alongside us while we rediscover them.
That belief continues to sit at the heart of the work I do today.
My Own Path Hasn’t Always Been Easy
Like many people, I’ve experienced difficult and painful periods in my life.
Those experiences led me to become increasingly curious about how our minds work, how we respond when life changes unexpectedly and why some experiences can leave us feeling overwhelmed, anxious or disconnected from the person we once were.
That curiosity initially led me towards hypnotherapy and an interest in the connection between our thoughts, emotions and behaviours.
My first attempt at training didn’t quite go according to plan. Life was busy with work and family commitments and, at that time, I simply didn’t have the space to continue.
But that wasn’t the end of the story.
When Grief Changed My Direction
Of all the losses I have experienced in my life, the most significant was the sudden and unexpected death of my daughter when she was just 30 years old.
There are some experiences that change us profoundly, and for me, this was one of them.
My own experience of bereavement gave me an understanding of grief that couldn’t come from a textbook or training course. I came to understand personally how grief can reach into almost every part of our lives – our emotions and thoughts, our relationships, sleep, confidence, energy and even our sense of who we are.
I also learned that grief doesn’t follow a neat path or timetable. There isn’t a point at which we simply “get over” the loss of someone we love. Instead, over time, we can begin to find ways of living with what has happened and gradually build our lives around our grief.
My experience eventually led me back to my studies, but this time with a much deeper sense of purpose.
I wanted to understand more about grief, the mind and our capacity to adapt following profound change. I wanted to develop the knowledge and skills that could complement the compassion and understanding that come from lived experience.
Over time, my personal experience, nursing background and professional training came together and led me to the work I feel most drawn to today:
Supporting people as they navigate their own experience of grief and loss.
I will never presume to know exactly how another person feels simply because I have experienced bereavement myself. Every relationship, every loss and every experience of grief is unique.
But I do understand something of what it means when the life you knew changes in a way you never expected.
Why I Became a Grief & Loss Practitioner
I don’t believe grief is something that needs to be fixed.
Nor do I believe there is a right way to grieve, a set timetable to follow or a point at which someone should simply have “moved on”.
Loss becomes part of our story.
My role is to provide a compassionate, non-judgemental space where you can make sense of some of what you’re experiencing and begin to discover what you need as you adjust to life following loss.
That might mean helping you understand your responses to grief, finding ways to calm an overwhelmed mind, rebuilding confidence, improving your emotional wellbeing or beginning to reconnect with parts of life that have felt distant.
It isn’t about forgetting.
It isn’t about leaving someone or something important behind.
It’s about learning how to carry what matters while gradually finding your way forward.
My Professional Approach
My professional training enables me to draw upon a range of approaches, including:
Solution Focused Hypnotherapy
NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming)
BLAST
Edu-Therapy
Coaching techniques
I also have training in Time Line Therapy.
You don’t need to understand these approaches or decide which one you need before coming to see me.
I don’t believe in fitting people into a particular technique.
Instead, I look at the person sitting in front of me – what you’ve experienced, how you’re feeling now and what you would like to be different – and tailor our work accordingly.
We can talk more about the different approaches during your initial consultation and decide together what feels appropriate for you.
What You Can Expect From Me
Above all, you can expect me to be human.
I’ll listen without judgement.
I’ll respect your experiences and the relationship you have with your loss.
I won’t tell you how you should be feeling or where you should be in your grief.
And I won’t expect you to have all the answers.
What I will do is walk alongside you, offering professional support, understanding and practical therapeutic approaches that can help you begin to feel more resourced and able to navigate the life ahead.
There may be difficult conversations, but there can also be warmth, hope and even laughter.
All of it is welcome.
A Little About The Garden Room
I work from The Garden Room in Warboys, Cambridgeshire, conveniently located for Huntingdon, St Ives, Ramsey, Chatteris and the surrounding areas.
I’ve created it to feel calm, comfortable and welcoming – somewhere you can step away from everyday life for a while and have space that’s just for you.
I also offer online sessions for those who prefer to work together from their own home or who live further afield.
When You’re Ready
Reaching out to someone you don’t yet know and talking about something deeply personal isn’t always easy.
That’s one of the reasons I offer a free initial consultation.
There’s no expectation that you need to commit to working with me.
It’s simply an opportunity for us to meet, talk about what has brought you here, discuss what you might need and see whether I feel like the right person to support you.
All you’re signing up for is a conversation.
And sometimes, one conversation is a good place to begin.