• Meet them with compassion not judgment.
• Acknowledge and explore their experience.
• Don’t push, stay neutral in your own agenda, and explore more.
• Be their ally.
• Address survival first.
• Help them process the loss.
• Help them form a plan.
• Coach for connectedness.
• Build self-esteem.
• Nothing succeeds like success. -> Help the health-challenged person to take small steps to prepare for change and then experiment with actions where they are most ready. Build on these easier successes and leave the tougher challenges for later after confidence has been built.

Maslow reminds us that “growth forward customarily takes place in little steps, and each step forward is made possible by the feeling of being safe, of operating out into the unknown from a safe home port, of daring because retreat is possible.” (Toward A Psychology of Being, 1962). To emerge from that home port, our client needs to be in the process of working through their grief, they need to be moving up the spiraling stages of change, and how better to set sail towards the unknown lands of change than with a good ally?