Mental Health Counselor Authors Book on Death Loss

By Mariam Sylla

Colorado native Janelle Johnson is known as a licensed professional counselor, mental health speaker, mental health television correspondent, national certified counselor, and businesswoman. She recently added the title of author with her new book, “When Grief Becomes US: Death Loss.”

“It’s needed now, and I think, always because we’re not guaranteed much in life but we hope that we are living and we are going to die at some point,” says Johnson, the founder of Life Balance Counseling, a mental health private practice she formed in 2011 to work specifically with adult clients in areas such as relationship conflict, emotional regulation, anxiety, and grief and loss. “We’re going to experience death loss; it’s going to be our own death or the death of someone we know.”

Part of the inspiration for her book came as she was prepar- ing to complete her master’s degree at Regis University and an internship at Judi’s House in Denver. The nonprofit was cofounded in 2002 by former Denver Broncos quarterback Brian Griese, in memory of his mother who passed away when he was 12 years old. The cofounder is his wife, Dr. Brook Griese, a clinical psychologist specializing in trauma and loss. The now Aurora-based organization provides grieving children and families a safe space to come together to find connection and healing.

Johnson attributes a huge part of where she is today to the experience she gained there, so much so that the organization received an honorable mention in the book.

She was simultaneously dealing with the fact that her grandmother had six months to live, and ironically, she was working with groups of all ages on bereavement. Specifically, she had the opportunity to work with children as young as 3 years old to adults over the age of 80 years old. When her grandmother passed away right before Johnson’s graduation ceremony, she found herself trying to hold a space to deal with this loss as well as focus on her health in the midst of all of the big changes happening in her life.

“This subject is personal. I think it’s personal to everybody, but it’s definitely personal to me,” stresses Johnson, who is pursuing a doctorate in philosophy in the counselor education and supervision program at Grand Canyon University.

Working with people experiencing death loss and grief is what she calls her “life calling.” She believes that it all began because the director of Judi’s House welcomed her into the program to complete her internship and practicum. She was able to obtain the experience, then naturally she was able to find that this was what she was called to do.

Released in February, “When Death Becomes US: Death Loss” is a book that Johnson hopes will provide foresight on grief, coping skills and more to the bereaved. She emphasizes the impact that death loss can have on a bereaved person’s vulnerabilities, attachments and emotional state as they navigate through grief and death loss.

When thinking about the main inspiration that solidified her decision to begin writing this publication, she recounts a situation she calls “a sign.” While at the drive-through window at a Starbucks, she was surprised to learn that the good Samaritan ahead of her had already paid for her order and left a card. The card had information in memory of a significant death loss of a loved one that they were honoring by paying it forward. Johnson noticed that the date of birth of the person they were honoring was the same as the person Johnson was deciding whether or not to commemorate in the book.

“When I got that card, to me it said ‘keep going,’” says Johnson, who then began her new journey of writing this book in commemoration of her high school sweetheart and first significant death loss, Tyrone.

Johnson points out that she didn’t find the writing part of this journey to be the biggest challenge, but rather the changes and sacrifices she had to make to complete the book. A couple of those challenges being time management and having to sit and revisit the death losses in her life. She came to realize she not only had to sacrifice her time, sleep and work but also come to terms with never really having the chance to “sit with” the significant death experiences from her past.

This came to the forefront while she was writing about the impact of animal death loss, and she noticed that she was avoiding the trauma caused by a significant animal death in her life, her dog. Then she began to think about how she never created a space for herself to deal with other experiences such as the death of Tyrone.

“I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, I hadn’t really sat with this.’ I just kept working, I kept going, and I didn’t want to [deal with it]. I don’t feel like avoidance is healthy and helpful long term,” says Johnson, who owns Elle Naj wellness, products and publishing. “Through writing, not only was it challenging but I gained how traumatic it was.”

Similar to how she treats her client work, she found that her biggest challenge of all was constantly considering what the feelings and takeaways of the reader would be, along with how she could encourage through writing that they should want to keep reading. She wanted to make sure that the reader was left with something no matter where they were in the book.

“For those that aren’t going to read things through, I thought ‘what if they’re left with this?’” Johnson explains. “So I was challenged with the way of remembering to advise people to take care of themselves throughout the reading because this isn’t a necessarily easy thing depending on how long ago the loss was, how close they were to their significant person who died, where they are in health, and their own wherewithal.”

With “When Grief Becomes US: Death Loss,” Johnson wants her readers to gain the understanding that given the inevitability of experiencing loss, everyone must have these tools, no matter the age, in order to navigate through it healthily. The book makes it clear that grieving is not a linear process, and there is no order of emotions. The main encouragement is for the reader to move through their feelings and understand their grief orientation, their attachments to the deceased, and how to “keep loving on you despite loss.”

She adds, “What I want for them to get the most is that their life is important and that they have to attend to their life and living, even post having significant death loss. Death does forever change you but with hope and action, the intensity of loss will not be as intense as it is today.”

While her mission is to promote the welfare of mankind in the field of mental health by combatting stigmas and misconceptions about counseling, she en-courages people to still seek support in other ways such as through community or spirituality.

Fully embracing her new title as an author, Johnson’s second book, “Open Wounds. Aloe Vera, Nopal Cactus: Relationship Loss,” will be released in September 2023. And, she’ll add a new title in May 2024, becoming Doctor Janelle Johnson. .

Editor’s note: Johnson’s next book signing will be at the Life Balance Counseling office at 3190 South Vaughn Way in Aurora on June 23 between 3 and 5 p.m. Visit her website at www.janellejohnson.org.