Bereavement Professionals’ Insights

Keith – “Difference between grief and mourning”

Keith explains how grief is internal and mourning is external.

Jen – “Breathing and grief”

Jen talks about how breathing and yoga can help cope.

Caileigh – Recommendations as a therapist and a griever

Caileigh discussed two recommendations for parents on how to support their child’s grief. as a therapist and a griever. The first is to recognize that being with is far more important than fixing. There’s two pieces to connection. The first being that one of the most important healing aspects to grief is feeling connected to others.

Janice – “Go into feelings”

Janice explains how important it is to pay attention to your feelings.

Amanda – “It’s a gift to love someone”

Amanda talks about grief and it’s connection to love.

Carrie – Validation

Carrie talks about validation and feeling that someone is full responsive and fully present to you and what is going on in your grief… feeling “felt”

Alongside

That is also our best, and only role, when supporting a person with a developmental disability to grieve. We must be the one that comes alongside. There is no closer place we can get to. We must be present, be with, perhaps not understanding or comprehending what the person we support is experiencing, but alongside them nonetheless. We must be there, ready to provide whatever we can discover of their unique need in grief.

Craig – How men process grief

Craig talks about his personal story of grief and how he learned to process his emotions in a healthy way. He discusses the challenges that men face when grieving, and offers advice on how to find healthy ways to cope with loss.Craig lost his wife, his mother, his job, and his home in a short period of time. He describes how he felt pressured to be stoic and strong for others, and how this made it difficult for him to grieve. He eventually realized that it was important to allow himself to feel his emotions, even the difficult ones.Craig shares some of the things that helped him to process his grief, such as talking to a therapist, writing in a journal, and spending time in nature. He also emphasizes the importance of finding support from friends and family. This video is a powerful and moving story of how one man found healing after experiencing a series of devastating losses. It is an important reminder that grief is a normal and healthy emotion, and that there are healthy ways to cope with it.

Rev. Sky – “The grief tunnel”

Rev. Sky talks about going forward and growing in the grief process.

Shannon – Hope for Healing

Shannon shares about losing her husband to suicide, her parents and her father-in-law. She felt broken and to be able to take care of her kids and her self seemed overwhelming. It took someone telling her that you can heal from trauma to give her hope for healing.

Shannon – Blessings and sadness

Shannon discusses how just showing up, being present is a powerful way of supporting to someone who has lost. Listen more – talk less.

Rev. Sky – “Retraumatization”

Rev. Sky discusses trauma and re-experiencing the initial emotion had at the beginning of a loss.