Bereavement Professionals’ Insights

Janice – “Feelings just are”

Janice explains the importance of listening to, trusting and honouring ourselves and our feelings.

Katie “Ongoing Grief”

Katie talks about the loss of her mother.

Keith – “My story”

Keith tells his story and why he became a counsellor.

Jenn – Art can give voice

Jenn talks about the barriers that may prevent someone from including art as part of their grief or emotional process including judgment of your art skills and more.

Caileigh – Advice to my younger self about grief

Caileigh talks about things that you can do to balance out feelings that it’s okay to experience all of the big feelings that you have, to find joy in little moments, and to find ways that you can cope with those big feelings.

Keith – “How can you help”

Keith explains that by imagining being in someone’s position can show you practical ways of helping them.

Jenn – Art can be grounding and meditative

Jenn explains how the textures , qualities and colours of art can be grounding and meditative

Maureen – Preparing for holidays

Maureen gives some ideas to help during holidays like connecting and taking time out

Michele – Creative expression and processing grief

Michele tells what advice she would give to her younger grieving selfMichele talks about coping that since being a child how creativity helped

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.

Cara – Intellectual disabilities and advance planning

Cara explains that people living with intellectual disabilities are growing to older ages, much like the rest of the population. And as folks are aging what we’re seeing is the need for families more so than ever, to do some advanced planning for who will take over any caregiving decision making or where that person may live, what sort of support they may need and what that’s going to look like after the parents or the guardians die so that this doesn’t become a crisis situation.

Jen – “From funeral director to yoga for grief”

Jen talks about how being a funeral director and how yoga and grief became connected for her.