Bereavement Professionals’ Insights

Jessica M – A Parking Lot Memorial

Jessica shares how her family gathered after her uncle died during COVID and how her family came up with a creative way of getting together in a parking lot.

Janice – “Go into feelings”

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

Janice – “It’s never too late to grieve”

Janice talks about the importance of noticing feelings.

Janice- “Stay with feelings”

Janice talks about how feelings can be buried and how working through them can help.

Janice – “Being triggered”

Janice discusses triggering, overreacting, under-reacting, and taking responsibility for the size of our feelings.

Michele – Normalizing conversations around death dying grief and loss

Michele discusses grief literacy, the importance of talking and that dying is a part of life

Keith – “Disenfranchised Grief”

Keith describes disenfranchised grief.

Michele – Advice to younger grieving self

Michele tells what advice she would give to her younger grieving self

Jen – “Yoga for grief”

Jen discusses how yoga can help release stress and give you strength to help deal with the circumstances you need to deal with.

Kristal – Attending Memorials as a Support Worker

Kristal discusses the importance of finding ways to honour people that have been lost and how they have impacted you. She speaks to how she often chooses not to attend public memorials for those she has lost as a support worker as they are often very overwhelming. Instead, she has her own personal rituals or ways of honouring those she has lost personally including opening a window. She discusses how this practice was used when she worked in palliative care.

Jessica M – Grief is unique for each person

Jessica discusses our uniquenesses during grief, giving yourself permission to grieve and that there are many ways of self care during grief.

Cheryl – “What is grief”

Cheryl defines grief and talks about how we all grieve differently.