22. How to talk about grief
Grief can impact us all during the holiday season. The collective grief we’ve been experiencing during this global pandemic has been unprecedented in our lifetime.
And even though we all experience grief or know someone who’s going through it, we don’t really know how to talk about it.
Do we use words like loss, passing, dying, or what? Do we way we’re okay when clearly we are in mourning?
In this episode, I invited grief expert Lee Pollak to teach us to talk about grief. Lee’s been a licensed clinical social worker in the Bay Area for over 30 years, working in the fields of grief care, trauma, and loss.
In our conversation, Lee shares powerful insights about grief during the holidays, drawing on her own personal losses as well as her interactions with clients over the years.
Lee encourages us to learn to talk about grief with empathy, sincerity, and frequency. When someone’s grieving and no one’s speaking about it, the mourner feels isolated and the grief can linger and remain unresolved.
If you’re grieving, what do you say when someone asks you at the grocery store how you are? What do you say to an acquaintance? How about a friend?
And what do you say to someone who tells you they are grieving?
Both Lee and I give examples of our own experiences being the mourner or the person who receives the information from someone that they are mourning.
Of course, Lee also shares what not to say because sometimes we can inadvertently put the responsibility on the mourner who is already feeling great sorrow.
We talk about the role of curiosity and culture when it comes to normalizing grief.
We also discuss the idea of memorial rituals during the holidays, in acknowledgement of those who are physically absent but always in our heart. And Lee gives some suggestions about the kind of rituals you may want to initiate to remember the loved ones who died.
Takeaways from this episode:
- This year the holidays feel different, and it’s important to raise our awareness and have the language to acknowledge this out loud
- Communicating about grief and about those who died is a way to connect with those who are grieving so they don’t feel isolated
- Tapping into grief as a way of tapping into love
- Consider starting a ritual in memory of those loved ones
--- LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE:
For further exploration, please visit:
Learn more about the Professional Grief Caregivers’ Network, which Lee founded:
https://jewishhealingcenter.org/for-rabbis-professional-caregivers/grief-caregivers-network/
For more resources about communication, go to:
https://www.languagealchemy.com/blogandvideo
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https://www.languagealchemy.com/podcastquestion
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Podcast Music composed by Gary Lapow:
https://open.spotify.com/artist/1HlMhcNfKIELxYil5mVqDI
Produced by The Podcast Space, LLC.
