Bereavement Professionals’ Insights

Children’s Grief and Loss Toolkit (ages 6-12) [FREE Downloadable PDF]

Grief is a natural experience, and is considered one of the most stressful life events a person can experience. 1 in 14 children under the age of 18 will experience the death of someone close to them. Every year, approximately 200 000 children are grieving the death of someone in their extended family or community.…

Madelyn – Expressing your feelings

Madelyn talks about being a 2nd generation Canadian chinese and keeping grief in. She explains the importnace of expressing your feelings and not feel guilty about it

Maureen – “Grief can come back”

Maureen explains however grief comes back, you are OK.

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.

Christian – “Stigma of opioid death”

Christian talks about the social acceptance of an opioid overdose.

Jacqueline – You don’t have to be an artist

Jacqueline discusses how in art therapy we tap into that child in all of us that is not concerned about what is right or wrong

Tending to My Garden of Grief

So long as I remember the lives of those I have lost, honour their presence and impact on me and celebrate their spirit, they will continue to live with me and the pain will feel bearable. It will no longer stop me in my tracks. Instead, it will encourage me and propel me forward through the transmutation of that grief into something different, something more nuanced and fluid. I’d like to share a practice for processing grief which I have found to be especially helpful.

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

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.

Carrie – Thanatology

Carrie explains how thanatolgy is the study of death dying grief and loss.

Maureen – “They are still your child”

Maureen explains how you find different ways of parenting.

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.