Bereavement Professionals’ Insights

Madelyn – My story

Madelyn tells her story and how she became a music therapist working in palliative care

Who are we to Decide? The Many Paths through Grief

A lot of my work with clients involves hearing their stories, but also answering many questions about if their grief is “normal”. Their grief is overwhelming, and our dominant culture’s strong message is – that grief should be kept at its edges, I often find this pervasive intention creeps into griever’s experiences – and my…

Janice – “Go into feelings”

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

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.

Rev. Sky – “Feeling numb”

Rev. Sky discusses how feeling numb is a normal emotion and what you need to move forward.

Christian – “Jeff’s Story”

Christian tells Jeff”s story… the good and his struggles.

Madelyn -Healing and support group for Asian Canadian women

Madelyn discusses the value in having your voice heard

Cara – Intellectual disabilities, sharing and expressing about grief

Cara discusses how it’s very important that people living with intellectual disabilities have the opportunity to not only know about the information about the person being ill and dying and having the choice and opportunity to go to after death rituals. It’s also really important that they get the opportunity to share their story in whatever way they communicate. This can be verbally through sign language, through communication books, art, music, going for walks, being in nature

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.

Amanda – “Listening”

Amanda shares the importance of listening and being comfortable with silence.

Janice – “Let the feelings come up”

Janice talks about how it can help to let the feelings come up.