Bereavement Professionals’ Insights

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

Chantal – Graphic novels and art therapy

Chantal defines what a graphic novel is and how words mix with imagery like a dance

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

Janice talks about the importance of noticing feelings.

Janice – “Grief is a response to loss”

Janice discusses waves of grief and how important it is to go with it.

Rev. Sky – “Retraumatization”

Rev. Sky discusses trauma and re-experiencing the initial emotion had at the beginning of a loss.

Madelyn – Rituals and the Chinese grieving process

Madelyn talks about expressing your grief in Chinese cultures and how rituals are a war of grieving providing comfort

Amanda – “Hospice”

Amanda talks about the comfort zone in palliative care.

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.

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

Janice – “Crying”

Janice explains how crying helps physically and emotionally.

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.

Jessica M – My Story

Jessica talks about losing her grandfather at 14 when her mother was terminal, her mother and aunt died when she was 15. She felt alone until she found a peer support group