Bloomwell Partners

I met someone from the death industry recently who told me a pretty shocking story about dealing with grief at work. His father passed away recently and he held the memorial service and burial at the funeral home where he works. Not a single member of the management team came to pay their respects to him or his family during the service. He teared up telling me this story and said, "this was the final straw, I couldn't take the disrespect anymore". He gave his two weeks' notice a few days later. This is how people are treated every day, even in the funeral industry. People are struggling to process their grief and at the same time, dealing with the outright denial of their experiences. We have to do better than this and we know how. Mekel Harris, PhD, NCSP, PMH-C, CAGCS and I started Bloomwell Partners to help organizations everywhere do better for their grieving employees, regardless of sector or industry. This is one story of thousands. Let's make work less dehumanizing, it starts with all of us.

Some leaders have this idea that people don't want to talk about grief at work. But I've been giving talks and workshops in several organizations over the last few months and heard: "I wish this session was 2 hours instead of 1." "Everyone should have this training, it's so needed." "Thank you for opening the door to have these conversations, we need much more of this at work." I didn't make this happen, the fantastic leaders who brought me in did. They thought about the how best to meet the needs of their teams and saw talking about grief at work as a priority. Leadership matters. I'm so grateful to be able to tell my story and open up conversations that so many people want to have.

Grief is so isolating and yet so common. In the West, we hide our grief because we believe that it will make other people uncomfortable or because we don't want to be vulnerable in front of others. We believe that there's something "wrong" with us for feeling so deeply for someone or something we've lost even though people keep telling us to "move on" and that "we're so strong". Today is Grief Awareness Day. I'm one of millions of people around the world who are proof that 1) grief isn't linear 2) we don't move on and 3) being strong after a tragedy is a survival strategy not a personality trait. Let's work together to make our communities, homes and work places more grief-inclusive. Let's keep educating ourselves about grief and put our assumptions about what it's "supposed" to look like away. Let's stop judging ourselves and others for showing real emotion about loss. Let's just be human. #grief #griefawarenessday #griefatwork #griefawareness #griefeduction

We often hear people say, "I don't want to bring up my friend/family member/colleague's loss because it will upset them". Or, " I don't want to remind them of what they've lost". While this may be true on some level, I actually don't think it's why we avoid talking about death and loss. We avoid it not because it makes the other person uncomfortable, we avoid it because it makes US uncomfortable. We don't want to feel our feelings. We don't want to be reminded of what WE have lost. So we think we're being altruistic and helping the other person but in reality, this is how we keep ourselves safe from our own feelings. This is how we avoid difficult conversations for ourselves, not for the other person. If we want to have better conversations at home and at a work about death, dying, grief and loss, we have to lean into our own discomfort. We have to get real about how we feel about these topics. We have to face some hard truths about our own experiences. Difficult? Yes. Worth it? Definitely. Join us on Thursday at 4pm EDT here on my page as I dive into these topics with Mekel Harris, PhD, NCSP, PMH-C, CAGCS and Justin Clifford. You won't want to miss it. #grief #loss #bereavement #mentalhealth #leadership #EQ

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of what Justin Clifford and the team at Bereave are doing. I'm thrilled to host a live conversation with Justin Clifford and my Bloomwell Partners co-founder Mekel Harris, PhD, NCSP, PMH-C, CAGCS next Thursday from 4-5pm EDT. Join Justin, Mekel and I for a fantastic conversation about what organizations can do to better support grieving employees, what policies and practices are working, and what we all need to know about grief and loss at work. Hope you'll join us and if you have questions you'd like answered, comment below. We'll be sure to answer as many as we can next Thursday. See you then! #grief #bereavement #hr #supports #leadership #griefatwork