What I know from grieving, what I remember from my early days of grief, is that I knew,
and you probably know, that having support could make a meaningful difference in your life,
having someone to help you with this gestures at everything, could make a meaningful difference
in your life.
Still, asking for help when you're deep in grief can feel complicated.
Maybe you don't know what you need.
Maybe you're worried about being a burden to other people.
Maybe you have tried to ask for help before and didn't get the response that you'd hoped for.
So what I want to do in this episode is make the act of asking for help while grieving,
simpler, and more specific, and low energy accommodating too, because you are already doing
enough while living and grieving.
[Music]
Hi there, grief growers.
I am so honored to be here with you today, as always.
If you've been growing alongside me in my work for a while, welcome back.
And if you are new to me and my work, hello.
My name is Shelby for Scythia.
I am a grief coach, a three-time author, and the founder of Life After Loss Academy, which
is an online program that has helped dozens of gravers stop feeling lost, stuck, broken
and alone, and start building lives that they genuinely love from the lives that loss
forced them to live.
This includes, of course, not only death-related losses, but also losses like divorce and
break-up, major diagnosis, and any other loss that changes your life.
Here on grief grow, or we believe that grief is not something to get over, it is something
that we grow with and alongside, and that when we stop treating grief like a problem to
be solved and start treating it as an invitation to live more deeply, we create meaningful
lives that are rich with the memories that we carry, the struggles that we have faced,
and the preciousness of what it is to be alive right here and right now.
Before I get into today's topic, which is so close to my heart because it's how to ask
for help when you are already doing the work of grieving, I just want to say an enormous
thank you to everyone who celebrated the launch of my new book.
Of course, I'm here right now with me, whether you came to the launch party in Chicago or
online.
If you came to the Chicago launch party, you know that I had my own copy of the book, and
I saw this on TikTok 48 hours before where an author had everyone in attendance, like
autograph the book, like a year book, and so this, my personal copy of, of course, I'm here
right now, is filled with the 33 people signatures who came to celebrate with me in Chicago.
This is very special.
You all know I'm a big numbers person.
This is my third book.
I am 33 this year, and 33 people came to my launch party in Chicago.
So it just feels extraordinarily special, and there are so, so many pages full of people's
signatures, what they thought of the book discussion with my friend Emily, and just like
a loving cheerleading of like holy crap this book is in the world.
We had treats.
We had an interview.
We had a book signing line.
We had photos.
We shut the place down, and it was so incredibly worth it.
And we did even more online where I took your questions and talked about how to support
somebody who's grieving using words alone.
It is one of the most special things I have ever produced.
Here's the dedication page for my friend Tammy, a few very dear friends who got to know
Tammy, signed that page.
And it was just such a special time I have published two books in the world.
The first was self published.
The second one came out during COVID.
This is the first time I have ever been able to throw a party for anything that I have
written, and it meant so much to me that all of you in your own ways have shown up and
have been there in in whatever way you possibly could.
If you have ordered, of course, I'm here right now.
There is still time to join the free book club, which begins on April 15th.
All you have to do to join the book club is submit your receipt number.
This can be from bookshop, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, your local indie bookstore on my
website.
No photos required.
We will read, of course, I'm here right now and discuss it together as a group over the
course of six weeks starting April 15th.
Our first meeting is where we all kick off and meet each other.
And we will also be talking about chapter one.
So make sure you have the book in your hands as soon as possible or in your ears or on
your tablet.
It is an ebook and an audio book as well.
And join us in the six week book club that is kicking off April 15th.
It is free.
All you have to do is buy the book and then submit your receipt number.
But the book club itself is free and replays will be available after every session if you
are not able to attend live.
And before I get to today's topic, two more events that are coming up in April that you
might like to attend on April 20th, which is a Monday.
You can join me and the dead mom therapist named Miranda Malone for a workshop called
How to rewrite your inner grief story.
If you are someone with a dead mom, this workshop is specific to you.
It is all about the internal and often painful stories that we tell ourselves after our
mom's die.
I am crazy for grieving.
I have been left alone here or I am alone.
No one's here to support me.
And my life will be like this forever.
And I will be teaching you in this workshop how to rewrite these inner stories so that
you can be more compassionate towards yourself as you continue to live a life with grief.
This is especially helpful in the lead up to Mother's Day.
If you are still anticipating Mother's Day, I believe the U.S.
celebrates Mother's Day in May as well as many other countries.
I know our friends in the U.K. just survived Mother's Day.
So kudos to you.
If you have just survived Mother's Day.
If you are grieving a mom who has died at any age or if you are grieving a mom who is
estranged from you, this is a workshop that is designed for you and a community that is
exclusive to women who have experienced Mother's loss.
Then on April 30th, a more doors open to everyone event, you can join me and the founder
of grief-tastic Megan Reardon Jarvis for a facilitated discussion about my new book
of course I'm here right now.
Three actually helpful things to say to someone grieving.
You do not have to have purchased the book to attend.
So if you're looking for like a more low key event about the book that is not a book club
where you're reading the book week by week, this event is a perfect match for you.
Megan was one of the earliest readers of my book and has a whole bunch of questions
prepared.
So if you're looking to learn more about the book, if it's a good fit for you or your
grief organization, if you run one, I hope you will attend this event with me on April
30th.
You can find the link to RSVP for both of these upcoming events in April in the show notes
for this episode or at shallbefersitthia.com/events.
Okay, let's get to the meet of today's episode.
This is seven low energy ways to ask for help and support when you are deep in grief.
The reason I wrote this episode is that because there is a component of grief that so so many
people, including grief professionals, do not talk about.
It is not just the sadness of the loss.
It is not just missing the life that used to be or a person who died.
It is the relentlessness and the exhaustion of having to live and grieve all at the same
time and never getting a break from that.
This is the kind of exhaustion that makes something like replying to a text feel like too
much or the kind of exhaustion that turns simple quote unquote simple decisions like what
should I eat or when should I shower or what housework needs to be done first into overwhelming
questions.
This is the kind of exhaustion that leaves you staring at your phone, wanting support
from other people but having no idea how to ask for it or not even having the energy to
try.
What I know from grieving, what I remember from my early days of grief is that I knew and
you probably know that having support could make a meaningful difference in your life,
something to help you with this gestures at everything could make a meaningful difference
in your life.
Still asking for help when you're deep in grief can feel complicated.
Maybe you don't know what you need.
Maybe you're worried about being a burden to other people.
Maybe you have tried to ask for help before and didn't get the response that you'd hoped
for.
So what I want to do in this episode is make the act of asking for help while grieving,
simpler and more specific and low energy accommodating too because you are already doing
enough while living and grieving.
The first step for asking for help in any sort of life with loss.
I almost said life after loss but life with loss, especially if you're somebody who's
caregiving, that's a lot of living and grieving at the same time.
But even life before loss, life with loss, life after loss.
First step, figure out what kind of help you actually need.
Before you send the text, the email, the phone call, whatever, before you ask a friend,
family member, coworker, neighbor for help, there is a very simple clarifying question
worth answering.
Do I need help living or do I need help grieving because those are two very different kinds
of support.
Help living is about the day to day logistics of being a human being.
This might look like cooking, cleaning or doing laundry.
This might be running errands.
This might be sorting through paperwork or what is often called the sad men, the sad administration
of life after loss.
This could be making phone calls or scheduling appointments.
This could be completing work responsibilities.
This could be managing childcare or pet care or adult caregiving tasks.
Help grieving is a different flavor of help.
This is about tending to your emotional and relational world, like tending to your heart
and your mind and your spiritual self in the aftermath of loss.
Examples of this could be remembering and honoring your person who died if you were grieving
your death-related loss.
This could be being witnessed in your pain.
This is true for all kinds of losses, divorce, major diagnosis, having to have moved somewhere,
outlaws, pet loss, the umbrella is very wide.
This could be feeling connected instead of isolated.
This could be making space for the reality of what has happened.
What I want to clarify here is that needing help grieving and needing help living, like neither
type of help is more important than the other.
Neither takes priority over the other.
Most people, most grieving people, need both at different times in their lives.
But when you can name which one you need help with in a given moment and a given season,
making for support becomes clearer and more direct.
It turns the generic statement of "I need help" into a precise one, like "I need help getting
to work while my car is in the shop for repairs."
Or "I need help feeling like other people remember my person or acknowledge my pain."
Those are very specific statements of help.
I need insert fill in the blank here, versus simply "I need."
So as I go through this list, notice what type of help resonates the most with you.
Because these are all the ones I could think of.
There's going to be three for living asks and four for grieving asks.
So the first three are living asks.
And this is getting support for the logistics of daily life.
The first suggestion I have for you is to ask for help from a specific help menu, something
that you create and design.
One of the most common statements that supporters offer to grievers, and I talk about this in
my book, of course I'm here right now, and I tell people not to say it.
I give them something else to say instead.
But it's the dreaded "Let me know if you need anything."
This phrase is "hella ambiguous."
And while it might be well meaning, "I'm here if you need anything, let me know if you
need anything, is there anything I can do for you?"
It doesn't make a specific offer of help.
And it puts the burden of asking for support onto you, the griever.
And while many grievers know that they need, it can be harder to pinpoint exactly what
would be helpful in the moment that someone just like chucks that statement in your direction.
So creating what I call a help menu bridges that gap between "Let me know if there's anything
you need and like I need but I don't know what."
Instead of trying to come up with a clear answer in real time, which can be very hard to
do when someone tosses that in your direction, you can make a short ongoing list of specific
tasks people can choose from.
This is a list that you can add to gradually as tasks pop into your brain or appear in your
life and keeping a notepad in your pocket or your purse or in the notes app on your phone
is a very, very good way to have this list with you on the go.
So your help menu might include things like calling, cancel, my subscription to insert
thing here, this magazine, these season tickets, this family size meal prep box that I no
longer need for whatever reason.
It could be pick up groceries the next time you go, I will send a list of what I need.
It could be renew my library card, it could be drop off a meal, no need to stay in chat,
it could be request a quote to repair the hole in the roof, it could be weed the front
flower bed, it could be clean, insert your person's headstone for Mother's Day, Father's
Day, and next upcoming holiday, their death anniversary.
It could be, I just need help folding one load of laundry.
It could be, I need someone to sit with me while I respond to emails, whatever it is,
get as specific as humanly possible.
And here's the thing I want to say here that I didn't necessarily write in the blog
that goes along with this podcast episode, is you do not have to need help desperately.
You can simply say, I wish I had another person to do this, or I wish I could clone myself
so I could accomplish that.
Like that's enough of a reason to ask for help with that task in some way.
And the reason to create a help menu is so that when someone offers to support you, you
can say, thanks so much, I actually made a short list of things that would help me the
most right now, would you like me to send it to you?
And this turns this vague ambiguous offer of, let me know if there's anything I can do
into a clear yes or no moment.
It also removes the awful emotional labor of figuring out exactly what you need on the
spot.
You have made a list.
And so you already know.
The second thing I want to offer you here in the living asks is to ask people to play
to their strengths.
And it is so unfortunate that in our society, people do not know how to show up for people
in grief.
My third book, of course, I'm here right now, I'm trying very hard to teach people how to
shop with words because that's a very good baseline to start and words are free.
And so like, if nothing else start with your words, you don't need to do a casserole, you
don't need to make phone calls, you don't need to run errands.
But most people want to show up.
This is kind of where the where the gap is, is that gravers need support and supporters
genuinely want to help, but they default to things to like, let me know if there's
anything I can do or they wait to be told what to do.
And when people around you need direction, like they seem eager to help, but they need
direction, you can make asking for help easier by matching the request to the person.
And so this is similar to the help menu, but a little bit different.
I encourage you to take out a note, powder, do this on your phone if you're not driving,
to take a minute or two to think about the people in your life and answer the following
questions.
Who is organized and detail oriented?
Who likes being outside, for yard work or pet care or errands?
Who does not mind making phone calls as my group's resident extrovert?
I am relied on often to make phone calls and I really like that about myself.
Who enjoys cooking or cleaning?
Who is reliable with follow through?
Who loves driving long distances?
Like you probably have friends that have gifts.
Like you're friends and family members and your co-workers and neighbors, they have gifts.
They have things that they enjoy doing or don't mind doing.
My wife is a total laundry snob.
And if anyone who was grieving asked her, would you come over and run a couple of loads of
laundry for me?
She would be delighted.
Do not ask me.
I will make phone calls for you.
I will sit on customer support.
I will give them your account number.
I will help cancel whatever subscription that you need.
I will talk to customer service.
I will get your cable installed.
Like whatever it is, I'm really good at that.
But my friends know they're like, don't ask how many do your laundry.
She'll throw everything in together.
And it's a total disaster.
I have no respect for fabric types whatsoever.
I'm going off on a tangent.
But recognizing like of my friends and family, like what are their gifts?
What can I count on them for?
Or what do I know that they like doing?
Asking them to do something that is in line with something that you already know they love
and appreciate and isn't hard for them is a phenomenal way to ask for help.
So to say to a friend, hey, you're so good with logistics.
Would you be open to helping me schedule my trip to sort through my brother's house this
week?
He lives in another country.
I have to plan international travel.
And I bet you can help me make sure I get everything right.
You can help me orient time zones.
You can help me pick a good hotel, insert things you can help me with here.
Or saying like, I know you love to cook.
Would you be up for dropping off a meal sometime this month?
It would really mean a lot to me and the kids.
Let me know if this is possible for you.
This kind, this flavor of custom tailored ask helps people feel useful instead of helpless.
It kind of gives them a direction to go in.
A direction that they're probably already going because it's something that they like
doing.
And it also increases the chance that they will follow through and show up to support you.
And that's something that every grieving person deserves.
Alrighty, number three is one of my favorites because it's an extraordinarily low lift for
a lot of people around you.
And it is to ask for help getting help.
Sometimes the hardest part of getting help isn't the task itself.
It's figuring out where to start.
And if you are feeling overwhelmed by options or you have no options, you feel like you have
no options in front of you, you can ask someone in your circle, friend, family, coworker,
neighbor to act as a connector for you.
So for example, you might ask a close friend, can you help me find a therapist or support
group?
Or you might post an all call on social media or in a group chat and say something like,
would anyone be willing to recommend a good lawyer for end of life affairs?
I need, I need a recommendation.
Sometimes, and this happens a fair bit in life after loss.
The people around you aren't qualified to help you in the ways that you need in this
season right now.
For example, you might need an HVAC technician to like fix your heat.
You might need an after school tutor for yourself or one of your kids.
You might need an accountant.
You might need a massage therapist.
But many of your friends, family and coworkers, they won't be able to do those things, but
they will, I'm putting this in quotes because it's gendered.
But they'll like know a guy.
They'll have a recommendation.
And asking them to make a connection is its own flavor of grief support.
And this kind of ask gets you the help that you need without you having to do endless research
or trying to figure out how to rank things that is so much brain energy when you are grieving.
And so it takes the heavy lift and asks other people to do it for you while you are grieving.
And the bonus point of this is people really appreciate being useful.
And even saying, oh my god, I have this fantastic massage therapist.
Let me give you her phone number or let me show you their website or how to book or some
generous supporters will be like, let me pay for your first massage.
Like what a wonderful thing for a friend or family member to do because you're like, hey,
I need a recommendation for this.
And coming through and that way, yeah, you can use my lawyer.
Totally, you can use my realtor.
Absolutely, you can go see my hairdresser.
Like these are wonderful things to connect without like you're not asking your friends and
family to cut your hair.
You are asking them to refer you to someone who can.
And that is a different kind of support that people can give you when it comes to the logistics
of life.
Okay.
Next section, I have four suggestions for you.
These are grieving asks, support for your emotional world.
The simplest and one of my all time favorites, again, I talk about it in my book, of course,
I'm here right now, is to ask for ongoing check-ins.
In the early days after a loss, as you know, support often comes in very quickly and like
a whole lot.
People talk about being buried under an avalanche of grief support and casseroles and flowers.
But over time, and sometimes really quickly, the message is, ooh, hell, slow down.
Now return to their routines.
Meanwhile, your grief is still a very present, constant part of your life.
You are allowed to ask for continued care.
So you might say to a friend or family member, would you be open to checking in on me once
a week for a while?
Or it would mean a lot if you could text me on Sunday nights that time of the week feels
especially hard.
Decide on the time frame between the two of you, but like asking people to consistently
check in, that is a good ask when you are grieving.
It creates consistency.
And that is something that your nervous system can begin to rely on in a season of uncertainty
and unknown.
And it also creates a sense of connection with someone who genuinely cares about you.
The next ask I have for you is to ask for presence, not solutions.
Because a lot of well-intentioned grief supporters default to advice or platitudes when they
feel uncomfortable or when they don't know what to say.
And often their reasoning is, I don't know what else to say.
But what you might actually need is something simpler than words.
And that is just company.
Just show up.
Just be there.
You can guide people to support you in life after loss by asking for their presence or asking
for a listening ear.
So you might try requesting, can you just sit with me for a little bit?
We don't have to talk much.
It just comforts me that you're here.
Or I don't need solutions or advice right now.
Just someone to listen.
If you are geographically far away from someone, if you are a long distance, that you would
like to support you, consider asking them to keep you company over FaceTime or over a phone
call.
I have heard of this from grieving people who are having trouble sleeping.
And so they will call a friend or family member and say, "Can you just stay on the phone
with me until I fall asleep?"
Would I have to even say anything?
Just recognize that I'm sleeping, I'm snoring, whatever's happening.
But it is comforting to not fall asleep alone in certain seasons of grief of your life.
Something that I love and I actually did with my wife on one of our first dates is look
up free games online that you can play like multiplayer, you can send each other the link.
And in the games, you can see each other and interact.
But the focus of the game is doing a puzzle or achieving a goal together, trying to like
get a milestone.
And it changes interaction, it changes companionship to become less about talking or getting into
the emotions of your grief or even like what do I say?
I don't know, what do I say?
But it turns it into like we are just in the same space together while one of us, you, is
grieving and the other one is supporting.
Asking for presence instead of solutions can transform the interaction from you feeling
misunderstood or overloaded by cheerleading and cliches to feeling genuinely seen and
supported in your grief.
It allows you to be where you are without changing and without managing someone else's discomfort
or awkwardness or expectations.
Simply asking, I would love if you were just here with me, there's no need to solve anything,
grief isn't something to solve if you want to do a little bit of grief education or you
can send them this show.
But to just say, I just love having you here.
It means a lot to me that you're here and that you keep coming back.
That's a lovely thing to ask for when you're grieving.
Number six is to ask for participation in simple rituals of remembrance.
Life often carries with it, especially as time continues on.
This quiet longing, please do not forget about my loss.
And one way to meet that longing with compassion is to invite other people that you know into
small and low pressure acts of remembrance.
They do not have to be elaborate.
They can be very, very simple, accessible and optional.
For instance, I recently read a book, it's over here on my shelf, I'm going to reach and
grab it really quick.
For people who are watching on YouTube, it is called Always a Sibling by Annie S. Glaver
Orinstein.
And it's about the subtitles, the forgotten mourners guide to grief.
It is about the death of a sibling.
And she has a tremendous section in the back where she talks about how people, family, friends
gather around grieving siblings to remember grieving sibling.
And so this example came from her book.
I'm having chocolate ice cream on Sunday to remember my brother.
Join me if you want.
And so everyone can have chocolate ice cream wherever they are in the world and be like
"Text your chocolate ice cream picture to the group."
And oh my gosh, isn't it so cool that we're all remembering him?
That's a very low pressure ritual.
That's accessible to most people.
And also makes everyone feel more connected and supported in grief.
Another great one is I'm lighting a candle tonight at 7 p.m. my time.
Will you do the same where you are and send me a photo?
That is a very low pressure thing to ask of someone.
I saw an extraordinary story on Threads this week of a woman whose friend is getting ready
to euthanize their family cat this week.
And she's like "I don't know what day it's happening.
My friend has gone silent.
I'm assuming they're doing, it's already happened or they're doing end of life stuff for
this cat and planning and it's totally okay.
She's not responding to me.
But every night before I go to bed, I light a candle and I think of her and I think of
her cat.
And I just send them love and I send them good wishes and every bit of care in my heart.
And that sense of like "I'm lighting a candle where I am and you're lighting a candle where
you are is such a beautiful connecting thing to do that feels supportive to both people."
Another one is I'm listening to her favorite song today and thinking of her "Will you text
me the next time that you hear this song on the radio or in a store?"
I found out after my mom died that she was a big prince fan, especially when she was
in her 20s and now every time I hear prince I think of her and so anytime other people hear
prince often they will text me or voice mail me and say "Hey, I heard your mom today that
prince Purple Rain was playing in the store while I was shopping for shirts or whatever
the case may be."
But like they are small ways to connect with people.
I have also told people that pennies remind me of my mom and so people find pennies internationally
and send me pictures of finding coins or other forms of money on the ground and that was
something that she very much appreciated and so it's a very small way of connecting but
you can ask people to show up for you through signs or symbols that you associate with a
person who died.
What I love about this ask is that you are not asking people to show up for like a big memorial
service or do things exactly the way that you do them.
You are simply offering them a doorway into continued connection with you and sometimes
that shared moment even if it seems very small can feel very very meaningful especially if
it continues to happen over the course of time.
The last one I have for you is to ask people to educate themselves about grief.
Something that I didn't cover at the top of the show but I want to make sure I covered
before the end is the awfulness and the unfairness of grievers having to grief and then also
to be the teachers of their own grief.
It is stupid and frustrating and exhausting that we must grieve our losses and also teach
people how to support us in grief.
It is why I wrote of course I'm here right now.
This explaining of our experience over and over again and doing the work of justifying
our feelings and correcting misconceptions and translating what grief actually feels
like and looks like it's a lot of work to place on a grieving brain.
And if the people around you really want to help your friends family co-workers let me
know if there's anything I can do you are allowed to ask them to meet you halfway.
Consider inviting them to research and educate themselves about best grief support practices
as well as resources specifically related to your type of loss.
So you might say I've been learning a lot about grief lately would you be open to reading
or listening to something so that you can better understand what this is like for me.
And here's just a short list of things that you could recommend.
You could recommend a book about supporting someone grieving such as of course I'm here right
now which is three actually helpful things to say to someone grieving or one of my other
favorite books.
This is the book show I'm going to pull another one for myself.
So my all time favorite on supporting someone through life's hard stuff other than mine.
It's there is no good card for this what to say and do when life is scary, awful and unfair
to people you love.
It is illustrated.
There are comic strips.
There are little doodles in here.
It is from one of my all time favorite author and psychologist Duos.
And it came out pre-COVID so a lot of it's about showing up in person but a lot of it's
not.
A lot of it is showing up through language and gestures that can be enacted anywhere and
it is for all types of loss, death and beyond.
You might share with someone a podcast episode that resonated with you.
Many people share episodes of grief growers.
So if you like this one share it.
You can also share episodes all there is with Anderson Cooper is a very popular one.
Terrible thanks for asking with norahmackenary grief out loud which I've appeared on a few times
or good morning with Salon Im are some top hitters in grief podcast land.
And so if any episode from there resonates with you send it to a friend who says let me
know if there's anything I can do.
Yes there is.
Listen to this episode and let me know what you think.
This is what it's like to be in my shoes right now or this is what it's like to parent
a grieving child right now or this is what it's like to mourn a pet or a job or the state
of the world right now.
Another wonderful thing to send is a generic grief website like what's grief or modern
laws these all have a countless number of articles about what is grief and how to support
someone grieving and what does grief look like and how long does grief last they answer a lot
of griefs biggest and most generic questions and they're also very searchable.
So what's your grief and modern laws are great places to do that.
You might share an article from a newspaper or a journal this might be more localized
to you or you might share a post on social media send it in the DMs of Instagram or TikTok
wherever you are and say this really resonates with me.
This is how I feel about my mom being gone.
This is how I feel about grieving the state of politics right now and let people respond
to let them educate themselves as a way of supporting you.
And what I want to have really clear here is that this ask is not about testing people
or making them prove they're worth to you as a supporter.
That is not what this is about.
This is about inviting people who say they genuinely want to support you to become more
literate at grief so they can show up in ways that actually feel helpful to you and
not confusing or dismissive.
It is also about taking the labor of teaching off of your shoulders so that you can keep
doing the very hard and inescapable work of grieving.
Before we go, I want to share some tips about asking for help when your energy is low.
I promise low energy.
Most of these are about creating a list and sending a text or making a phone call that they
are low lift asks.
Even when you know what to ask for, the how can still feel like a barrier.
So here are just a few like rapid fire tips for making asking for support easier on yourself
because you are already doing the work of grieving.
First is to use copy and paste messages.
You might write one or two simple text messages and reuse them over and over and over again.
You do not need to craft a new text message every time and I guarantee your friends and family
members are not looking at their phones comparing notes about messages that they have received
from you.
Number two is to start smaller than you think you should.
Asking for a quick check in text or a single errand counts as asking for help.
Let people show you that they can support you and then build on that rapport and connection.
So you might ask someone to get groceries for you at some point this week or this month,
one time and then request maybe could you drop off a meal once a month for the next few
months or the next time you make a big batch of soup, can you just double it and bring
us some?
Like there are lower lifts and then there are higher lifts and you can judge what those
are in your friendships but like start with something small or would you mind checking
in with me and my dad's death anniversary could gradually turn into can we have a check
in every month or every two weeks as often as would fit for your relationship.
Number three is to give people an easy out.
I also talk about this and of course I'm here right now because I think everybody in this
day and age deserves an easy out whether or not we talk about it.
We are all extraordinarily busy.
We're all extraordinarily stressed and we are all grieving someone or something even if
we don't feel like we're doing that acutely or urgently.
So a great script for doing this after an ask is to say no pressure at all if you don't
have capacity right now.
This produces the emotional weight of asking.
It lets people know that you need but it doesn't turn your need into a demand.
Number four is to use a group chat or a social media post when possible and appropriate
and I put that asterisk and appropriate on it because sometimes asking for help with
work tasks or things like that maybe not good for social media.
Sometimes things are too sensitive for the group chat or you might offend somebody.
I don't know what your family dynamics are but use group chats and social media when
possible and appropriate and then use your discretion when you do that.
But social media is a fantastic place to share updates or requests all in one place or on
one platform instead of repeating yourself.
Again this can be used as an energy saving measure.
I did an episode of Griefgrower last year that's also a blog on my website about how to write
a death announcement for Facebook or Instagram or any sort of social media and I mentioned
in there that talking about what you need and what your boundaries are on some mass broadcast
platform is a very easy way especially in this year of our Lord 2026 to tell people what
your boundaries are, what your needs are with regard to grief.
And so when my mother died I made a post announcing that she was gone after we did the fun
tree of the most intimate friends and family etc etc and we linked to her obituary and
we said here's when the services will be please do not stop by the house right now please
do make a donation to this organization in Louis flowers and so it was a very clear place
to tell literally hundreds of people.
Here's what we don't need and here's what we do.
Here's what we don't want and here's what we do and social media was a phenomenal way
to do that.
So if that feels appropriate or if a group chat feels appropriate as you are grieving that's
a wonderful place to say something ones that haven't seen by a lot of people.
The last one I have for you is to ask on a good day and if you're not watching on YouTube
and didn't see the air quotes good is in the heaviest air quotes I can possibly make with
my fingers.
Good days and grief can be extraordinarily hard and rare to come by.
So when you have a day when you feel it in your bones of slightly higher capacity or energy
use that energy to set up support for future you make the call and outreach to someone post
the thing on social media.
Make your help menu.
These are fantastic uses of those higher energy days and so when the low energy days come
you have laid the groundwork for getting help in those in those slumps or in those seasons.
This is also especially helpful for things like grief or death anniversary as we talk about
this in my online course life after loss academy is to list out all of your significant
grief days throughout the years you can notice oh my god December is a lot heavier than
I thought it was.
And so starting to plan for December in August or September when can people drop off meals
can anyone take over carpal is anyone want to get up on a ladder and string lights around
my house like thinking of those things in advance before you need them when you're having
a good day is a wonderful way to prep yourself for getting support in seasons that you know
will be hard even asking someone in September to say hey I'm looking at the calendar and
December is a really rough time of year for my grief can you just check in on me every
Friday in December and sometimes I'll respond and sometimes I won't but it would help so
much to know that I'm not being forgotten in one of the hardest seasons of my life.
You can do that like work right now if you know a grief date is coming.
None of these tips is about asking for help perfectly or in the very best way it is about
reducing friction so that support becomes more accessible to you.
So many things get so hard in life after loss simply because it is hard to do everything
that you used to do before loss now with the added weight of grief.
Every single one of these tips every one of these seven asks is about getting all the obstacles
or as many as humanly possible out of the way between you and support so that you can
actually have the help you need as you grieve.
I also want to mention like what happens Shelby when asking for help still feels hard because
you can have the scripts you can have the menu you can have the ideas you can even have
people around you who are actually willing to support you and follow the help through
and asking for help can still feel hard.
This does not mean that you are doing anything wrong sometimes asking for help after a loss
is layered with so many of your real life experiences.
Some of them might be rooted in your current grief experience but they can also go further
back to your childhood when you depended on others to get the help you needed to move
through the world and sometimes you did and sometimes you didn't and those fears and
those stories can all come up as you are asking for help moving through a devastating loss.
So some of these stories might include you've asked for help before and been laughed at
or let down.
You may be used to being the one that other people rely on and are not used to having the
tables turned on you.
You might have been taught that having needs at all is cringy or burdensome or inconvenient
to other people or you may not fully trust that people will show up for you in the ways
that you need them to.
What I have to say and this comes from my book of course I'm here right now is that of
course asking for help feels complicated and what I want to invite you to do is that
instead of forcing yourself to push through that discomfort or that complication especially
now that you have a grief to deal with in the picture you might start with something
smaller or quieter and ask yourself not how do I ask for help but what feels just barely
doable.
This might be sending one text or saving a draft message that you can mask text on a day
when you have more energy or simply noticing who in your circle a friends and family
feels the safest to reach out to and that's your only homework for the day that counts for
something too.
Lastly, I want to give you a note on getting professional help and support.
This entire episode is solely focused on getting help from people who are already in your
life.
These are friends, family, co-workers and neighbors.
Sometimes you need additional support for coping with dealing with moving through grief.
If you are looking for more structured or immediate help you might explore things like
Crisis Textline which is a free text-based support probe.
You can literally Google Crisis Textline and find it in your country and text them right
away.
Trained volunteers or trained to respond like literally as soon as you send the text which
is amazing.
I have used it for myself and my own dark nights of the soul.
You can also text or call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
This is 988 in the United States but in the blog that goes along with this episode I have
linked the worldwide directory of Suicide and Crisis Lifelines if you are interested in
that.
Not only for yourself I encourage you not to call necessarily for other people because
of history of police violence and blah blah blah.
You can definitely read more about that on the internet.
You can search for if you are looking for a therapist or a counselor.
Psychology Today's Therapist Directory.
They do have a US-based as a company but they do have directories for therapists in
other, I believe, primarily English-speaking countries.
You could search for a grief coach who aligns with your needs or consider working with
me if that's something you're interested in.
I do offer a limited amount of one-on-one spots per year.
You can also in your community look at your local hospital or hospice or funeral home or
house of worship.
So so many of these community organizations, even libraries, have wonderful grief support
meetups and structured programming that is led by people who are qualified to do so.
What I'll say about professional resources is that they exist to support you and not
to replace your relationships.
And if that's something you feel that you need, I'm like, yes, all for it.
This is another section too, where if these are things you're interested in, if like I'm
interested in professional support, you can go back to the living asks and see who in
your network has had success or or like a good outcome.
I know success and good or like squishy words and grief, but like with therapists or with
a local hospice or with a local funeral home or some kind of group related to that, these
are asks that you can put out to other people.
So again, you do not have to do all the hefty legwork of doing all this research yourself.
What I want to close out with is the simple acknowledgement that you deserve help and you
deserve the tools you need to ask for it.
Grief demands a lot of you, more than most people can see from the outside.
And asking for help, especially when your energy is low or missing, can feel like one more thing
on an already overflowing plate of your life.
But getting support does not have to be all or nothing.
As I mentioned before, it can look like one small ask, one text message, one shared task,
one errand that you ask someone to run for you, one request for quiet presence instead
of solutions or advice.
Getting for help will not change everything about your grief, but what it does is soften
the sharp edges, even a little bit and help you feel supported and know for sure that at
least in some component of this, you are not going it along.
You deserve so much support as you navigate life after loss.
My blessing to you is that may you have the tools, these tools and the courage now to
ask for it, and may your requests be met with enthusiastic and caring support.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
That's all for this episode of GriefGroer.
Thank you so much for listening today.
If you're looking for grief support beyond this show, you can find free workshops, blog
articles, and my new What's Your Grief Supporters Strength quiz at ShelbyForSatthia.com/links.
If you'd like to get support from me for your uni-gloss experience, join us in life after
loss academy, my online course in community.
As a student, I will walk you through my five step grief framework, GRIEF, for rebuilding
after loss, and you can get live coaching from me every single week to answer your questions.
Replays are always available if you can't attend life.
It's just $33 a month to join or $22 a month if you're marginalized or financially stressed
griefer, and you can cancel at any time.
If this podcast felt validating, comforting, educational, or otherwise helpful to you, please
subscribe and leave a review on Apple podcasts or Spotify.
And be sure to share GriefGroer with a friend, because you never know what someone you love
is going through.
GriefGroer is hosted by me, Shelby ForSatthia, with theme music composed by Addy Goldstein.
Until next time, GriefGroers, I see you.
I am so proud of you and the work that you're doing in the world.
And I love you, because even through Grief, we are growing.
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