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If you have ever chosen not to get help after a loss because it cost you much,

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or had your grief counseling sessions terminated by a therapist or professional because you could no longer afford them,

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or felt judged for needing a payment plan or sliding scale support option,

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or had to decide between necessities like housing food, clothing, and getting help with your grief,

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you were in very, very, very good company.

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Today I'm going to try my very best to discuss the many ways that grief,

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money, capitalism, are intertwined. What to do when money is the factor that is preventing you from

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getting support in your grief. I will also share tips on accessing free or low-cost grief support

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as a griever and wisdom on how to offer affordable grief support if you are a professional

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that is helping people through loss.

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[Music]

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Hi there, grief growers. I am so grateful to be here with you today, as always.

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If you've been growing alongside me in my work for a while, welcome back,

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and if you are new to me and my work, hello. My name is Shelby for Scythea, I am a grief coach,

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a three-time author, and the founder of Life After Loss Academy, which is an online course and community

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that has helped dozens of grieving people stop feeling lost, stuck, broken, and alone,

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and start building lives that they genuinely love from the lives lost force them to live.

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This includes, of course, not only death-related losses, but also losses like divorce and break-up,

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which we talked about last week, major diagnosis, and every other type of loss that changes your life.

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Here on GriefGore, we know that grief is not something to get over.

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It is something that we grow with and alongside, and that when we stop treating grief like a problem

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to be solved and start treating it like an invitation to live more deeply, we create meaningful

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lives that are rich with the memories we carry, the struggles that we faced, and the preciousness

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of what it is to be alive right here and right now. Today on the show, I'm going to cover the sticky,

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weird, uncomfortable, and necessary conversation that involves the intersection of grief and money.

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These two things are tangled up together all the time, and there are not many grief professionals

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I see out in the world who are publicly talking about how money can affect your grief.

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I am very well known for saying that grief never happens in a vacuum. When I use this phrase,

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I am usually talking about how grief leaks out beyond you and affects your relationships with other

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people like at work or at home or in your community. Like grief never happens in a vacuum, you are

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always doing grief with others. Grief impacts your relationships. But there is another way of

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understanding the phrase, grief never happens in a vacuum, and that is looking at the larger picture

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of your life. This is noticing how grief shows up within the systems and the structures that we are

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all subject to. One of these structures is capitalism. So if you have ever, person who is listening to

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this podcast right now or watching it on YouTube, chose not to get help after a loss because it cost

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too much or had your grief counseling sessions terminated by a therapist or professional because you

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could no longer afford them or felt judged for needing a payment plan or sliding scale support

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option or had to decide between necessities like housing food, clothing, and getting help with your

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grief. You were in very, very, very good company. If I had to guess, I would bet that millions and

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perhaps even billions of grieving people like you are intimately familiar with the complicated

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intersection of grief, capitalism, and money. Basically, there is the pain of grieving, a significant

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loss. And then there's the pain of grieving a significant loss while also living within a larger

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system of capitalism. So today I'm going to try my very best to discuss the many ways that grief,

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money, capitalism, are intertwined. What to do when money is the factor that is preventing you from

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getting support in your grief. I will also share tips on accessing free or low-cost grief support as

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a griever and wisdom on how to offer affordable grief support if you are a professional that is

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helping people through loss. And before I get into the weeds of all of that, I want to tell you about

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the letter that inspired this entire episode. So somebody who listens to grief grower emailed me

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recently with a question that I had been sitting with and on for months because I'm like, I want to

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make sure that I do as much of the research I can and consult all the fellow professionals I can

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and listen to as many grievers as I can before I create this and put this out to the world.

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This question does not have a tidy answer, but I'm going to try talking about this and then

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expounding upon it in this episode because all the ways that loss grief, finances, capital,

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is money, all of the ways that all these things are tied together are really important to me.

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So here is their question and I have shortened it a little bit just for length. They write,

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"Could you please do a podcast article or video touching on grief around reaching out to helping

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professionals like therapists and counselors and being abandoned, pathologized, judged,

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or having aid withdrawn or withheld over financial difficulties?" This has happened to me over and

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over again. I don't often hear about the grief that surrounds poor experiences with psychotherapists

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and counselors. It's not really a loss in the sense of someone dying, but it is a loss in the sense of

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being cut off from help when you need it most. I put my faith in a professional to look out for me

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in my well-being and then realize what they say and do don't line up with those values. I feel a deep

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sadness and this treatment activates questions about why me. I already have a history of trauma and

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neglect. These same like losses no one really cares to hear about and deems too trivial to grieve.

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What I will say sort of at the outset of this episode is I can only speak for my capacity as a

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grief coach, not a therapist. This is a disclaimer that I say everywhere including on my website and in

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all of my books, regardless and inclusive of that, here is what I know to be true. It is shitty

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that grief support and money coexist the way they do right now in our society. And this letter

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from this listener points to a larger systemic problem that grievers and grief professionals

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all have to live with and that is existing under a system of capitalism. If you have heard the term

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capitalism but don't really know what it is, if you had to define capitalism you wouldn't know

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how to do that. I want to start there because I think that's very important before I keep talking

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about capitalism for the rest of the episode. So here's the definition, the best definition that I

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could find of capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system where goods and services including things

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like healthcare housing and grief support are largely provided through private, they're owned by

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people or corporations for profit exchange. So people are making money off these transactions

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rather than centrally distributed by a government handing out these resources to everybody.

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In economics class, many of us were taught, especially here in the states, that capitalism can have

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real upsides. It is part of why independent grief professionals can build specialized practices

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without having to jump through a bunch of hoops. So you might decide you want to offer supports

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for queer grievers or divorces or for child loss specifically. It is also why so many different

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kinds of support exist for grieving people to choose from that they kind of have a buffet of options

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at any given time and why flexible pricing models like sliding scale or pay what you can

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are possible because the prices are set by the people offering the goods and services not by the

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government. Professionals can offer services that they think will sell without a lot of restriction

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or red tape and grieving people can buy what they think that they need based on that services

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availability and the cost. Capitalism also has very real downsides. For instance, your ability to

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access grief support is often tied to your income, your insurance, your employer, rather than how

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much you need it. And the competition that is created by supply and demand can forge a whole

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bunch of double-edged swords. So things I'm thinking of are platforms like BetterHelp or Talkspace,

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which is virtual therapy platforms. They have made therapy more convenient and more affordable for

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a lot of people, but they pay therapists and practitioners a fraction of standard rates which

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create sort of a pricing race to the bottoms like how cheap can we possibly pay people

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that leave professionals caring for you financially under-supported. There are so many accounts of

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articles from well-renowned publications and personal accounts of virtual therapists making

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the same choices between housing and groceries and mental health care that you as a grieving person

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might be. And that is just unacceptable not to mention sad. Capitalism also creates a world where

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if you cannot individually afford grief-related expenses, you are more often than not required to

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individually find the means to pay for them. Many grievers and grief professionals lament

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living in a society in a world where they are setting up online fundraisers for everything from

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medical bills to funeral expenses because under capitalism expenses like that lie entirely with

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individuals instead of with the government or larger socially funded support systems or structures.

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Simply put, grief support under capitalism looks like individually shopping for and paying for

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your own grief support, getting very little to no subsidies for that, like money support,

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choosing the support type or provider that resonates most with you, paying for products and services

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out of your own pocket with or without the help of insurance if that's something that you have,

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having little control over when or how the price of grief support changes, and what all of this

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means is that essentially getting the help you need after a devastating loss comes with a price tag

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and that price tag can become its own source of grief in your experience navigating any sort of

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devastating loss. If you're listening to this and you're like, "Shall we, this is getting too

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political?" I do not want to talk about capitalism. I don't want to talk about money. I have horrendous

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and terrible news for you. Money is already a part of your grief whether or not you want it to be.

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You probably know this already. You might be resisting it or you might be painfully,

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painfully aware of it, but no matter what type of loss you are grieving or how long ago it happened,

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money has a relationship to your grief. Your grief has a relationship to your money even before

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you factor in the cost of getting support for your grief. So for you, this could look like medical bills

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from an illness or a diagnosis. This could look like funeral burial cremation cost. It could look like

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legal fees from a divorce or a custody battle. It could look like moving expenses after losing a

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shared home or being forced to relocate. It could be lost income from time off work. Whether you

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took time to grieve or had to empty out a parent's house or had to travel for bereavement reasons,

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you could have lost your job entirely or you may only be able to work, reduced, or part-time hours

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while grieving. It could also be the cost of childcare or caregiving support that you suddenly need.

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It could be replacing housing or clothing or other necessities after a natural disaster or a fire

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or a war. It could also look like becoming the main financial supporter for family or friends

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who relied on somebody that is now dead and the burden of financially supporting them has now

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shifted to you. Grief is expensive, monetarily expensive in ways that rarely make it into

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like so-called polite conversation, considering and even making a list of if you have time to do this

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and you have the ability to pause this podcast as you're listening, I encourage you to do this,

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make a list of your literal grief expenses, how much money has grief cost you, can help you see all

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the ways that money has had an effect and is continuing to have an effect on your ability to get support.

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Here's the part where I want to respond directly to that letter writer.

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"Loss of or lack of grief support due to financial constraints I can't afford it is a real loss,

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even though no one died." The inability to access grief support or having to stop receiving support

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because you can no longer afford it is an extremely under-recognized loss. It could be called an

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ambiguous loss or disenfranchise loss, sort of a loss that happens in the margins. And losing support

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or not being able to get support at a time when it already feels like your life is crumbling over

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something as worldly and emotionally front as money can leave you feeling like people only want

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to help you if you can pay them. Like I'm not going to help you until you give me your money. That is

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a really icky thing to believe and to feel to be on the receiving end of in the midst of loss.

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And it turns grief care something that I believe we all deserve no matter our loss into what feels

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like a tit for tat transaction. Thank you Capitalism. Here are some flavors of loss that you might have

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when money is a pain point in your experience of getting grief support. Number one, financial loss.

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This is money already spent on sessions or non-refundable deposits or programs that ended early or

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that you had to leave or were forced to exit. Number two, loss of support. The sudden absence of

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a helping professional who was assisting you and navigating the emotional or logistical aspects of

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grief. Number three, loss of trust. This could be in professionals generally like this letter writer

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and sometimes also trust in your own judgment for having trusted them or having put your faith in them.

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Number four, loss of continuity. There is an energy cost to having to start over and retell your

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story and trial date new therapists essentially and rebuild rapport with someone new.

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Number five is loss of safety and especially for grievers like this letter writer with a history

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of trauma or neglect were abandonment by a support professional reopens in old wound. This can be

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especially profound. Of the five I named, please notice not one of these losses involves a death

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but all of them still hold grief and are worthy of being mourned and add to this awful world's worst

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layer cake of the grieving that you're already doing. The next thing I want to get into might be the

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part that resonates most with you because it is common stories grievers tell about grief, money

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and getting grief support. So for this letter writer who wrote to me, they mentioned the story why

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me came up loud and clear after they were cut off from professional help because they were no

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longer able to afford it. I imagine you have your own stories about grief and money. I have mine too.

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Whether you only think them inside your head or say them out loud. So see if any of these resonate

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with you or some iteration of these. It's my fault I'm experiencing this loss. If I were richer I could

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afford this kind of support. If I were smarter or more resourceful or less broken I wouldn't need

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this kind of support. No one can help me. I have to do this alone. I'm never going to be able to

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afford help. My loss or this experience or my circumstances are not significant or worthy enough

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to grief. These stories, what I want to point out, are largely one way personal narratives. They are

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I stories, my stories, me and my life stories rooted in the belief that being unable to access

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or afford support is your fault. It's a personal failing. When in reality it is usually a larger systemic

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issue related to living within capitalism. As I wrote about and of course I'm here right now which is

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my new book on what to say to someone grieving. A society that prioritizes individual actions,

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pull yourself by boost traps over the well-being of all. Generally defaults just by default to

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blaming a person for not working or trying hard enough instead of asking why or considering why

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that person might not have all the resources they need to get help. So to me as a grief professional

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and a griever it is no wonder that so many of us tell these self-shaming stories about grief

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and money. Another thing I want to share and say that made me mad when I read this letter is

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that they were abandoned and cut off from support by counselors and therapists. They said that

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they have experienced multiple instances of being abandoned by helping professionals after they

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indicated that they were not able to pay. I do not think this is okay at all. I firmly believe that

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every grief professional, whether you are a licensed therapist or a certified coach or a body

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worker or a spiritual guide or beyond, should take a compassionate approach to discontinuing support

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when a client can no longer pay. No griever should ever be dropped with no explanation or experience

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the equivalent of like professional ghosting when their finances change. Even if a change in your

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money or your budget means you can no longer continue with like regularly scheduled grief support

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programming, you as the grieving client should be given at bare-ass minimum, a clear explanation for

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why your grief support services are ending and at least at least one or two resources where you can

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access free or low-cost support so you are not cut off with nowhere else to turn when you are already

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in a season of vulnerability. Something I did with this letter is I put it anonymously so I did not

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share their name or their location. In a grief professionals organization that I'm a part of, it has

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more than 400 grief professionals coaches, authors, researchers, people who do grief for a living inside

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of it and several grief workers including therapists and social workers chimed in with thoughts that

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were similar to mine so I wanted to share them here and this is with their permission. A social

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worker by the name of Katie Zikarelli of Wild Furns Wellness wrote quote, "Client care should still

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always be at the center of their pissed work. It is unethical to terminate without any transfer

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of care so in therapy world this is called transfer of care." She said further, "There can be

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circumstances where it's out of the therapist control but for the most part their epist should be

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providing notice working through termination and providing referrals so that is literally what I

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just said. Providing notice here's what happened and why working through the process of termination so

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checking off one two three here's like kind of off-boarding and then providing referrals to other

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resources." Another therapist Dr. Nihasha Grahman of Wisdom counseling also said, "A bandiment by

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a licensed therapist or counselor is unethical and a reportable transgression guidance on how to

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ethically terminate services exists in the world. Graving clients need to know that they can report

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a licensed provider who abandoned them to the provider's state, county, provincial licensing

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board wherever you live for investigation." And then one more grief therapist and the co-creator

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of an internationally recognized grief support blog also chimed in. She said, "If a client is working

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with someone licensed, they must follow that therapist or practitioner must follow both state

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licensing regulations and codes of ethics. You can't simply stop seeing a client who is already

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in treatment because they can't pay. Regulations say if you cannot find a way to see them yourself

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on sliding scale or pro bono, which the code of ethics encourages. You must quote, "Seek the

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transfer referral or continuation of service in relation to the client's need or preference if

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the licensee anticipates termination or interruption of service." That's a lot of big word language,

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but it basically means that you as the therapist are responsible for transferring them to other care

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or continuing their care into you are able to find them something else that is suitable.

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If that hasn't happened, she goes on to write, "A client can make a complaint to the board that

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their provider did not facilitate continuation of care. You're required to have a termination,

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procedure, and policy in place. And best practice is that you should share it with a client at the

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start of their grief support treatment. So they know what to expect if care needs to end for any

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reason. This could be financial, but it could also be used that therapists leaving the practice

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or anything else. Even if a client, a grieving client, stop showing up for sessions. A licensed

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provider has a mandated duty to try to reengage the client, assess them for risk, document attempts,

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and if the client truly disengages, you have to send a formal termination of services notice

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as to why you are ending treatment and how to reengage in care as well as referrals to other

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providers in case maybe they still want care, but it was an issue with you as a therapist that they

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didn't want to tell you about before closing the case. What I will say, and I'm so thankful for

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these three grief professionals that share this wisdom with me because again, I am not a therapist,

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I am a grief coach, not a therapist, that despite all of these noble and grievous centered beliefs

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and requirements, even well-meaning ethical grief professionals are often restricted by systems

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outside of their control. For instance, therapy licensure is almost always state, territory,

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or province specific. A therapist that is licensed in one state or province cannot legally provide

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ongoing care if you, the grieving person, moves or even travels out of that area, even if you're

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in the midst of a crisis. I have heard from grief professionals whose clients have relocated

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after a loss and needed continued support only to hit this wall of licensing that had nothing to do

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with the care and everything to do with bureaucracy and licensure and making sure you're certified

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in the place where you're practicing. In that instance, both the griever and the grief professional

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mourn the ways in which licensure limitations restrain their ability to receive and give grief care.

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Insurance, blah, adds another layer of complexity to grief support, coverage limits in network

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requirements, session caps, how many sessions you can have in a year or a month basically,

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can all hamper or interrupt grief support at the moment that you need it most.

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According to, and I did some research for this episode so much research,

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according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Common Malth Fund,

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about 167 million people in the U.S. This is about 60% of people under 65,

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get their health insurance through an employer or a family member's employer and share the cost

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of paying for insurance with the employer. That means that most people with insurance through

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their job are still usually paying for some portion of the grief support that they receive,

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whether that is therapy or psychiatry or mental health services or massage care or physical therapy

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or medication. And of course, your insurance status, if you have insurance, is subject to change

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at any time, whether that is due to job loss or your company's structure changing or updated

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political policy at a federal level or simply the shifting costs of how much insurance costs.

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Outside of the realm of licensed and regulated grief support,

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grief professionals like spiritual guides and grief coaches are subject to little to no regulation.

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There is not a lot of licensure in that area. There are certifications, there are classes you can

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take, there's coaching you can take you can say, "I got this certification in this program,

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I got this degree from this training." Not all of them are subject to the same regulations and rules

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and licensing requirements that therapists, counselors, social workers, people who are licensed

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professionals are. While I do wholeheartedly believe that there are more good people in the world

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that bad and that most of them are ethical and well-intended, there are not good laws in place that

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protect grieving people from aggressive marketing campaigns or scam or non-existent products,

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provider misconduct and abuse or financial reimbursement in the case of lost or stolen money.

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And now in a world where AI exists and I do not have enough research on my belt to do a whole

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episode on AI yet, there is no protection in place for a grieving person falling victim to some

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sort of scam related to AI from a grief professional who is presenting themselves as a real person

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who may or may not even exist. Under capitalism, pricing, policies, payments are all controlled

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by the professional organization offering grief support, not a larger regulatory board or body.

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So you as the grieving person are left to do the time sucking labor of researching and sniffing out

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shady grief professionals. But thanks to the brain-taxing effects of loss, grieving people are not always

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great at this and this is no fault or no shade or no blame on you. I have a very dear friend,

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Colin Perry, who founded the School of American Thanatology and she often says that grievers are a

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marginalized population facing struggles and circumstances that others who are being marketed to

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simply aren't. Grieving people and I agree with this as well deserve to be marketed to ethically,

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sold to and provided for transparently and cared for compassionately. Sadly, within a system of

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capitalism where profit is prioritized over people, it makes so much depressing sense that shady,

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grifty, harmful or even outright fake, not real grief support exists right alongside. Or maybe

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in front of, in Google search results, reputable, proven, and genuinely helpful grief support.

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Okay, before I get to where to find low cost and affordable grief support, I want to debunk one more

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thing and I know this episode is a long one. So thank you for sticking with me. This is a big

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tangly complicated conversation. The thing I want to talk about is the myth that grief work should

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always be done for free. Since I started working with grieving people professionally in 2016,

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I have been told more than a few times that charging money for grief support means I'm

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exploiting vulnerable people. There are a lot of assumptions under that accusation, but I will just

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share three of the biggest ones here and see if they resonate with you, especially if you are a

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grief professional who is listening to this podcast. Number one, and I think this is the biggest and

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most common one, is that grief is sacred. So supporting people through it should also be sacred,

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aka, devoid of money or transactions. In other words, working with grievers needs to be an unpaid act

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done purely out of the goodness of your heart, a charitable calling rather than a profession.

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Selling your grief support services or asking to be paid for your work means that you are just

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trying to make a buck or taking advantage of grieving people. Money is icky and salesy and bad,

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and charging for grief support services corrupts the sacredness of grief in some way. There's a lot

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in there I'm not going to get into about money being icky, dirty, salesy, gross, and then grief being

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sacred and untouchable. Those are two extremes that we can talk about and oftentimes they get linked

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together in people's heads. And basically comes down to grief as sacred. So grief support should be

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sacred aka unpaid or offered for free as well. Number two, is that grief work is not clearly linked

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often to measurable outcomes of success that capitalism promotes. So therefore it's not worth paying for.

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For instance, making more money or improving your marketable skills or improving your efficiency

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or strength or speed within capitalism, an economic system that values productivity and sort of

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up into the right growth, making time to sit with grief, to ponder its effect on your life, express

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your emotions, learn how to do that, rest and recuperate, wrestle with existential questions of

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meaning and purpose is not viewed as a worthwhile or beneficial action. Therefore, why spend money on it?

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Even when you are connected to free grief support through a local medical center or a house

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of worship, many grief support organizations have strict one year after loss time limits, whether

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that's to prevent them from being inundated with lifelong attendees or to get you to achieve

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capitalism's goal of getting you back to normal or back to productivity faster, it can feel really

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hard to tell. But suffice it to say, because grief work or seeing a therapist or talking to someone

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or figuring out how to express grief through your body is not necessarily linked through making you

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a successful member of a capitalistic society, there's this myth of like, well why would I bother

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paying for it? It's not going to make me a better person in the eyes of the larger world where profit

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and individuality are the highest values. The last one number three is that holding intending to

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grief is predominantly women's work so it should be done for free. While there are a number of

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renowned male grief professionals in the world, the majority of grief workers of all stripes,

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both historically and today are women. This assumption has ties to both capitalism and

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patriarchy, two systems that exploit the unpaid labor of women in order to profit. You might consider

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other professional fields that employ women, mostly, such as nursing, teaching, librarianship,

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caregiving, with longstanding reputations of underpaying and capitalizing on what is considered

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broadly as women's work. What I will say about these three myths is that every grief professional

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I know has said some version of working with griefers is the thing I do for free. If capitalists

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ism wasn't real, but it is real and none of us, including the people who are offering you these

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grief support services who are holding space for your emotions and your losses, are able to

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opt out of it. We are helping you survive the worst thing that's ever happened to you and we are

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also subject to the same system that you are operating under too. Griefwork is a thousand percent

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the thing I would do with my time if money was no object. But just like you, I need to make my rent

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each month. I need to buy groceries. I need to care for my mind and my body and my spirit. And so does

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every therapist coach, chaplain, body worker, spiritual guide, doing the work of supporting people

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through loss. You absolutely deserve grief support through whatever loss you are facing. And the person

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supporting you also deserves to make a living. Under our current capitalistic economic system,

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those two truths usually require money changing hands. Holding both of these facts at once is

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uncomfortable. It is also an accurate statement of where we are societally when it comes to grief and

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money right now. Okay, here's the part you've probably been listening for. This is for grievers,

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and it's all about how to shop for a good grief professional and where to find free or low-cost

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grief support. When it comes to getting support, here are five things to do when considering working

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with a grief professional. First is to ask about their termination and continuity policy upfront.

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These are two new words for me. Termination and continuity policy. You can put them together.

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That means what happens if things need to end? And how do you offboard me so that I don't have a gap

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in getting grief support? Any good grief professional, whether that is a therapist, a coach, a body

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worker, a spiritual guide, should be able to clearly tell you what happens if they can no longer see you

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whether due to cost capacity, life things happening, or licensing restrictions. For therapists,

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this information should be included as a part of their onboarding process. You should have

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paperwork to sign that says this. For other professionals, this information is often found in

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terms of service and FAQ, disclaimer section on their website. If you cannot find a clear answer

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and they can't answer you clearly, that is a huge red flag. Number two is to ask if the

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grief professional you're looking at offers sliding skill, pro bono, or payment plan options.

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Many of them do, even if it's not advertised on their website. And it never hurts to ask directly.

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Some grief professionals might also consider a barter arrangement. So you might consider what

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professional skills you would be willing and able to trade in exchange for grief support. So you might

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garden for them. You might make a piece of art. You might design a website for them, or you might

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do their taxes. What professional tit for tat can you offer under a system of capitalism that

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takes you out of the exchange of money and instead offers the exchange, the equal exchange of something

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else? The third one, and this is more of a tone listening, is just to notice how they talk about

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grief. Any professional when you're shopping for grief support who advertises helping you move

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on or find closure, not a good fit, for the kind of grief support that actually helps you fold

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loss into great loss into your life. So consider any grief professional that uses terms like growth

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or integration or learning or living with loss. You might also search explicitly for a grief

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professional that specializes in your unique type of loss. So loss of a mother pet loss,

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friendship struggles, miscarriage, job loss, dealing with trauma. These are all things you can type

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in to therapist finder websites or like therapist near me and then add trauma or add pet loss. Those

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are things you can add on and find people who are more than likely qualified to support you in your

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grief. Number four is to check their credentials, but do not assume that unlicensed means unqualified.

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Grief coaches, death duelist, spiritual guides, grief group facilitators can offer real and meaningful

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support without the same kind of license that a doctor or therapist might have, whether they hold

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a certificate or an accreditation or a degree from the School of Hard Knocks. Just understand

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what regulatory oversight, if any, comes with that certification or accreditation or that leadership

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role. Ask them about their credentials and qualifications if you're not sure and if they are

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unwilling to answer you, that is also a red flag. Finally, number five is to trust a pattern,

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not a single hard conversation. One awkward exchange about money doesn't necessarily mean that

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a grief professional is a bad fit for you, but if they are repeatedly abandoning you, judging you,

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dismissing your grief or your relationship to money, that is another red flag. The My Angela

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quote that goes, "When someone shows you who you are, believe them, can be helpful here." While the

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quote actually goes, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time," I will say

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that like grief professionals are humans too and money is a sticky topic for all of us, including

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professionals. So a single payment error like overcharging or double charging may be a one-time fluke.

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If a grief practitioner however regularly makes mistakes with your money or communicates in

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judgmental or demanding or hostile ways, I refer to this as holding your money hostage or brushes

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off your concerns about money and grief, it is time to end your relationship with them.

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If financial struggles are a part of your grief story, these are my two favorite ways to find

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free or low cost support when you are grieving. The first is to search anywhere you can for sliding

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scale, pay what you can, or pro bono support in your area. Many private practice therapists

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reserve a handful of reduced fee spots in their roster, even if they are not listed publicly.

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So if you find a therapist you think you like or connect with, simply ask if this is something that

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they offer. Your local health department or center for mental health may also offer pro bono or

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free therapy sessions. If you are a member of a marginalized community, such as a disabled person

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or a bi-packed person, you might also be able to find therapists who offer reduced cost services

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to grieving people with your specific identity or need. The second one is to consider a grief support

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group instead of or alongside individual care. Grief groups often cost less than one-on-one

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therapy or nothing at all, and organizations that are built on cost does not abarrier models exist

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specifically to remove the financial burden of paying for support. Grief groups can be found both

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in person and online. So for in-person options, you can check out hospices, hospitals, community

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organizations. Many of them offer free grief groups or short term counseling to the community

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writ large, not just to people they directly served. In other words, your loved one did not have to

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die at their hospital, often for you to receive grief support services from that hospital. Like you

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do not have to have been a customer or a patient or a user as much as I hate that word of their

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services in order to receive support from them in another way. If you were looking for grief support

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online, you might search for free or low-cost grief support groups and explore facilitators and

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formats that resonate most with you. So for instance, you might join a grief writing group

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or a six-week book club like the one I host for my book of course I'm here right now. You might

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join an always open online course with weekly grief coaching calls like my online course Life

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After Loss Academy. You might join a specialized group based on your unique loss like widow loss

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or motherless daughters or compassionate friends or any sort of organization that has direct or

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specific ties to a type of loss. You could also join a drop-in group that meets at a set time every

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week or month and drop-in just means like you don't have to attend all the sessions you can come when

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you can and it's okay if you can't. You might also search for workshops or one-time events

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through platforms like Reimagin or TalkDeath and these two free platforms advertise free and

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low-cost events that are hosted by grief experts, authors, researchers and group leaders. I have hosted

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and been a part of events both through Reimagin and through TalkDeath and they regularly advertise

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online grief support that is free or low-cost and accessible wherever in the world you are.

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As we get to the end of this podcast I want to offer a note to grief professionals and also give

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you, griefers, a moment of transparency for like how the hell shall we do you make money in your

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business. So I want to cover the ways that I offer affordable grief support in my business and if

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you are a professional how you can too. What I want to say right off the bat is that as a grief

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professional you are allowed to hold compassion for and awareness of the reality that grief support

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costs money and that you need to charge for your work. Providing grief support under capitalism

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is really weird and really complicated but it does not have to feel gross. So these are five ways

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that I offer affordable grief support in my business that you might consider incorporating into your

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own practice or if you are a part of a larger practice you might suggest to hire up or people who

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have control over that sort of thing. The first one is to create tons and tons and tons of free

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resources between my weekly blog, this podcast, my post on social media, I would estimate that 80 to 95

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percent of the work I create is free and available to everybody. Every single piece of content includes

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at least one reference to my paid products or services if you'd like to work with me but that is not

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a requirement. Having an always expanding library of free blogs or podcast episodes or social media

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posts serves a whole lot of purposes. It includes getting support to people who can't afford to pay

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but it also puts out information about how you can work with me as a grieving person on a deeper level

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in many places and on tons of platforms where it's easy to find. You can find these on my website.

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You can find them in podcast players. You can find them on social media like wherever you are.

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I am too talking about grief support for free and if you want to work with me more deeply you can do

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that but most of what I offer, most of what I create is free. The second thing is what we've already

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talked about which is to provide sliding scale support options or simply free trials. So in life after

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loss academy which is my online course and community that is always open for grieving people. I offer

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always a one month free trial. You get your first month free. So if you are grieving you can see if my

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teaching style and the format of the group is right for you. When you're ready to join you have to

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payment options. One is standard at $33 a month and one is equity at $22 a month and this lower rate

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is intended for LGBTQ+ grievers, BIPOC grievers, disabled grievers or any griever facing financial stress.

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There is no questions asked so you can choose when you sign up which price point works best for you

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and there are no hoops to jump through. There's no forums to submit. You're just like can I afford

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this or that and then you pick and then and then you're in and you get grief support based on what

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you can afford. Something else I do the third thing is to offer both one time sessions and packages

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of sessions. So I do offer a lot of people don't know this about me but I offer one on one grief

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coaching. I offer both one time sessions and packages of sessions. So packages are discounted by

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five get one free. While one time sessions are more affordable for grieving people looking for what I

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refer to as a grief tune up. This could be related to a new loss that upended their life or an upcoming

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grief anniversary that feels more significant as usual. So if you as a griever are in a season of

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like I could use one really good deep support session for something I'm going through right now

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and that's all I need you can have that. If you would like an ongoing consistent relationship with

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me for six sessions as I support you through some kind of loss or season that you're facing you can

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have that to and I'll discount it because you're buying a lot of them all at one time. And so offering

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these two options to people that you're working with if you have the ability to do so you can do a

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one time tune up or you can do a package of sessions and then you get sort of a discount for buying more

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that is a way to offer affordable grief support to people who want to work directly with you as a

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professional. Number four and this is one of my favorites is to give out review copies of your

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books or other educational materials. So this is a little sticky because it depends on who actually

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owns the intellectual property of your books or educational materials if it's you great you're

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off to the races you go have fun with that. With me my publishers hold the power and the legal rights

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that means the intellectual property of everything contained in my books they also hold the

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ability to price my books. As an author I have the freedom to provide digital copies of my books

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in exchange for reviews on Amazon and Goodreads these are considered review or endorsement copies.

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So when I am getting ready to launch a book I offer email subscribers the ability to join a

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launch team of early readers who get that free digital copy in exchange review. When I host book

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clubs or workshops based on the book I offer to send the book for free to anyone who can't afford it

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as long as they write a review within 30 days of the book club or the workshop ending. So you have

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to check grief professionals with your publishing contract but if you do and you get a green light

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this may be something that you're willing and able to do in your own business. If you are self-published

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well you're the person that owns all the intellectual material of the thing that you sell

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you can totally do this of your own free will and volition. The last one and this is a big one

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I offer services to organizations in addition to creepers. In Business Speak this would be called

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I offer services B to B business to business my business to their business versus B to C business

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to customer. Most of the money that I have made in my 10 years as a grief coach has come from

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three sources. One book publishers who paid me in advance to write a book. Two organizations looking

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for speakers on grief and loss. And three companies, medical centers and nonprofits who have bulk

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purchased copies of my books or downloadable digital resources. Yes I work with paying grieving

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clients inside life after a loss academy. Yes I support one-on-one coaching clients. Despite all

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of that being true one of the most difficult realities I have learned as a grief professional is

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that no single griever will ever be able to pay me as much money as an organization can. Under

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capitalism it is common and normal for corporations to possess more money than people. So it makes sense

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then that the most money I've ever made in my grief business has not come from individual grievers

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saying yes I want to buy your products and services. It is from corporations saying here take our

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money to offer this product or service. Many bereavement companies for instance have an annual

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pot of money that is set aside for workshops and presentations led by grief professionals who

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were invited to speak. One organization I worked with explicitly said they hired me because they

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needed to use up grant funding before the end of the year. Of course they reached out to me personally

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because they liked my work and my style of teaching but there's definitely a we have money to spend

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on support like this in organizational grief work versus it feels a lot different and the reality

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is a lot different when you are trying to market your grief support services to grievers

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individually who may or may not have the same financial resources that an entire organization

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or nonprofit or corporation might have. Okay I know this one got longer grief growers. Here's

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what I want to leave you with as we continue to make space for the conversation about the intersection

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of grief capitalism money loss. We are all grieving inside an economic system that was not

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built for grievers. Grief as you already know is really effing complicated. When you add capitalism

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to the mix you are no longer just navigating loss. You are navigating loss inside a system that

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determines who gets support and who doesn't and money affordability is wrapped up in all of it.

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You might feel a whole bunch of things at once when it comes to grief and money and all of them

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are allowed. You can be for instance genuinely grateful for the grief professional who helped you.

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The sliding skill therapy spot that came through the last minute when you really needed it

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or the specialized grief coach who finally understood your specific loss. All those things can be

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true and you can still be furious that access to any of that support was tied to your bank account.

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You can resent the healthcare system or how much money your insurance premiums cost while also

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appreciating their ability to connect you with grief workers that genuinely give a shit about your

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loss in the state of your heart. And you can believe that grief professionals deserve to afford

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groceries and also grieve the fact that your own grocery bills might be why you had to stop seeing

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your grief professional. Sadly, money and grief have always been tangled up with each other

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through funeral costs, medical bills, lost income, and yes, the price on getting support itself

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because we live inside an economic system that necessitates it. Naming this, having this conversation

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today does not fix it. But what it can do is help you put words to the sense of shame or isolation or

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self blame that you might feel surrounding the places in your life where grief and money collide.

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This is something that I want to keep talking about. It is layered, it is multifaceted,

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and I would love to hear your thoughts. So if this podcast episode today impacted you or you would

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like to share a perspective I missed because I'm sure I missed one, please get in touch in the link

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in the show notes or at shallbefricetia.com. As you exist within capitalism right here with me,

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as you navigate the intersection of grief and money, as you do loss not in a vacuum and inside

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of a system that was not built for griefers, I am sending you so much care and compassion.

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That's all for this episode of Grief Grower. If you're looking for grief support beyond the

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show, you can find free workshops, blog articles, and my new book of course I'm here right now,

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three actually helpful things to say to someone grieving at shallbefricetia.com/links.

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And if you'd like to get support from me for your unique loss experience, you can join us at any time

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inside Life After Loss Academy, which is my online course and community. As a student, I will walk

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you through my five-step grief framework for rebuilding after loss, and you can get live coaching for

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me every single week to answer your questions. Replays are always available if you can't attend live.

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There's two price points, just $33 a month to join or $22 a month if you're marginalized or

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financially stressed, Griever. You pick the price that works best for you and you can cancel at any time.

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If this podcast felt validating, comforting, educational, or otherwise helpful to you today,

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please subscribe and leave a review on Apple podcasts or Spotify. And be sure to share

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Grief Grower with a friend, because you never know what someone you love is going through.

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Grief Grower is hosted by me shallbefricetia with music by Addy Goldstein.

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Until next time, Grief Grower. I see you. I am so proud of you and the work that you're doing in the

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world. And I love you. Because even through Grief, we are growing.

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[Music]