So many of us have retreated in the past from offering support to people who we know are going through life's hard times.
And it's not because you are cold-hearted or uncaring.
It's because there's this lingering sense of insecurity and this very deeply held fear of,
"I am not qualified enough, I don't want to screw this up. I do not want to cause further harm, further pain."
[Music]
Hi there, grief growers. I am so honored, delighted and grateful to be here with you today as always.
If you have been growing alongside me in my work for a while, welcome back. If you are new to me and my work specifically,
if you are here to learn how to support somebody grieving, hello.
My name is Shelby Persitia, I am a grief coach two times soon to be three time author and the founder of Life after loss academy.
And I have had the honor of helping thousands of grieving people stop feeling broken, stuck and alone in their losses,
and start building lives that they genuinely love from the lives lost force them to live.
This includes not only death-related losses, but also losses like divorce and breakup, major diagnosis, and any other loss or transformation that changes your life.
Here on the show we believe that grief is not something to get over, it is something that we grow with and alongside,
and that what we stop treating grief like a problem to be solved, and more like an invitation to live more deeply,
we create more meaningful lives both with ourselves and with the people that we love.
Today on the show, before we get started, I have to let you know that this is the last call to join Life after loss academy.
Absolutely free for one month with the code grief grower. This is expiring at midnight on August 31st.
So if you would like to join my community of grief growers that are working through coursework, the five step grief method,
GRIEF, ground, release, integrate, establish, and foster, which we covered at length in different podcast episodes over the summer.
This is your last call to join us for free for one month. You get to attend four coaching calls with me. Absolutely free.
You get to access the first two modules of the course and see if it's right for you.
So you get the ground module and the release module, which were both really helpful jump starts for getting you into starting to work with your grief,
and also very familiar with me and the way that I teach inside of the community.
And then also you get to connect with other grief growers. We've got about 60 people in there right now,
who are beautiful at holding space for you, acknowledging your losses.
And if you're not ready to engage or connect or leave comments or participate in the live calls yet,
kind of just exist alongside you. Be fellow grief growers with you as you figure out what it means to return to life after loss.
Of course, that link to join us for free for one month is in the show notes again, use code grief grower.
All one word and that expires at midnight on August 31st. I hope to see you there.
Today, if you didn't notice from the title of this podcast episode, I am starting a very special series based on my new book.
Of course, I'm here right now.
Three actually helpful things to say to support someone who's grieving. And this is coming out not until March of next year.
But once a month until then, I'm going to be doing very special episodes that I'm just calling supporting someone.
So this is supporting someone part one and next month and September, we will have supporting someone part two.
And in each of these podcasts, they can be taken by themselves or you can listen to the mall as a series.
I'm going to be sharing tips for supporting people who are grieving because this is the whole focus of my third book over and over again through the years.
People have said, I am grieving and I am also supporting others who are grieving or I have grieved myself and I've worked with other grieving people.
But I struggle so much with the words to say. And so of course, I'm here right now is a mini pocket guidebook for what to say specifically.
Words only no casseroles, no mo and the law and no pet setting for people, no actions. It's just language. It's just scripts.
It's just words to direct in grieving people's directions that consistently provide them with comfort, with support, with acknowledgement of their pain and create the foundational building blocks that help you create stronger relationships over time.
So there's less of this sense of grief as a relationship for actualer and more of a sense of a relationship builder.
And today on the show, I want to tell you one of my most firmly held beliefs and hope that you can join me in believing it too. And that is you do not need to be a therapist to support somebody who's grieving.
When someone that we care about has experienced major loss, friend, family member, coworker, neighbor, someone in our midst, oftentimes one of our first instincts is to reach out and offer them support.
Oh my gosh, I said say something. I should do something. But one of the thoughts that prevents us from taking that first step in their direction or continuing to support them over time is, I'm not a therapist. So who am I to help?
Many, many, many supporters of gravers worry that they are not qualified enough that they do not have enough information to talk about loss or they worry that they say the wrong thing.
And somehow traumatize the person that they're trying to comfort and then their grieving friend will really need a therapist.
So many of us have retreated in the past from offering support to people who we know are going through life's hard times. And it's not because, and I want to know that I know your heart as well.
It is not because you are cold-hearted or uncaring. It's because there's this lingering sense of insecurity and this very deeply held fear of, I am not qualified enough, I don't want to screw this up.
I do not want to cause further harm, further pain.
But the thing I want to hammer home in this episode is that you do not need a license to support someone through loss.
You can be a source of comfort to someone who's grieving, a reliable, compassionate supporter, without any letters behind your name.
And so today in the show, I want to talk about why and how that's possible.
The first thing I want to introduce you to is something that I call "comfortor imposter syndrome". So you are not crazy for doubting yourself, you may have something called "comfortor imposter syndrome".
So many of us consider ourselves good friends or helpful supportive family members or capable coworkers. We cheer on our loved ones. When they achieve successes, we follow through on our commitments and deadlines for them.
We show up for their major milestones, things like birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, weddings, babies.
But when it comes to people that we know going through just heavy air quotes, the hard stuff, things like loss, death, breakup, life-changing health diagnoses, we sometimes,
and it's normal to doubt our ability to be good friends. It can feel like a sort of poorly timed identity crisis, wondering, am I a good friend at a moment when the life of someone I care about is very much falling apart. Not only can I not support them, I'm questioning my own ability to be a good supporter.
In my book, of course, I'm here right now, I write, quote, "You may be familiar with the psychological concept of imposter syndrome, the idea or feeling that you are fraud or not skilled enough or not qualified enough or not good enough, despite clear evidence of success and competence.
If you find yourself asking who on earth am I to comfort this person, then you may in fact have a sort of "comfortor imposter syndrome".
And this hits at the heart of what might keep you from showing up this belief that you're not enough or you somehow don't have enough information to support someone you care about when shit really hits the fan, and you are not crazy or illogical or abnormal for feeling this way.
We very much, especially if you're in the United States like I am, live in a society that teaches us so much more about how to celebrate someone's gains than it does about how to be beside them in their losses.
But what I will say is if you have ever been comforted in a hard season of life by a hug, by a late-night text just checking on you or simply somebody witnessing your emotions without trying to fix them, you know that credentials are not the measuring stick of comfort.
Sure, having a textbook knowledge of grief can be so helpful in situations like these, but anyone and everyone who has ever experienced loss will tell you that knowing about grief logically is not the same as having kind and supportive words to say to someone who's grieving.
And the misive I really want to drive home here is that most grievers do not need you to be a therapist, they need you to be a human that cares.
You may or may not know this, but I've been working with grieving people since 2016, and something that is so, so wild that I've learned is that many grieving people do not do not get their best or deepest comfort from therapist, clergy, or grief experts.
This is another thing I wrote in my book, quote, "Many grieving people I speak to recall feeling judged and analyzed by their therapist or religious leaders, people that we as a society perceive to be good at comfort.
While receiving dizzying amounts of warm-hearted care from family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and perfect strangers, and the takeaway from this is that grief is not a clinical experience that can only be processed in the four walls of a therapist's office or on the couch of a spiritual director or guide.
Grief is a human experience that belongs and shows up in every single one of our interactions and more often than not, what grieving people need is someone who can sit beside them as they sort through the pieces of life after loss.
And so I've got some guiding questions for you or some kind of homeworky questions for you if you want to see this as a takeaway exercise.
If you are struggling to see yourself as a worthwhile comforter, someone who is a good supporter in your grievous life, consider asking these three questions.
When in the past have I received support from someone who is not a therapist and how specifically did they help me?
Two, how have I offered support or kind of words to someone in need? This can be someone you know or a stranger recently doesn't matter.
And three, what examples of human kindness have I observed in movies, TV, music, or even on social media?
And what this does, it kind of trains your brain to notice acts of care, acts of comfort, acts of support to someone in grief that go beyond the walls of a therapist's office or beyond the walls of those who you might consider qualified.
And while you're absolutely welcome to include their epist-enclarging grief experts in your answers to these questions or as a part of your responses, consider who else in your life has played a role in helping you feel seen and supported or safe or heard.
These questions are really good starting points for sort of opening up your brain to the idea of what makes a comforter a comforter and why do we judge it that way or why is your judgment that I must be a therapist in order to comfort?
Maybe we can break that belief a little bit and rebuild it with something that feels for you a little more true.
What I will say is that so many gravers I work with inside life after loss academy have named friends, co-workers, relatives, adult children, neighbors, even ex-partners as really good supporters in their grief and not one of these people has a formal certification in helping others through grief and loss.
And that is so so much food for thought when that insecurity or that comforter in posture syndrome pops into your head.
When it comes to supporting someone who is grieving, your presence and your words are the medicine.
You do not have to know all of the clinical speak of what they're going through. You do not need to provide a diagnosis.
You do not need to schedule a standing weekly appointment to discuss their loss.
You don't even need to know every detail of what your grieving person is thinking or feeling.
And you definitely don't need to make their pain go away.
Even though that pressure you might put on yourself may be great.
What I have learned in more than 12 years of grieving my mother, more than three years grieving my best friend, more than a year grieving my cat, and more than eight years working with grieving people is that comfort is not about curing.
It is about companionship.
Your grieving friend, your grieving coworker, your grieving loved one is not looking for someone to show up with answers.
They are looking for someone to witness them.
Someone who does not flinch when emotions come up and someone who stays and sticks around and remembers their grief for the long call.
See if this parallel or this metaphor resonates with you.
Just like you do not need to solve a birthday anniversary graduation wedding or baby shower other big life events.
You do not need to solve a grief event.
Just like those happy occasions, your presence and your kind words during sad or hard or difficult occasions are all that's required of you.
Something I also want to say is that comfort is not a magical talent that is reserved for other more qualified people.
Sometimes, especially when we know, or we assume that a grieving person has lots of friends or family or coworkers or neighbors or healthcare providers, it is very, very easy to make the task of comforting them.
Someone else's problem.
We can easily imagine that because our griever is surrounded by support, they've got all these friends, they've got all these family members, they work in a really big company that has great benefits.
They're really close with their doctor and is taking care of their care.
They must be getting help in a relationship other than ours.
We think, for example, well, her doctor knows her better than I do, she's probably getting help from her.
Or they've already got a therapist so their emotional needs are covered.
Or he's got his wife to talk to about feeling stuff so I don't need to jump in.
Or she has a great relationship with her rabbi. I can't offer that kind of support so I won't try.
But this kind of emotional outsourcing, a lot of times does more harm than good because it replicates what is called in psychology, the bystander effect, where the more people are available nearby to help.
The less people actually step up to offer help, assuming that because there's so many other people around that, "Ah, someone else will do it."
It's like, I don't know if you've ever made a tour to our at-nure house of like, "Who's gonna take out the trash?"
Or you assume you're like, "I have three other family members. One of us is gonna take out the trash and then nobody takes out the trash and it just keeps piling up."
It's that, but for grief, not to parallel grief and trash, but you get the picture of like, there's the sense of, "Well, if I live in a house of 12 people, then certainly someone would notice and take out the trash."
Not always the case. Not always the case, not with garbage and not with grief. Dozens and dozens and dozens of grievers I've worked with have reported that they had lots of friends and family before their loss, but after their loss.
People either reached out once immediately after it happened and then never again, or failed to reach out in the first place.
And while I cannot speak to these grievers, friends and families' intentions, I do not know what they are thinking.
It is very easy to see how they might think that their grieving loved one has all the support that they need, so perhaps the task of offering comfort belongs to someone other than them.
And, and of course, I'm here right now. I wrote that implying that comforting is the job of the few who are educated to do so, such as therapists and chaplains, only narrows the field of support that grieving people receive.
It hands off the sacred work of taking care of broken hearts among us as someone else's job.
Instead of a reflection of who we are as a species.
The moment that we act like grief support is a job for someone else, or experts, or close friends and family only.
We dehumanize the entire experience of offering care, which is an innately human thing to do.
We also perpetuate the myth that there's no space for ordinary beautiful, tiny acts of compassion from every day, or maybe periphery, or acquaintance people like us.
And to be very, very clear, you are not just a friend in a grieving person's life. You are not just a coworker. You are not just a neighbor.
You are someone who can have a very significant impact, a positive impact on the heart of a grieving person in your midst.
And the thing I want to say is that see if this reframe gets inside the deep parts of your brain that believe you're not qualified to help.
Your grieving person, if there anything like me, might be bringing their heartbreak to you specifically because you're not qualified.
Whether by some higher power, institutional, spiritual, sometimes grieving people do not want to be seen through the eyes of the healthcare system, or through the eyes of spiritual teachings.
They want to be seen through the eyes of a friend, or someone who knows that they're capable at their job, or someone who knows that they care enough to bring out the recycling bins every Tuesday.
Someone who knows their history and their values, and that person in their life could be you.
They may be interested in receiving support from you specifically because you're not a medical professional, or you're not a religious guide in their midst.
They may want to be seen, they may want their grief to be witnessed specifically through your eyes, and what a blessing that could be if you could step into that space with them and say, "I can see you through my eyes, and that's what I have to offer."
And your grievous has, that's exactly what I'm looking for.
I get chills talking about this y'all.
Oh, okay.
One more thing before we wrap up.
You do not have to be a feelings person in order to be a comforter.
As a grief coach, so, so, so, so, so, so much of what I hear from supporters is, "I'm not a therapist, so I'm not qualified to help."
Translated to, "I don't do feelings for my job, so I'm not an expert."
A lot of times comes from people who are raised as men in our society, and oftentimes the work of feelings stuff is offloaded to women, or quote, "natural caretakers," or people who consider themselves highly sensitive.
But what I want to gently push against that with is that grief is more than just feelings.
You do not need to be a therapist, a highly sensitive person, a woman, or a natural caretaker, to support somebody who is going through grief.
You do not have to be naturally tender-hearted, you do not have to cry easily.
You don't even have to understand grief fully to show up and comfort someone who is grieving.
Here is another quote from a course I'm here right now.
"Just as it is wrong to suggest that only those who've been trained to comfort should do so, it is also inappropriate to regard comforting as the work of those blessed with high sensitivity or great amounts of emotional bandwidth."
In other words, comforting isn't about emotions alone. It's about emotions and, one, validation and affirmation.
So instead of doing the feelings thing, you could say, "Of course, this is super confusing. Medical paperwork is hard." That requires no emotion from you. That's just validating that what they're going through is shitty and difficult.
Yes, you can do that. Validation and affirmation.
Two, consistency. Showing up over and over and over, especially on grief milestones. For instance, sending a text like, "I know it's Deb's birthday today. I have not forgotten the fact that you're grieving her even though you have to go into work today."
I'm thinking of you.
Requires no feelings from you. You can do that. Absolutely. Requires no sitting with tears and a tissue box between you. None of that required.
Just consistency. Showing up over and over. That may be a gift that you have.
Number three, holding hope. I call these people "whole holders" when your griever cannot see a way out just yet.
So saying things to them that validate things are shitty and difficult and hard right now. One day they may not feel so hard, but today they do. And that's okay.
And so that's kind of a blend of hope holding and validation of like one day this may be different.
It's not right now. And I'm here with you in that. That is a way to offer support and hold on to hope for them when they may have known or may not be able to see a way out without a painting over their grief and making it something positive or be dismissing their emotions. It's validation and hope holding together.
And number four, if you're not a feelings person, you can always grant permission for feelings to appear. It's okay to be matter sad and more together. Or your feelings make sense to me.
I can see how you got there is one of the nicest things that you can say to somebody in grief. And these four and skills, validation, affirmation, consistency, hope holding, permission, granting for feelings to exist.
They are not the exclusive domain of feelings people. They are tools that you can companion the griver in your life with too. So of these four consider which skill do you think that you could apply in your relationship with any grieving person in your life this week. That is my challenge to you.
As we wrap up today, I want to leave you with this. You are not under qualified to comfort someone who is grieving. If someone in your life is experiencing devastating loss, major heartache, hear this.
You do not need to fix their pain to be an impactful source of support.
You do not need to be a therapist to help them feel seen and safe in their grief. And you do not need to be a feelings person in order to have a conversation or show up for them consistently as they navigate life after loss.
I believe there is no such thing as a perfect comforter, but there is such a thing as a good enough one. And when we each do our best to be good enough comforters, once you show up and try and care and listen for feedback, we create a world where everyone around a grieving person pitches in just a little bit where no one suffers from bystander syndrome.
A world where no one has to feel alone or abandoned in their loss. You, person listening to this episode, person who has looked up this video on YouTube person who has found this blog on Google.
You comforter in your good enoughness can be that kind of supporter to the grieving person in your midst.
And this is the kind of world that I am interested in building that I have actively brought into being in my book, of course, I'm here right now.
As I said at the top of the show, this is the first in a long series about supporting someone who is grieving without overthinking it without freezing up or defaulting to sorry for your loss or let me know if there's anything I can do, which gravers say they dread hearing.
And if you liked this, if this felt helpful to you, whether you're a grieving person or someone supporting gravers, oftentimes we are both I am a grieving person and I support gravers in my life, not just professionally, but personally as well.
You will love you will resonate with the words inside the scripts inside, of course, I'm here right now, which is currently on pre order, wherever books are sold.
This is a pocket guide. It is a short and fast read that is filled with so, so many scripts for comforting, a grieving person so that you stop feeling afraid of saying the wrong thing and enter every conversation, whether you're at home school, work in romantic partnership in community with people, equipped with language that relays.
I am present. I am supporting you. I care about you. No therapy degree required.
And I would love, love, love. If you could pre-order this book, if you will join me on future episodes of supporting someone, the mini series. I think that's what we'll call it supporting someone, the mini series.
And I'll see you soon back here on Gravecrower.
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That's all for this episode of Gravecrower. Thank you so very much for joining me today.
If you're looking for grief support beyond this show, you can find free workshops, blog articles, and my signature, what's your grief support style quiz at Shelby for SITIA.com/links.
And if you'd like to get support from me for your unique loss experience, join us in Life After Laws Academy, my online course and community.
As a student, I will walk you through my five-step grief framework for rebuilding life after loss, and you can get live coaching for me every single week to answer your questions.
Replays are always available if you can't attend life. It is just $33 a month to join or $22 a month if you are a marginalized or financially stressed griever. You can pick the price that works for you, no questions asked, and you can cancel your membership at any time.
And do share Gravecrower with a friend, because you never know what someone you love is going through, or whether they're trying to support someone who's grieving in their life.
Gravecrower is hosted by me, Shelby for SITIA, and the theme music is composed by Annie Goldstein. Until next time, Gravecrowers, I see you. I am so proud of you in the work that you're doing in the world, and I love you.
Because even through Grave, we are groovy.
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