82: How To/How Not To Support Others in Grief

Foreign welcome to Grief and Guts. I'm your host, Melissa Dugulecki. It is my honor and privilege to serve you by sharing stories, tools, interviews, and strategies that will help you transition from what do I do now? How do I get through this? Those feelings of overwhelm and uncertainty to truly standing in your power. From my grief journey in losing my daughter laden in 2014 that I learned, practiced, was exposed to all these tools, but they are not grief specific. In fact, they apply universally to all of our unique situations. You've already done the hard part by showing up, by opening up to something new. So without any further ado, let's get to the good stuff that's going to help you in your journey. Let's dive in. All right, guys, welcome back to Grief and Guts. I am your host, Melissa, and I am excited about today's episode and I know I always get excited to jam on this stuff. But today's is unique because it is completely inspired by a woman who reached out asking for help. That was somebody who was, I was connected to, you know, years ago. We've lost touch for the most part, but she endured a loss within her family and it wasn't directly hers, but still in her greater family unit. And one is to figure out how to navigate this, one for herself and then two as a supporter for the family member who was really grieving the direct loss, the primary loss. Remember we talked about primary losses versus secondary losses. So I am really excited to be able to take that authentic, inspiring conversation and provide something valuable here. So if you ever feel like you don't know exactly how to support somebody or you're trying to separate your grief, your experience from the person who you're trying to support, but you're also in pain, too. This episode is for you. I'm going to give you some tools, share some examples. Getting back to grief, getting back to my roots. Let's dive in. All right, guys. So if you are in a position where you have lost somebody, maybe secondarily, maybe it is your spouse's parent or so maybe not your parent, but like a parent to you, maybe it's your cousin's child and I'll actually share about me and my cousin when we went that or I'm not sure about me and my mom. Right. And so your. Your child's child, so your grandchild. Right. And so my mom was grieving the loss of her grandchild, but then also trying to support her daughter. And it's tangled. Right. Or if you maybe aren't as directly connected, maybe you're just friends with somebody who had a loss and you don't feel that loss is intense, but you're still not totally sure how to support. I want you to know, first of all, it is totally normal, guys. It's totally normal. This shit is hard. There is no manual. We do not come into life with a manual handed to us on how to handle grief, challenge adversity, loss, overwhelm, all of these things, right? So we figure it out and we share. So first thing is listening to this. You are doing something. So, like, give yourself a high five, pat in the back, little eye contact, affirmation. Like, I'm doing something. I am cultivating growth. Like, say that out loud, right? Pause it if you want and say it out loud. But in all honesty, beyond this, I can't emphasize enough. Reaching out and asking for support. The woman who inspired this episode, I am so proud and inspired by her for having the courage to say, I don't know what to do. I'm going to ask someone who I think might be able to help me, right? So reach out and ask for support. Have the courage to do that. Know you are worth doing that. Know whoever you are supporting needs you to do that. Okay? So totally step one. And then also, you know, I just did an episode on the law of giving and receiving, right? Where I talked about how sometimes, like, we don't know what to do when things get messy. And so, like, we make lasagnas, right? We just bring lasagnas over. We have no idea if that person even likes lasagna. So maybe listen to that podcast episode as well, because it's really going to talk about how we give and how we receive love and support specifically for you. If you are in the supporting role and you want to help someone who's grieving and you're also feeling your own pain, I want you to first try to untangle your loss from their loss. Now, it doesn't mean that both losses aren't real. It doesn't even mean that one is, you know, more important than the other. You have to tend to your own loss too, right? You absolutely have to tend to your own loss. But I want you to untangle and make space for your loss and the persons you're supporting loss. So I can use, you know, my mom as an example in the sense of she was grieving the loss of her grandchild, right? She was grieving the pain of seeing her daughter, right. Struggle, right? That was like kind of two losses for my mom. And then she was trying to support Me. And in order to support me, like, you know, we had to untangle those a little bit. I had to make space for, for my loss, my mom's loss. But I'm going to keep this totally focused on the supporters perspective, which is a little bit harder, I'm not going to lie, a little bit harder. My cousin, who I'm going to reference, you know, we were kind of like brother and sister growing up, honestly. And so for him, it was like, almost like, you know, actually, I think he wrote Layden. He did. He wrote Layden a letter when she was alive telling Layden that, you know, she could call him, you know, uncle. And so he was basically grieving the loss of a niece, but then also trying to support his cousin, almost like a sister, through my pain. And so these aren't easy things. So I want you to look at the different losses and recognize they both need to be honored, right? My mom needed to honor her loss. My cousin needed to honor his loss. And if they wanted to support me, they had to separate their losses from my loss. Now, I think this is really important because if you are in the supporting role when you show up to support, this is a lot of what I get into in life coaching and the coaching certification program that I am doing, right? I teach, like out of body experience. You can integrate this in the supportive role. So when you are showing up to support someone else, you have to take yourself out of it. Hardest step, hardest step. If this resonates with you and you want to learn more, I highly suggest you check out what I am doing to teach how to coach and support. And ultimately what you are doing when you're supporting someone in grief is very much related to these coaching strategies. And I hit problematic coaching styles and I hit, you know, how we can make it about ourselves sometimes. It's human nature, guys. It's human nature. So if that resonates with you and you're like, ooh, something's calling me to learn more, scope that out. Over at 90 Days CEO, I'm really diving into it and offering actually a training on it, a training on it this fall. So if you're interested in that, shoot me a message. Okay, back to regularly scheduled programming. You need to take yourself out of it, and that's really, really, really hard. And that's why I just wanted to get into it so hard that I'm training people on it at length, right? In depth. Next thing I want you to do is think about what kind of teammate you want to be. Now, when I have taught the concept of teammates before, I've taught it from the perspective, the lens of the griever and saying who are your teammates? Figure out who they are, what roles they play, who's a listener, who's a doer, who's an Xer, who's a dist. Those are our four types of teammates in grief. Who are those roles and figure out what you need. On the other hand, if you're a supporter, think about what kind of teammate you are. How are you that's going to show up? Do you do well listening and just listening and holding heavy space? Do you do better distracting? Are you a doer? Like checking things off the list? Are you an Xer? If so, I'm going to tell you to probably just remove yourself kindly from the person who's grieving because you're not going to be super helpful. Now if you want to learn more about that, check out my episode on Teammates. I will include it in the show notes for you so you can easily reference that. I also have a visual that breaks these down as well. I'm working on putting all of these images online for you guys in one place so you can easily reference them so it's on the list and hopefully that will serve you well. The next thing to do when you are supporting somebody is not to take anything personally and not to make it personal. So when you reach out, as I talked about, make sure it's about them, not about you. So ask yourself, am I reaching out right now because I need to know this person's okay. I need to know this person and I are still okay. I need reassurance of my pain or am I reaching out for them, right? Am I reaching out for them? For my mom this was really, really hard, right? Because you know, she was, you know, lady and I had spent some time at my parents house, spend some nights there and had some memories there and I couldn't go back to the house after Lynn died. Like I was just like no, I can't. And for my mom I think it was really hard and she probably wanted some reassurance that I would eventually go back and little did you know I'd end up being here probably more than we ever expected down the road as I just concluded a month long visit with them which was fantastic. Never have done that, it was awesome. But after Layden died if someone thought, you know, I never thought I'd be able to do that. I couldn't even, I couldn't even go to the house but I couldn't assuage My mom's worry for that. Right? And she really had to kind of, like, manage that on her own. I'm sure it was really, really hard for her. So when you're reaching out, think, am I reaching out for somebody to take away my own worry, my own angst, my own discomfort? Or am I reaching out to serve, to show up, to support? If it is not about your needs, reach out. If it is about your needs, get them filled somewhere else. I'm not saying to ignore your needs, right? When my mom said, what can I do? I remember saying, like, go to counseling. Please, please, please, please. Like, I want to make sure your needs are taken care of. This is trauma for you, right? This is seeing your daughter go through this as your granddaughter. Like, go to counseling or get support or get a grief coach. Like, that was the number one thing. Because your needs, if you are in the supporting role and if you have an association with the loss, your needs are real. You have endured a loss, too. So while I want you to untangle these losses and while I want you to shelf your loss and totally put it to the side when you're showing up to support the person who's grieving, I also want you to, in your own time, make space for tending to your pain, your loss, your suffering, your hurt. That is, if you get nothing else out of this podcast but understanding that you are going to be so much better equipped to support and you will be doing the most selfless thing. Because by not projecting your pain, your worry, your insecurity, your angst on the person grieving, think about it. You are adding weight. When you do that, you are adding weight. So by not adding weight, oh, my gosh, you're already lightening a load, right? You're already lightening a load, and then you're able to show up and be like, hey, how can I actually support you? What do you want? Right? What do you want? So remember, untangle your loss, their loss, tend to both separately. Now, will it be times where you may share in that? Sure. But let the person grieving the primary loss direct that. Let them direct that. You can offer it. You know, do you want to, you know, cry? Do you want to listen? Do you want to do this? Do you want to do that? What can I do? Go and get some food and drinks and talk about it, whatever it may be, but let the person you're supporting direct that. So that's the next thing. And it's, you know, we overcomplicate this sometimes. Ask them. Ask. I would recommend instead of Saying, like, you know, what do you want or need? They may not know. You know, I would say, like, how can I show up to support you? Would this be helpful or would this be helpful? Would you love. Would it be helpful if I went grocery shopping for you? Or would it be helpful if I got you delivery? Would it be helpful to have some company or do you need some alone time? So giving them options, right. Or something else and letting them be the ones in control, in power, like, do you need some space right now? Cool. Is it okay if I shoot you a text in a couple days? Awesome. No. Need a week. Okay. So you're really creating this safe place of honoring their needs. If you can do this, it's going to be very hard in the beginning for you because you're already in pain. I believe that your relationship with the person you're supporting will strengthen over time. If you can do this during this really intensified era, like, this really intensified period. So reaching out, how can I support you? And then doing so in a way that works for you and that, you know, that they have asked for and invited. We don't want to just, you know, assume that somebody wants a certain kind of support or say, I'm taking you out to dinner tonight. They may not want to leave, right? It could be, I want. I want to keep you company tonight. You know, I'm going to stop by and see if you want to go to dinner, if you want to order in, or if you need to be alone, I'll leave, right? Or maybe don't even show up. Just text them before and say, these are three options. I can leave you alone, I can take you to dinner, I can get to delivery what feels best. I want to support you. So giving them options and letting them decide, that's. That is going to facilitate a safe place. This is very hard to do because it requires an element of sitting with the shit. Okay. I talk about this all the time. We just sit with the shit, right? And that's very hard to do. So if you're supporting somebody grieving, you are going to become pretty damn good at sitting with the shit, which isn't fun. But supporting isn't necessarily about fun, right? It's about safety, it's about growth, it's about healing, it's about transformation. Know that the longer and the better you can learn to sit with it in the beginning, the better it will be in the long term. You know, it's really hard for my cousin to do this. You know, we were basically like brother and sister. You Know, as I mentioned growing up, and we were just. We're just a few months apart, and we were. His wife and I were pregnant at the same time, and we actually both named our daughters after grandmothers. Now, different grandmothers, but our grandmothers. And so I did the grandmother on our maternal side, and he named his daughter after his grandmother on his paternal side. So we had all these visions and dreams of watching our daughters grow up together and being best friends, just like we were best friends. And so that was a real big loss for him. And, you know, there was this huge sense of guilt, right, that he carried this huge sense of guilt and this huge sense of fear that. Similar to my mom, like, she's never gonna want to come back to the house, right? It's gonna be too hard for her. My cousin was kind of like, she's never gonna want to, you know, interact and engage with my daughter. She's. We're never. We're not gonna be close. So now he's feeling the loss of Laden, right? Basically, you know, a niece to him, and then he's worried about the loss of basically a sister to him, right? A cousin, but he's basically a sister. And that was really hard. And I couldn't take that away. I couldn't. You know, I had to establish boundaries. I couldn't put myself in a position to be around my basically niece, his daughter, For a while, right? For a while. That was really hard. And I'm sure for him, this was a huge added pain, but sat with it. We communicated. It did mean like that there was a little bit of distance for a short time, right? Because he needs take care of himself. I need to take care of myself. We still are connected. Always called, reached out, text. But it was just different, right? It was just different. But because of that, our relationship has grown over time where we're able to talk about that period. We're able to talk about how we had to take care of our needs. We had to talk about how I had to honor what he needed, but I couldn't meet what he needed, right? And he had to honor what I needed. But doing that was, like, really hard. So know that when we're supporting, it's not necessarily. It isn't. It's not about us. But that doesn't mean we don't tend to our needs, Right? I really am so glad that, you know, the people in my life who suffered loss have been able to tend to their needs in different ways, even if I couldn't do it for them. Right. And by Them doing that, then they could show up for me, right? They could show up for me. Now, a lot of people ask about gifts and all of this stuff. And, like, of course I'm going to say having Layden remembered is probably what means the most to me. So maybe you set reminders in your phone. Maybe you put something in there for a month out or a few months out or a year out, because people forget, right? Life goes on. But if you just remember and you just say like, hey, if I get a text like, hey, thinking of you in Layden today, sudden love, like, oh, makes my day. Now remember, you bringing it up doesn't mean somebody suddenly remembers it. It doesn't. Like, I'm thinking about Laden all the time. Somebody brings it up. I'm not suddenly remembering that my daughter's gone. So don't be afraid to bring it up. Absolutely. Don't be afraid to bring it up. No. If somebody cries, it's okay. I cry all the time. But that's a part of the healing. And it reminds me of my love for Laden. Right? It reminds me of my love for Laden. So, you know, speak the person's name. Ask them if it's okay to speak the person's name. Ask them how they want to remember the one that they've lost. Just ask them. Make this collaborative, make this communicative, make this connected. Right? And I will say, when you're asking, try to avoid asking questions that might be hard to answer. For example, like, you know, when do you think you'll feel better? Or what do you want to do in two weeks? That could be really hard, right? When somebody's grieving for them, and this is important probably for you to understand what. When somebody is grieving, it's really hard for them. They're already suffocating. It's really hard for them to commit to knowing what they're going to want to do in two weeks, three weeks, two days, two hours. So I coach people grieving to create plans A, B, C, D and E and not really fully commit just while they're in this intense period. Not forever, guys. Not forever. So if you're supporting somebody, try and support that flexibility. Like, oh, hey, you know, in two weeks, like, if we see each other, let's keep it open. Think about what you want, right? Think about what you want. And if you can't get together that day, that's okay. The more you can take pressure off of somebody grieving, the better because you got to imagine, like, it feels like this pressure valve just coming down. And coming down and coming down and coming down. So the more you can take that pressure off of them, the more substantially you're going to create space for them to kind of grow and expand, and you're going to be a safe place. The more that you're a safe place, the more that they're going to turn to you when they're grieving. Right. I had a few really safe places that I turned to in my darkest, deepest, heaviest moments because they created a very safe environment for me to do so. And then also know your capacity. You are not responsible for anyone else's healing, even somebody grieving. You're not. I hate to say it, one of the hardest things I did was take responsibility for my grief, and it changed everything. But nobody else could take that responsibility for me. I had to really. I had to take it for myself. So know that you're not actually responsible for somebody else's healing. You're responsible for your own and what you need to do. And then showing up selflessly, right. For that other person, putting your experience aside. And ultimately, as much as it sucks, that person is responsible for their healing. Now, you can be a major part of it. I could not have healed on my own without my teammates, without my family, part of my teammates. Right. And without the coaches that I've worked with. Right. Grief coach, life coach, you know, grief counselor, parent groups, all of these were a part of my healing. I ultimately did the work, but I didn't do it by myself. I didn't just sit, you know, in my room and say, okay, I'm going to do the work and heal. I was like, help me, please. Like, I literally was just like, who can help me? So remember that, too, and try to lighten the burden that you may feel from thinking that you are responsible for somebody else's healing, because you're not. You're not. Now, if there are any ways that I can support you, let me know. Please reach out. Just like the woman who inspired this entire episode just reached out, sent me an email and said, I think I need some help with this. Do that, do that. You deserve that. The person you're supporting deserves that. The person whose life was lost deserves for those remembering and celebrating their life to heal as productively as they can in their honor. It's not easy, right? That's why we ask for help. Right? And I'm so grateful to be a place to offer that, to offer resources in areas where there's, in my opinion, just not enough. Not enough. But we're getting there. We're doing this together and I'm so grateful to be doing this with all of you guys. Also really excited in the beginning of September, probably the second week, we're going to be doing like just a fallback into it, like, like fall mode, go mode. I'm going to be doing a sprint week. I do them, I don't know, maybe once a year. Every day of the week there's going to be a podcast episode. I'm going to have two behind the scenes interviews with people I've worked with. So if there's anything that you'd really love to learn more about or you're curious or you want to go deeper and shoot me a dm, you know, I love Instagram Guts and Grief and I will be sure to create content for you. The episode I was gonna do this week on the back burner just all authentically because the woman who reached out I said, ah, people need to hurry this. So I hope this served you well. If it did, please rate and review. It's gonna help us spread this work and shine Layden's light. And thank you all for being here. There's nothing that means more to me than spreading Laden's love, her light, and shaping her legacy. And talk to you soon. Thank you all so much for being here at Grief and Guts as Layden's mom. Being able to spread the stories, the strategies, the lessons I have learned through Layden and from Layden is the thing that means the most to me in this world and allowing my daughter's short life to have long and lasting impact by shining her light. Truly, truly, nothing means more if you align with and believe in the work that we're doing here in these messages. The best way to give back and to spread this out into the world is to rate and review on Spotify and on itunes. Thank you for taking just a moment to do that. Feel free to shoot me a message. Let me know what you want to hear more of, what you want to see more of. I am here to serve. I'm grateful to do so, and I'm cheering you on in your journey as always.