Grief literacy in the workplace
On March 14, Chris and I had the pleasure of speaking with Adam Tomasta from Enmax about grief tending and our work in the community. While the talk is reserved for Enmax employees, I wanted to share some of our discission here:
I’m here today because of the death of my mom, and my attempt to meet each day without her. My mom was absolute joy. She was so giving to everyone, so present and aware of what people needed. My mom was a single mom, and I was an only child – we had this incredibly close and unique relationship.
Nothing prepared me for living in a world without my mom, but just as painful was finding myself in a world that does not understand how to hold grief. And it’s important to say that I believe this is not a personal issue but a cultural one.
We live in an accession culture with a strong emphasis on progress, moving forward, keeping going – grief is anything but. It’s weighty, it pulls you down. This makes living with grief extra unbearable.
There is a strong desire to move people out of the painful reality of grief. And there is a belief that this is possible by offering for a griever to look on the bright side, or by avoiding it altogether. Both Chris and I have experienced this in family and friend situations and also in the workplace.
From my experience being in deep grief, trying to push a griever out of his or her grief, only makes one feel more isolated and alone. Francis Weller, psychotherapist, author and soul activist, has this beautiful saying that we don’t necessarily have an answer, but we have a response. There is no answer to grief, and no one wishes more for one than the griever him or herself. But there is a response.
A person’s grief does not turn off when they get to work, and how we meet them there is so important to how they feel as a grieving person in this environment.
I would invite people to be willing to sit with another’s grief. You don’t need to have an answer for their because there isn’t one. And you don’t even need to have the shared experience of grief. My dearest friend, who many of you know, Julia Perkins, has a way of being my strongest source of support. And she does this by consistently showing up and being willing to sit with what is for me.
Sometimes it requires us to ask “how are you really?”
Most of all, It requires us to not be afraid. There is no step-by-step guide, but there is a response.
I also think it’s critical for people to recognize that there are griefs beyond the loss of a person. In Francis’ book, The Wild Edge of Sorrow, he shares Five (now Six) Gates of Grief that acknowledge things beyond just the loss of a loved one. These include the Sorrows of the World and Ancestral Grief, to name a couple.
The work Chris and I are doing is not instructional - it’s about bringing together a community in grief, making a space where grief can be witnessed and held, without advice or judgement. It’s giving grief reverence and care, a place to rest.
xo Daria