22. Question Time: We Answer Your Questions! Including Self Care, Ghosts, Our Partners & How We Cope

We have been collating your questions and we’re pleased to finally bring to you - Question Time. Answered by experts from each area of the G Seller business: Funerals, Bereavement, Memorials/Pre-Paid. We explain about self care techniques, what our partners really think of the profession, if there are ghosts in the funeral home and how rewarding we find our roles. 

If you have any questions, here’s how to get in touch:
Instagram – @liftingthelidfuneralpodcast
Email – Liftingthelid@gseller.co.uk
Website – www.gseller.co.uk/podcast
Watch the episode on YouTube: Lifting The Lid - YouTube

Transcript

0:06

Hi, I'm Andy Eeley, Senior Funeral Director for G Seller Independent Funeral Directors. And we've been serving bereaved families since 1910. I'm sure you're well aware there's lots of different misconceptions, myths and taboos around the funeral profession and what happens behind the scenes. So we decided to put together a series of podcasts to try and dispel some of those myths and answer any questions that you've got. So please do, like share and subscribe, send those questions, send them to liftingthelid@gseller.co.uk and we will do our absolute best to answer them for you. It genuinely is Our Family Caring For Your Family. Now, this is a slightly different episode. We're going to answer some of the questions. I've got some cards here and they've got different questions on and I'm going to pass over to my colleagues and co-host. So Joe, Amy and Tracy will be answering the questions that you've put forward to us. Thank you. Thank you very much, Andy. And here are the aforementioned cards. So we're going to go through these now and answer your question. So, Tracy, if you'd like to take a card. Yeah, any card for the top card? The top one. Okay. So what is your self care from being in high emotional roles? How do we shut off or wind down? I never, ever thought about that until Alison joined the team. And so Alison is one of our obviously bereavement counsellors, works alongside you. And I never considered self care, what I do, what that coping mechanism was, until she started questioning me and probing me on what I do, why I do things, how I do things. And my self care is I leave work and I call my mum every night. So every night I divulge my day, the good, the bad, the ugly and everything in between. And I hadn't realised how much I was offloading and then I close the door walk in home, and then I'm mum and wife and I hadn't realised how much self care that helped me to wind down and lose parts of my day. But that is the thing, because for Alison and myself as counsellors, we have to have it's called clinical supervision. And that's like our offloading of all the stuff that we hear and all the trauma we hear about, and we have to have that, but most of the professions don't. And so there's that side of it that she would have said that to you. I was very aware of that, that you hear a lot, you deal with a lot of emotional people yeah. In your roles and you don't get the support in the same sense that we get and we have to have yeah. This is going to make me sound really basic and really bad. I never phone my mum, which, I'm really sorry, mum, but I don't know, I just sort of get on with things. So I suppose I like to go for a run. I find that as a good coping mechanism because it sort of resets my brain for the day, but generally I'll go home and interact with my daughter and wife and just enjoy their company. I've always been very good at sort of boxing off what happens at work and keeping that very separate. I don't talk about work, particularly at home, an awful lot with anybody, really. I sort of have that part of my life and then my personal life, and by keeping those separate, I think that is my coping mechanism for it. And everybody's is different in that sense as well. I mean, because I spend a lot of my life sitting down in a room with one other person and all that. My antidote to that in personal life is very much more energetic. So, like 8-10 miles walks up Croft Hill and I do a lot of yoga and that kind of stuff like exercise and energetic things, because everything is done is very sedentary in terms of sitting still. Yeah. I mean, I certainly look at Croft Hill and think, no way. And I've never been to Croft Hill. Fair enough. There we go. Next question how do our partners feel about us working in the funeral profession? Depends. When I'm called out to look after someone

at 03: 4:26

00 a.m. in the morning, and I wake her up when I'm leaving the house, I trip over, trying to get ready in the dark. I trip over something that Clara has left who's my daughter on the landing. And I wake both Clara up and my wife, leave them crying. Then I just disappear for a couple of hours, then actually not so good. But no, I think it's important that actually your partner, husband, wife, they are supportive of it because it's a vocation that takes you out of home quite often in unexpected times. And the team know your partner, don't they? And we all know each other's partners to some degree and they pop into work, don't they? Occasionally so they get to feel the atmosphere, don't they? And being around what we are doing to have an understanding. Yeah, I think well, I've been a counsellor for years and years. Paul's really used to the fact that I don't talk about what I do, it's confidentiality, so he will never press me for anything. I mean, he was quite interested when I first started working with G Seller because it's just more from the funeral profession and what's going on there, but he's lost interest. He's just kind of used to it the way that it is. And I guess my take on that is completely different in the fact that myself and Joseph are in the business. So home life, work life, free time is work, all encompassing, isn't it? I guess, isn't it? Yeah and we're trying to get better at doing the whole now that we've got two children, we're trying to get better at home life, work life, and trying to have time where we're dedicated to our children in the period of time before bed or dinner time. But it's like you say, it's a vocation, it's not a job. So, yeah, I always say if I wasn't in the profession alongside him, then I don't think I'd understand the intensity that comes along with it. I don't think I'd understand the things that we have to forgo, family time, quality time for other families, because the way that we see things, it's the matter of that someone doesn't get to see their loved one again, do they? Whereas we're still privileged at the moment to spend time with our loved ones. Have you had that thing where you're just getting bedtime sorted and everything is really quiet and it's, like, really peaceful and it's like, okay, good night. Good night. And then my phone rings really loud. No, not right now. But again, like I said earlier, I disappear and my wife gets to sort it out. That's your fault. We've all got very different partners are really different. Yeah, absolutely. But ultimately I will say, because she will listen, you're very supportive and I very much appreciate that. All right, let's go. So does being around death change your feeling towards it? Well, I mean, I started working in Bereavement Support Care about ten years ago now, and at the time it all felt like everywhere I turned, it was just death. And it felt really kind of overwhelming to start off with. But now the most thing that is for me is that I just feel really appreciative of my own life and determined to kind of make the most of what I've got and live my life. Yeah, I definitely do think being around funerals and people's passing it definitely ignites that. I definitely don't think I'm still not I'm still not okay with it. I definitely don't want to die. I don't know how yeah, you know how you meet people and say it's okay? If it happens, it happens. I don't think I'm quite there. I don't know whether it's an age thing. I don't know what too sure, but I definitely still don't feel comfortable whilst I know the level of care that we provide and the team that we have and everything that's in place. It's a really difficult question, isn't it? Because I guess it's a very good question, because it makes you feel makes me think that actually, despite that we are in this every single day, we probably don't talk about it perhaps enough in that sort of respect, because I don't necessarily.... Reread the question.... I don't really necessarily know how I feel towards it, other than, as you said, that I do my very best, as everyone does, to try and avoid it. I'm a fair bit older than you, Amy, and I now think about it more because I'm slightly nearer to it, but that doesn't make me feel any better about it, but what I have done, I've made all the preparations so the family know exactly what I want about my funeral and about everything else. So it made me think more about that, definitely about having it right for me. But, yeah, I still don't like the idea of it very much. Still a lot to live for. Yeah, absolutely. It's a good question isn't it. How do I feel towards death? Still a big question mark, I don't think we were all still a bit like, yeah, sorry, I probably can't answer any better than that, frankly. All right. Okay. Is it scary working in a funeral home? Have you ever seen a ghost question? Do you know what that ghost question does come up? I don't know, occasionally with families, doesn't it? And I feel like before we renovated our premises back in 2018, our team, especially the team that's been with us for several years, they'll all tell you that they've seen a ghost or they've felt something, or they've seen something or the doorbell's gone. No one's walked in, except one person I'm sure. Everyone knows that I'm the biggest sceptic of this, I won't say rubbish, stuff. You've got to believe in it to be able to feel it or see it. I've never seen a ghost. I definitely don't feel that energy in the funeral home. I don't feel it, feel it at work at all. I've felt things outside of that in the past. Yeah. So you're a believer in ghost? I am a believer. You need to keep your eyes peeled and then let us know. Let us know if you ever see a ghost. I don't sense anything anywhere around the building. Yeah, neither do I. I'll go to work late at night, sit in the office, not fazed, not thinking, oh, is this a spirit, is it a ghost? Am I with anyone? I'm quite happy. But some of the team don't. They say, well, the doorbell went and no one walked in. Maybe the door just went there. Yeah. I feel that there's some sort of scientific explanation for anything on those sort of lines. And I've walked through the place in the dark before and whatever else. I've never particularly felt a ghostly presence or anything. There. No ghosts at G Seller. Not at the minute. As far as we know, not at G Seller, but yeah. Question okay. Do you or who comes into contact with the deceased? So I guess that's more I guess you can answer that more directly, who comes into contact with the deceased. I'm part of the core team, as we've sort of said before, that goes to look after people it is sort of limited around the place. Not just anybody gets to sort of interact, is able to interact, to see people around our place. Back of house operatives, of course, who look after dressing and certainly the embalmer certainly does. Funeral directors will because of course, we're checking to make sure ID checks and whatever else. Someone like yourself wouldn't come into contact with. Not at all. But it's an interesting question because although I don't come in physically into contact with them, when I'm working with their relatives, I do feel like I really get to know who they are. So like, from the other side of it, I get to know the person before. It is limited, of course, isn't it, as we said there. And question, what do we find rewarding about our roles? Well, I think it's massively different for us all, isn't it? For me, I like knowing that we fulfilled somebody's wishes to the highest standard and with the ultimate care. And I find that rewarding, especially the areas that I look after, like memorials. We place a memorial on a grave and it's everything they've asked for and hopefully more. And it's like that lasting tribute and thinking that I've had an involvement in that or in that person's life and in that person's journey, that family's journey. I like supporting people and being on the journey, on the journey with them. Yeah, it's a many sort of facets to the answer, isn't it? Because in the role of an embalmer, if I sort of embalm someone, then it's very rewarding the fact that you sort of start with almost a blank canvas in there and eventually, by the time you finish, then that person looks a lot nicer. And as soon as someone comes to the Chapel of Rest, come to see them and then when you get their reaction, that looks just like me mom or my dad, Better than she didin hospital more positive experience. And that's incredibly rewarding on the side of being a funeral director. Then, of course, in a very similar sort of way, you guide someone through one of the most difficult things that they do or that they're going to do, and they come out the end of it, shake your hand and say, yeah, that was spot on. That's exactly what my mother would have wanted. Also very rewarding, but to the point where a long time ago, when I spent a little bit of time in memorial department, I painted a yellow rose on a memorial. It's up the top of Hinckley Cemetery and every time I go past it, I painted that and it's still there. And actually it wasn't too bad, that tells you, Mum, I couldn't stay in the line. It's rewarding in all sorts of different ways. Yeah. And Joe, you do that journey, don't you, with them through all of that. And then I have a very different journey with their relatives then afterwards, and they come to me when they are struggling and not able to cope with their grief so much. And it's really the journey of going through all that with them. And when they start to get to the point where they're starting to grow their life around their grief again and they say they're ready to end the counselling. That is the most rewarding thing for me, because actually, you've given them the tools to actually go out and still enjoy their lives and live their lives without losing the love they've got for the person that they've lost and without also staying a shell of themselves, that shell of that person carrying on. Its seeing somebody at the beginning, when they're really struggling, to see them go off and come in saying, oh, I've done this and I've done that. That's all really uplifting, isn't it? Yeah, I like that. That's very nice. Final question. Here we go. How do we cope with being a 24/7 business? People think that we're the only 24 hours business, aren't we? If we think of, like, the NHS and other professions, many professions that run on a 24 hours business, and I talk from my perspective in the fact that myself and Joseph couldn't do it on our own without the team, and it takes all of us for that to work. It comes with its pros and cons, doesn't it? Excess, tiredness occasionally, but then it has the other highs of being able to be there when someone's in absolute despair, turmoil. Yeah, it's a weird thing, isn't it? Because 24 hours business, I know some people think that because of that, the middle of the night we're sat waiting, so people will say to me when I arrive at the house and look after someone, you've been up all night? Well, actually, no, it's fine. But up until this, I was actually asleep. And then, of course, we get up and we go, so we're not in the office 24/7, so necessarily we go home and the phones are put through to an out of hours, which is always someone within the business. And then the call team will go and affect a conveyance. So, yeah, I find it quite humorous sometimes from the questions that you get in your private house. Just got you up. Yeah, it's okay. So if I do look a bit tired if I come to the house, I do apologise. I might not have been awake too long. I mean, that side of it doesn't really affect me. But I am very aware of the fact when whoever's been on call on that night and you're still coming in, doing your job in the day as well. So I appreciate that. It can be probably tough at times. We still look great, don't we? That's right. It takes a lot of makeup to get me to look like this. Excited to see what next questions come through from people. Thank you very much for your questions, keep piling them in and we can do this again, but we'll hand you over back to Andy now, who will do our outro for us? Thank you. Thank you, Joe. And thank you to Tracy and Amy as well. I think that was a great insight into the daily lives of the funeral professionals there. Hopefully we've answered those questions as well, so carry on please send more in as many questions we can get the better really sending to liftingthelid@gseller.co.uk and we will do our absolute best to answer them for you. Please like, share and subscribe as well and we'll see you next time.