Say Their Name: Six Ways to Support Someone You Love Through Grief with Sophia Dawson #9

Welcome back to The WHOLEistic Psychology Podcast 🤍

Today's episode is a little different for me (and definitely my most candid). It's a solo one, recorded from a place I truly never imagined I'd be speaking from. Very recently, I lost somebody very close to me, unexpectedly and far, far too soon. And in the weeks since, I have been so deeply held by the most incredible, intentional people in my life who have shown up for me in the most beautiful ways, who have inspired today’s podcast.

It has made me realise, both as a senior psychologist and as someone who is currently bereaved myself, how much we as a society really struggle with grief — and how many well-intentioned, beautiful people feel so unequipped to support someone they love through a loss.

So this episode is a practical toolkit for the supporters of those who are grieving. If somebody in your life has lost a parent, partner, sibling, child, or friend, and you want to know how to show up for them in the best way, this one is absolutely for you.

I explore:

• Why we as a society struggle so much with grief, and what's really happening underneath all our well-intentioned avoidance
• Why supporting the bereaved is, at its heart, a practice in staying (and not in fixing)
• My six practical tools: saying their name, jumping in with your clothes on, helping carry the mundane, supporting the continuing bond, showing up long after everyone else stops, and holding space for whatever needs to be spoken
• A few things I gently encourage you to be mindful of (including religious assumptions, big life changes, and changing the subject when their person comes up)
• What the bereaved themselves want you to know, in their own words - verbatim from my beautiful Instagram community

✨ A gentle note from me: this episode discusses sudden bereavement. Please take care of yourself as you listen, and come back to it whenever you feel ready.

Books I reference throughout (all in the links below):

• Resilient Grieving by Dr Lucy Hone
• The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller
• Bearing the Unbearable by Joanne Cacciatore

With so much gratitude to the Instagram community members who so generously shared their words and lived experience. 

This one is dedicated to the beautiful humans in my own life who have shown up for me. If you are walking alongside someone who is grieving right now, thank you. It is one of the most sacred kinds of love there is. And if you are the one inside the grief yourself - I am walking alongside you. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Holistic Psychology Podcast, where psychology meets nutrition, lifestyle, and physical health for a whole-person approach to your mental health. I'm senior psychologist Sophia Dawson. Let's step into true wellness from the inside out. This is a different kind of episode today, a candid, lived experience reflection of mine on tools to help the supporters of those who have just lost somebody that they love. If someone that you love is grieving and you're feeling a little bit unequipped with regards to how to help them, this episode is for you. I'm coming to you today as a senior psychologist and as somebody who is currently bereaved myself after losing a very important person to me tragically and unexpectedly. I walk you through six practical tools for supporting the bereaved, what you can say and how you can show up in the most intentional, helpful way. Let's dive in. Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Holistic Psychology Podcast. This episode is going to be a little bit different today, so it is just me on my own. Um, doing a solo episode, uh, given some recent life events that I have had that have inspired me to want to talk about this. So very recently I lost somebody very close to me very unexpectedly. And I guess if you think about the kind of order of life, this person left us far too soon. And I have had the most incredible friends and family show up for me. And there are a lot of beautiful people in my life that have said, you know, I want to know how best to help you. How can I show up in the best way? And it made me realize that as a society, I really think that we struggle with grief, bereavement, losing somebody important to us. And so I really wanted to make this podcast episode kind of a practical toolkit for people that are supporting those who are grieving. So if somebody in your life has lost somebody important to them, if that's a brother, sister, parent, child, other family member, friend, and you want to know how to best show up for them, this podcast is absolutely for you. And I hope by the end of this you feel like you've got some practical tips and tricks that help you show up the way that you want to be able to for them. I really just actually want to dedicate this podcast to these people in my life that show up in the most incredible way. All of the people that have been intentional and mindful and checked in and messaged and asked me questions and been so thoughtful. And really the fact that you're here listening to this podcast suggests that you are that person for the person in your life who is grieving. So I feel very grateful for you to be listening to this. In this podcast episode, there is going to be a few books that I reference. I will absolutely put them in the show notes. And there are also some comments that I got from my Instagram community that I'm going to integrate into here too about grief and loss and what people want to know and what the bereaved want their people to know. I've also weaved some of those questions and those thoughts into the episode itself. So I hope that that brings a real lived experience layer to this podcast. I want to start by talking about grief as I guess we experience it as a society. I really feel like we really struggle with the emotion of grief. It kind of perplexes me if I'm honest, because that is one emotion that all of us collectively are going to experience at one point or another. But I think there's a certain quality to grief that can feel very hard to hold because it is so raw, it is so visceral. And being a supporter of somebody who is grieving, it's really, really hard to watch somebody that you love going through a loss that is so deep and to be enduring something that is so heavy to carry. And I think that the fact that you're here means that you are so well-intentioned. And I think that people generally are really well-intentioned when it comes to supporting the bereaved. Everybody wants to do the right thing, say the right thing, show up in the right way, which is so, so, so beautiful. But sometimes that well-intentioned behavior can actually avoid the person's grief and avoid that inevitable impermanence of life. I think sometimes it can be because grief can also bring up questions of our own mortality that can feel really uneasy to sit with and to hold. But I think mostly it is actually a fear or an anxiety around upsetting the bereaved, about reminding them of their loss, about saying the wrong thing and making them hurt further. And I think that means that we choose to avoid their pain because it feels like the safer, more comfortable option. We think, well, if I just don't talk about that person, maybe that'll upset them less. We're going to talk about in this podcast today actually why approaching the topic of the person who has been lost is going to be really important. But I feel I really just want to validate that everyone has good intentions. However, when we avoid, it's really avoiding this person's reality of a catastrophic loss. So I hope that together we can all show up and talk and communicate and remember and share memories of this person who has been lost. Frances Weller has written a book, which is one of the ones that I'm going to put in the show notes today, about how our culture has become expert at holding grief at a distance or at anathemizing ourselves to the very feelings that make us human. Frances Weller says, when our grief cannot be spoken, it falls into the shadow and rearises in us as symptoms. And I think that is so true. When we don't see somebody's grief, when somebody feels like they can't share their grief, it can often turn into something like anxiety, depression, loneliness, feelings of isolation. And we are expert at holding grief at a distance. I think that's a really beautiful way of saying it. I think, again, that quality of it is so raw and so visceral that maybe if we can just keep it at a distance, it makes us feel more comfortable. And we hope in turn it will make the grieving person feel more comfortable too. Joanne Catciatori, another person whose book I'm going to reference in the show notes, puts it a different way. And she says, to bypass grief, we must also bypass love. The bypass, not the grief, is actually the thing that imprisons us. So effectively, supporting somebody in grief is a practice in staying, staying close to somebody, not running from the discomfort. I know it is so impossibly hard to watch someone we love hurt. However, we need to be able to hold these things together. We can notice our thoughts and feelings that scream, that discomfort and that pain of watching someone we love go through something so so horrendous. And also knowing that by staying and witnessing their grief and speaking about it with them, they can exist together. It's okay. We can hold our feelings inside of us as supporters and we can show up the way that we need to for the grieving. I've got six tools that I have, I guess, kind of integrated from my own experience of grief, but also in these books that I've read while I've been grieving, in the hope that these are the practical things that are going to allow you to be that person that you want to be in the grieving person's life. The first tool I would call is say their name. I would say the people that are grieving for the most part really want to talk about their person. And I know that that's not a one size fits all. I absolutely appreciate that. However, I would like to kind of place the responsibility on the bereaved to be able to communicate if they're not comfortable with talking about the person that they love that they've lost. When we're talking and we're speaking the name of the person that has been lost, it's like we're able to keep a legacy alive of that person. And that's something that feels really special because one of the hardest, heaviest parts of grief is that finality, that fact that you're not going to see that person again. And I think, again, by avoiding the name of the lost person, we as supporters feel like, okay, well, I don't want to remind them of that person that they've lost. But the loss never leaves their mind. That person absolutely never leaves their mind. And when you're talking about the person, what you are doing is actually reminding them that that person mattered to them, that person was seen, that person was loved, and that person, we're grieving for them. We feel sad, we feel their loss deeply, and we're feeling their loss collectively alongside each other. My Instagram community made the same comments. They said, talk about it, say their name, name it, don't avoid it. I want to talk about them. Another book that I'm actually going to reference in the show notes is Resilient Grieving by Dr. Lucy Hone, a book that I have read a couple of times myself. Lucy Hone is a resilience researcher. She's incredible. If you're wanting a book on grief, I would recommend this one first. Lucy lost her daughter Abby, her best friend Sally, and Abby's best friend Ella, in a car accident a number of years ago now. And her reflections on grief are so powerful. And in her book, she says, as for not upsetting me by making me think about Abby, Ella, and Sally, I'm thinking about them all the time anyway. So go ahead and join me. I think that is so beautiful. It is so true. It speaks to the importance of just saying their name, keeping their legacy alive, and making room collectively for the pain of losing that person as well. Examples of how you might be able to say that person's name is, you know, I was thinking about X today. Remember when they X, Y, Z, maybe a funny story. Um, maybe you're sharing something that is a quality of that person that you admired. Maybe you admired that person's spontaneity and you want to share with the grieving, like, hey, I thought of that person today when I did something really wild and completely out of character. Say their name and remember them in a way that can open up conversations and allow space for that person to be remembered. Tool two. This is a metaphor that I have come up with just in experiencing grief myself, and I don't know what to call it other than don't just dip your toe in the pool, jump in with your clothes on. I've noticed that there appear to be maybe two different types of people when it comes to grief. And one is the person, and I want to reiterate, completely well-intentioned and wants to show up in the best, most helpful way. One is the person that kind of dips their toe in, stands on the side of the pool, sort of observes, stays maybe more on the periphery. Someone that maybe texts or calls and says, you know, I hope you're doing okay. Let me know if you need anything. Then there are the people that jump into the pool with their clothes on. Those people that just show up radically, authentically in whatever the bereaved is going through that day. So whether it's crying with us, laughing with us, being angry with us, joining in on the bizarre kind of dark humor, just being on the roller coaster with us. That's what I would call jumping in with your clothes on. Just being radically authentic, radically present, radically intentional. One of the most repeated pieces of advice from my Instagram community when I put it out was you don't need to have an answer. You just need to be there. And I think that's a perfect description of what those who are grieving someone they love really just needs. You don't need to show up perfectly. Just show up authentically, be present, lean in to the pain, don't lean out. Because that is what, again, I think we do as a society is that we see pain, we stay on the periphery, we observe, we say things that that maybe sound helpful, and they again they come from a beautifully intentioned place. But what that person needs is for you to jump in with your clothes on. Just say, say everything you're thinking, lean into the conversation, lean into that person's pain. Joanne Cacciatore, who is the author of one of the books I'm going to put in the show notes, she's worked with bereaved people for over 30 years. And she said, I don't help people feel good. I help people feel without judgment, without trying to change anything, without averting my gaze. But the end of that quote for me is the most powerful without averting my gaze. Because I I think that is the most meaningful part of showing up for somebody who is grieving, but I also think simultaneously that is the hardest part of showing up for somebody who is grieving, is seeing that person in all their pain and being able to witness it. It's a very, very hard thing for a supporter to do, but but it is so important that person feels seen. Every part of them is seen. This is something that is called attunement. It's I guess kind of the integration of attention and affection. Weller, Francis Weller, who is the author of one of the books I'll put in the show notes, says attunement is what makes painful experiences toler tolerable. And I couldn't agree more. I think that when we're going through something as painful as this, it is so important to have somebody who can see you in the depths of your pain. And again, it's not about making that person feel good. It's not about problem solving, having a solution, because there's no solution. It's just shit. There is nothing worse than losing somebody that you love. And there's no way of dressing that up. And again, I think as a society, that is something that we try to do when somebody is enduring something so horrific, is that maybe we try and find the silver linings, you know, oh, at least they're not suffering anymore. Oh, at least this, oh, at least that. Because I think, again, that kind of quiets some of the discomfort inside of us, you know, and again, it's so beautifully intentioned. But what it's doing is not seeing the whole loss for what it is, and it's not acknowledging the shitness, truly. We need to feel like there are people that can witness the shitness and acknowledge the shitness because there is nothing that anybody can say that is going to make that person come back and is going to make them feel better about their loss. But having people show up in an attuned, intentional, present, mindful kind of way, that is what is going to make this experience that much more bearable. One of the quotes that surprisingly has actually helped me through this journey is the quote, if you're going through hell, keep going. And something I have also said is I hope if anybody is going through hell, they have the people that I have that are walking alongside me in hell. And I hope that everybody gets to experience that because that is something that makes pain tolerable, is knowing that there's community around us, that we are not alone in our pain. We also kind of need validation that the loss has shocked you and saddened you as well. Because when somebody can just be in that anger with us or in that deep sadness with us, it validates the enormity of the loss and the fact that your world has completely tilted on its axis. To have somebody there saying those words about how you feel is absolutely invaluable. Tool three. So somebody needs to help us to carry the mundane. When that worst thing happens, when you lose somebody you love, it's absolutely unfathomable that the world keeps spinning, that you need to think about what you have to cook for dinner tonight, that the kids still need to be dropped off to daycare, the dog still needs to be walked around the block, the bills still need to be paid. It's kind of like, how is everybody not pausing right now to be shocked and depressed alongside me? It's quite a shocking experience, really. And your memory is terrible because something so massive has happened in your life in that acute grief kind of stage, and your motivation goes out the window. So everything just becomes kind of hard. And again, it's actually quite shocking that the world spins still without this incredibly meaningful, important person there alongside you. So practical help lands, whether it's driving the kids to school, walking the dog, taking the bins out, dropping off meals on the doorstep, sitting at the kitchen table, reminding you what bills you need to pay, stocking the kitchen pantry. I know that some of those things they cost money, and I know that that's a very easy thing for me to say. Not all help needs to cost money, though. Again, just being able to show up and even remind the person of the things that need to be done. It could be sitting down and writing the list with them, or again, doing a load of washing, taking the dog for a walk around the block, that sort of thing. So there are there's a lot of practical support out there that can be done for that person. So I also just want to say that how you offer the help really matters. And again, I'm going to caveat this by saying it's so beautiful that people want to show up and they want to help in any way they can. But one thing that I will say about those who are grieving is that it's very unlikely they're going to reach out for support and say to you, hey, can you cook me dinner tonight? Because I cannot get myself to the supermarket. And there is no way that I can think far enough ahead to know what I need and to be able to actually stand up and cook that thing. So when people say, let me know if you need anything, like, call me anytime, just reach out. I'm always here 24-7. Again, a really lovely, lovely thing to say. Please know that that isn't always the way to support somebody who is grieving. Because the support that that person actually would really, really benefit from is actually not something that is easy to ask for. This is something that Lucy Hone calls a thinking trap. So it's that we expect the bereaved to articulate needs that they can't even name. Because sometimes, again, our memory is so completely shot because of that acute grief stage. Sometimes there's a trauma element as well that we don't even know what we need. We don't even know what needs to be done today. So if you're wanting to show practical support, those are just a few examples of how you can practically show up, especially when that person is feeling like there's no way they should be having to think about taking the bins out when something so catastrophic has happened in their lives. So my advice to you would be be specific, pre-decide on that help that you want to provide to them and just take the decision off their plate. Someone in my Instagram community said, saying let me know if I can do anything isn't always helpful because decisions are hard. So examples of things that you might text them or call them about, you could say, I'm dropping dinner on the doorstep at 6 p.m. tomorrow, don't come to the door. Or I'm gonna pick the kids up from school on Wednesday at 3 p.m. I've already talked to the office about it. Or I'm coming over Sunday morning to help with bills or to put a load of washing on, I'll bring coffee. That is the practical support in a way that you can show up and you can be exceptionally helpful and think for us at a time where we can't think for ourselves often, helpfully. Tool four supporting the person to continue the bond with their lost loved one. It used to be believed that healthy grieving meant completely severing the ties with the person that had been lost, which as I say that and those words come out of my mouth, it is so unbelievably unfathomable. It's just wild to think that that's that's how grief and bereavement was approached. But actually, what the research tells us about a helpful way to grieve is being able to find an enduring connection with that person that we've lost whilst simultaneously being able to move forward. It's an idea called continuing bonds. I want to be really clear because again, I think this is a really hard task for the supporters of the bereaved. And I want to make maybe a small distinction here because what we're talking about is moving forward and remembering the lost loved one in a way that is sacred and special and can be drawn on in really difficult times in grief. We are not talking about moving on. Those are two very different things: moving forward versus moving on. And again, I think that's a very difficult task for somebody who is supporting the bereaved. What I would advise you to do is you could send reminders of the person that has been lost to the people that are grieving them. So it could be seeing something on your walk one morning and texting it to that person and being able to say, Hey, like I just saw this on my walk and it reminded me of X. It could be even talking with the bereaved about how they want to continue the connection with the lost loved one. Well, it talks about a ritual being any gesture that is done with emotion and intention. So it could be lighting a candle on their birthday, it could be baking their favorite thing on the anniversary of their loss, it could be lighting a candle at Christmas time that is in memory of that person. It could be writing a letter to that person every week about all the things that have been going on for them, or even just being able to talk about them in conversation. But it's important that that person feels like there is still a living connection, a living relationship to that person that has been lost. It's not that they have been lost and that is the end. It is that that person still informs and is alive in how we live today. And again, it could be, you know, here are my favorite qualities about that person. How can I integrate them into my life so I feel like I'm showing up in a way that is how they showed up? And I loved that and I admired that about them. So opening a conversation with the bereaved about this, like how can we remember this person? How can I support you to remember this person? And then till five. So keep showing up, especially when everybody else stops. Early on, what I've noticed is that there is a lot, a lot, a lot of beautiful support. There's a lot of meals provided, flowers that are sent, texts that are sent, phone calls. There is so much support, it is just incredible. And again, this is what really helps somebody to tolerate this unimaginable experience. But then weeks pass and then months pass, and somewhere along the way, support just drops off. And it kind of feels like everybody has gone back to their life. However, you are still grieving this really important person. It's it's like you feel like people expect you to be kind of quote unquote back to normal by now. And that is a really, really hard reality for people that are bereaved to be facing. And this is actually when that experience of isolation can really set into, because we're still reeling, we're still struggling to come to terms with this loss, and it feels like everybody around you has moved on, but you are still stuck. And Lucy Hone talks about at the three-month mark how bereavement counselors are often told, nobody seems to care about me anymore, even people are avoiding me, which I've heard from friends that have also lost somebody important to them, that they feel like people can cross the street in an attempt to avoid them because people just don't know what to say to you anymore. I guess similar to the continuing bonds idea, if you were the supporter of a loved one, I would suggest that you put in your phone calendar key dates like the anniversary that person passed away, their birthdays, even just remembering Christmas or maybe the day that they got sick. The dates that are important about that person, put them in your calendar so you can message or show up physically for the bereaved on these days. And again, it doesn't need to be a big kind of elaborate show of love and affection, just a text message to say, hey, I know that today is the anniversary of your loved one's death. Please know that I love you and I'm thinking about you. When I'm talking about this, you may be thinking, but won't I be reminding them of this? Like, isn't that a really hard thing for me to be doing is constantly talking about this person. I don't know if I'm going to be making them upset by continuing to raise this person's name and these important dates in their lives. But again, the loss doesn't leave our mind. And to have somebody reach out months on from losing this person when everybody else is dropped away, it's honestly extraordinary. And it reminds you that there are people out there that are holding you in mind when maybe you're feeling a bit isolated or a little bit lost. You can also continue the practical support from till three if it's something that you you feel you would like to be doing just less frequently. It could be a meal once a month or a coffee date every fortnight, and just checking in with that person about how they're doing and reminding them that you are still thinking of them and that you know it must be incredibly hard to be showing up every day in their lives and be having to kind of recreate a sense of normality. It's a very, very hard thing to have to get back into because it can feel like you're in some way maybe forgetting that person or you're just moving further and further away from that time that you last saw that person. So to have somebody reaching out when other people have maybe just stopped, it's a really important thing. And lastly, tool six, providing space for whatever needs to be spoken. This is something that has been on my mind quite a lot because I talk about the person I have lost a lot, a lot, a lot. And you might notice that about the grieving person in your life too. It might be the before, the during, the after of the loss, maybe it can feel kind of repetitive, or it could even actually feel quite jarring, the details that they share with you. And I know that sometimes that can be really hard to hear, hard to know how to respond to. I think it's completely invaluable. Kessler said, when someone is telling you their story over and over, they're trying to figure something out. There has to be a missing piece, or they too would be bored. I read that quote and it resonated so strongly with me. I wonder how repetitive I sound sometimes. I wonder how bored the other person might be. So my advice to you is just be the witness of all of that kind of brain dump. Ask questions about things that you're curious about in that story. Show that you're really engaged in it and you want to know more. You want to know what this person has experienced. Again, I know that can feel counterintuitive sometimes, but it goes back to my earlier point of just jumping into the pool with your clothes on. And it's important to note that sometimes people aren't going to be ready to speak yet, and that is completely okay. Just let them know that you'll be there whenever they're ready to talk. Just open the dialogue, you know, say, I'm here whenever you need me. And when that person does start to talk, remember that everybody grieves really differently. And even if you have lost the same person in your life, if, for example, you've lost your dad and your best friend just lost their dad, remember that everybody's experience is as unique as a fingerprint. There's no one way of going about this. There's not one obvious shape that that grief takes. Your job is not to check that their grief has a template or the same template as yours. It's really just to meet the person in front of you in the space they're at when they're in front of you. So remembering that there might be a lot of talking, there might be a lot of reflecting, you might have heard a lot of the details before, but this is all just a part of the processing. So really just engage and be curious and ask questions. I also just want to talk about a few things that are important to be mindful of when you are supporting somebody who is grieving. One thing is changing the subject when they bring up their loved one. Again, it can be kind of confusing and confronting to know what to do when somebody is talking about something so important. But again, jump into the pool with your clothes on, lean in, be curious, ask questions. I also encourage you to be mindful about the person's belief system when it comes to religion or spirituality. I've known people that have endured a really significant loss and they are met with comments like, they're in a better place, you'll be united in heaven, you know, God has a big plan, those kind of comments. And you know, for some people, those comments are really helpful and they align really beautifully with their belief system. But if that person doesn't have a grounding in religion, it can feel possibly quite invalidating. Just to be mindful of that. Just know that person's belief systems before you make comments like that. If they talk about that element of believing there's a bigger plan or insert spiritual religious belief here, go for it, absolutely, but just know before you share your thoughts on that. I would also suggest discouraging any big life changes within the first year of losing somebody as well. Um, it can be important to grieve in a familiar environment and also just making big decisions at a time where something so catastrophic has happened can be really tough. So, where possible, just encourage that kind of comfort, familiarity, stability in that person's life. Now, to close off this podcast, I want to leave you with a quote that absolutely resonated with me and is actually kind of the basis for this whole podcast. It is the deepest healing occurs in relationships. People heal in the company of others who see and feel them and are willing to be seen and felt by them. You do not have to get this perfect. There is no such thing as perfection. There is no such thing as saying the right thing. You definitely don't have to fix anything because this is something that is completely unfixable. But what the bereaved really want is just your willingness to see them in the middle of all of this pain and to just show up in the best way that you can. Say their name, jump in with your clothes on, drop dinner off without asking, keep that person alive in conversation, show up at three months, 12 months, the anniversary. That is my biggest advice to you. If you're supporting somebody right now through grief, thank you. You honestly have no idea the power and how deeply your support is felt. I cannot emphasize that enough. It is truly one of the most sacred kinds of love there is. And if you're inside grief, I see you. I am walking alongside you. You are not alone on this journey. I'm here. Now, everybody, take care of yourselves. I hope this podcast has shared with you some helpful tools for supporting those people in your life that have lost somebody important to them. You've been listening to the Holistic Psychology podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation, subscribe and share it with somebody who might need it today. Until next time, peers to true wellness from the inside out.