Grieving for a four-legged friend – a personal story

lowering the expectations of yourself is part of the lesson here for me. And I think the invitation to do to really take some time each morning and check in with yourself about your capacity and learn the signal and the signs in your body about what would suggest a reduction in capacity or increase new capacity. And then let's look what support you know when my father died. My employer had an a fantastic employee mental health system in place and they put me in touch with a grief counselor, I can remember was nothing from the time I learned the I remember I didn't remember the counselors face I remember losing, leaving behind a ring in the bathroom. Time I remember but I do know that it was an important part of my healing process. Welcome to answer at work. I'm your host Catherine Stagg Macy. I'm an executive team coach, interested in the conversations we don't have at work. And we are back in this episode on the topic of grief. We first covered this on the podcast and an episode back in May this year with Briony Wild Blood she's an interfaith minister and grief counselor and working with her for my father's 20th year and memorial last year, had meant that we had some really beautiful deep conversations on how we move with grief in our current way of being in the world that we cover in that episode. And then in August this year, my dog and lifelong companion ar 15 years died. I keep postponing, recording this episode, because I don't know if I can get through it. And that's the thing with grief road, you find yourself with all these feelings that you know are gonna come and then just cut out from the knees from a capacity perspective in ways that I wasn't expecting. And I'm lucky in the sense that I am when boss on you know, I have a successful business I can take off and plan B if I can take the afternoon off, I can take several days off, just postpone things. And that's not the case for many of us. This episode is about sharing that experience with you and sharing what I learned from it because you and I know that if it hasn't happened already, there will come a time when you have a loss in your life and you will still have to show up for work. And so how do you do that with kindness and compassion for yourself a little bit more about my my dog. Bentley, otherwise known as Mr. Bean is in in his final years and he'd been poorly for much of this year. So I knew the time was coming. And I made the hard decision no pedone ever wants to have to make I had friends around me I felt supported and held. And just shortly in fact it happened in the August holidays I'd already had a break planned on tie went away on the trip as planned. And in the week way I cried every day and scrolled through my phone and then looked up all the photos of Mr. B and Sydney put them in a special folder and friends called every day to check in and you know that that first week felt fairly standard as an as I would expect it back home i i felt that all cried out resigned to carry on with life without his little pattern was Paul's in the house and his his warm little back against mine in on the couch and the demands for walks three times a day and his expectation Are you having the best chicken in his bowl for dinner? So ever pragmatist I decided I was ready to get back to work time to get stuck in. And the first thing I noticed that I still was myself and I felt embarrassed because it was I knew I was grieving but it was about a dog and there was some there's something about that that felt like it didn't get the he didn't have the importance of grieving of superhuman I really doubted myself hard for grieving over an animal so what I deferred meanings of people who didn't know me I did I'd actually say death in the family I was too embarrassed to say I was this impacted to the extent by the loss of my father my dog. And and by not being myself, I mean I find myself staring off into space and sort of blank and Naml making coffee and then finding myself just crying I don't know where So the lesson one here is if there's anything I've learned as a coach that you have to feel your feelings and avoiding doesn't make them go away the feeling sort of gets stuck and come out in another way and your body and your your health, your capacity to be in relationship with others or in a conversation when you least expect it. Then came the first podcast recording call that you know that I had four sons before he died and it was with a guest I didn't know well what we'd done a lot of prep before the holidays so probably six eight weeks before the actual recording. and within a very challenging topic. As I read the notes, prior to the call, it just felt like another person had written them. But I completely over that center discomfort, and made some changes, even though we'd already agreed that questions together, I've made changes on my own. And through all that fog, I just pushed through the call, and I mess it up, I offended the guest, who called me out later in an email exchange. And they were right, I did mess up, I changed the questions on the guest, in the moment, because I felt disconnected from those questions. I never mentioned that to the guest. And the impact was I intentionally made them feel marginalized, which was kind of a topic that we were talking about. And it'll probably be the first episode that never gets published out of respect to my guest. And I know that the non reading me would not have made those mistakes. I wasn't, I wasn't fully myself, even though I thought I was I could have easily pushed out that call, there was no reason to have to go ahead. But that part of me that likes to sort of soldier on and toughen up just made the made the wrong choice. And so that's lesson to, you know, adjust your expectations of yourself. Don't assume that after two weeks, I say this to myself, as well as you that you're back to 80% of your work capacity, you won't be we have to reduce our workload, reduce our expectations of ourselves, your sharp mind may not be so shut up your memory may be impacted your willingness to stand up and present in front of people may be impacted. I mean, the thing is, you won't know how you're impacted until you in the moment and feeling the impact. And to creating, lowering the expectations of yourself is part of the lesson here for me. And I think the invitation to do to really take some time each morning and check in with yourself about your capacity and learn the signal and the signs in your body about what would suggest a reduction in capacity or increase new capacity. And then let's look what support. You know, when my father died, my employer had an a fantastic employee mental health system in place, and they put me in touch with a grief counselor. I can remember awesome nothing from that time I literally I remember, it didn't remember the counselors face I remember losing, leaving behind a ring in the bathroom. At same time I remember but I do know that it was an important part of my healing process. And so Lesson three is about putting in place the support that you need. I had a friend who sort of texted me daily after the after Mr. B died about his life about his dog, some small thing he noticed was walking that human connection that is the normality of it all worked so well for me. And he asked me if he wanted to continue, I said, Yes, you know, just these little postcards from another normal life that carried on was really helpful for me. I coped less well, when people kept asking me, you know, weeks that how I was feeling, it just felt, I felt like I was wallowing in the heavier being honest about how I felt in that time felt indulgent. So I preferred different kinds of connection, and your former support will look differently to you. This time, right? I didn't need the help of a professional and I had colleagues out to talk to them about lightening my workload, so ask for what you need, as long as you need it. In the UK, it's, it's common to have a pre briefing policy. I'm not sure what it's like in other countries. So my question would be, do you know what what that briefing policy is for your company? I never knew what that was when I worked in a corporate and I think it's useful to know because you might be managing someone who's experiencing a loss, or maybe you who's going through that. And chances are it's unpaid leave, and it's very limited. And company policy aside, you might want to support a team member who has been through a loss, and you might not be able to flex the company policy. But there might be other ways of providing support like lightning, you know, their workload. Everything I've covered here can be applied to a colleague, or a team member who's going through their own burden, their own grief cycle. So you might take aways on this, on this merry go round of grief this time around is that grieving at work is hard. And is the first one and feeling your feelings, even when it's damned inconvenient, is another one. And I think I know that by now as a coach. And third one would be to adjust your expectations of yourself your capacity, and how you might show up in the world. So if you know someone who's good find this conversation about grief helpful. Send them the episode, reach out to them. And you know, we get through these cycles of struggle in community in relationship. So until next week, this is your wing woman signing off.